I was thinking the same thing. Outside of uber bosses there is very little reason to grind in any game. I can think of maybe 2 JRPGs I have ever felt the need to grind in, and those were all NES era. The genre has fleshed out a lot since then.

Yeah jrpg's need some difficulty levels.

Well, I don't mind level grinding... But sometimes I can't stand WRPG's actually... Because there are some that while your stats may have limits for instance or you have a level cap... You can just find the Super Mega Special Weapon and waste all the monsters in one hit... Or find the right armor and nothing can touch you... and besides just because the WRPG's bury it behind side quests and stories and exploration doesn't mean your basically not doing the same thing(Grinding) it just means they hide it better.

I figure that if you enjoy playing the game itself, grinding shouldn't be a problem. If a person can't stand to level grind in a certain game, maybe they should begin to wonder if they actually like the game that they are playing.

Exactly. Grinding in rpgs = gameplay. If you don't like it then don't play.

Well i do enjoy games mainly because of their stories, battles are a secondary thing for me, thats why grinding is a problem it just breaks the flow too much and becomes boring.

About Lost Odyssey, well after leveling up slightly i dispossed of that boss easily ( i could've used better tactics before, but i was slightly drunk last night while writing that ha ha) the game itself is amazing, i love little backdrops of Kains memory and Seth and that J guy are quite cool characters.

But i still think that grinding is just too frustrating and it is something that developers should stay away from, if they want to for RPG's to become more popular in the West.

Lost Odyssey will artificially cap how many levels you can gain in an area. Once you hit a certain level (varies by area) the EXP earned will plummet. You go from getting a level every few fights, to needing 20-30 and it gets worse from there. The game is built to crush out the grind in its own way.

I'm with you on this one. I completely hate it when you reach a point in a game where you exactly know that you are not strong enough to continue the story, and all I can do now is grinding or do some sidequests instead of following the story.

Luckily this is rarely the case with newer games I think. In Baten Kaitos or Tales of Symphonia, you are usually fine when you have followed the story and taken the battles. In games from the SNES era though, there's always a point where you have to grind or do sidequests.

@OP: Thn play Zelda games and the Soulblazer series.

Level grinding prevents me from playing FFXII