Levelling Up

I quite like levelling up. Handy, really, since I'm dedicating my time to RPGs.

Pokémon was my first encounter with experience points, back in the late nineties. Pokémon remains my favourite franchies to date, and I think that has a lot to do with the appeal of Final Fantasy in the first place.

There's something about dedicating time to repetitive training that's very rewarding as your team grows stronger. In Pokémon, a lot of the emphasis is on making the most of a limited team – it can only contain a limited number of monsters, with a limited amount of moves and items, and by now, a limited amount of stat increases.

Final Fantasy, being a mostly single-player endeavour, seems to be much more generous with its magic, weapons and stat increases. The emphasis appears to be more on strengthening your team until you can defeat the toughest monsters in the game.

In FFI, I'm not fond of the fact that MP and HP aren't increased when you level up. To take advantage of these upgrades, you first have to heal. This costs, unlike the free Pokémon Centres, which is quite an irritation for a miserly skinflint like me.

That said, it's taken me no time at all to reach level five with the full team, so it's very generous with its increases.