I can say with certainty that I have a deeply rooted love/hate relationship with "level grinding" in RPGs (Role playing games). On the one hand, I can see the intent. It seems to be an extension of tabletop games, like "Dungeons and Dragons", what with all the the numbers representing different attributes of your character. Those very numbers can be increased through myriad activities within the game. In the case of many RPGs, it's through combat and the use of those abilities that does this.
Then, there's the aspect of it being the means through which the player interacts with the content of said game. Interactivity is the way we engage with a game (moving characters around, going through menus, etc..) and, in the case of RPGs, represents the growth in skill. For example, let's take the game "Final Fantasy VII." In it your characters move around the larger part of the game world viabin what's called and Overworld (or at least, I call it that), and within each town or cave there are smaller areas as well. On the Overworld and some of these smaller areas, moving the character around the screen can trigger random moments of combat from unseen opponents.
Each battle uses menus and statistics (the amount of health characters have, any negative effects that may have come upon them, when it's their turn to attack) to allow the player to have an easily observable means of keeping up with what's happening. From here, it can even be argued that the random encounters serve to metaphorically refer to the journey the characters are going on as an almost short hand. Grinding then is the focused effort to use all of these means to increase the combat viability of the characters you control.
On the flipside (because you know there was going to be one), there is a distance between this and the story within the game. It almost feels as though I'm engaging in two wholely different activities: I'm engaging in a game similar to older tabletop games, and I'm viewing this story being told. Obviously, the gameplay and story relate to each other, as I'm playing as characters from the story, but for characters to not even mention all the progress they're making in their abilities and physicality only seems to alienate the two. I can fight a boss, almost lose, escape, level grind, come back, then beat them. After all that, not one character will mention the near death and act of focused training. The player has to engage with and disengage from the story to interact with the menu based portions, then vice versa.
Now, that isn't to say I'm wholey against any of this (as FF9 is one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and it has some of the same issues as FF7), but more to say that I have some frustrations with the way it's done. There have been games that have attempted to find a unity between the story aspects and the menus. "Infamous: Second Son" comes to mind as a more recent example. The main character in it can upgrade his different abilities, and the player ineracts with this aspects via a series of menus. The thing is, the character actively acknowledges that they can upgrade their abilities and even mirrors the player's desire for more strength and capability. It's a small thing, but it has a huge impact.
At the end of the day, I will engage in level grinding if I enjoy the overall experience of the game. At the same time, I can hope that more efficient means of combining gameplay and the more straightforward storytelling are found in addition into what we already have.
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