flagship on 01 August 2009
Lost Odyssey's first boss was the hardest one in the game for me, I died quite a few times before beating him. He's not exactly a good representation of the game as a whole, although I will admit it requires a certain amount of grinding not for levels but to ensure your eternals have the proper skills learned.
As western RPGs have gotten better over the years I've had similar feelings, now that I have quite a bit less free time I'd much rather have a game that's 20 hours long with little level grinding than a 40 hour game with 20 hours of leveling up because I simply don't have the time or frequently the patience to sit there and level grind for hours on end.
