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I've started telling friends that the Souls games are not "RPGs set in a world of dark horror," but rather, "Survival horror games in which you level up." It tends to set better expectations for the amount of creeping along and limited resource management needed to get ahead in the game.
Hopefully you'll inspire a few more folks to, "Prepare to Die.""
Final Fantasy 13-2 is a product of modern game design ideas for sure. It gives you the maximum amount of feedback about where you are and what you need to accomplish.
Did this feedback contribute to me being absolutely enamored with the game? Yes, for sure. There is a sense in which the checklists were great for the game. The carrot-and-stick nature of never being far from reward did push me to play the game for hours at at a time.
What gets at me is, though I have some checklists left to complete, I'll just be punching the clock to check them off. Like you said, the strategy to finish these amounts to 'grind this area for hours.' It's not as though the game still has something in store (DLC excluded) that I can't take on precisely because I'm not prepared enough for not having faced those checklists.
It could be that I feel this way because I'm so in love with the combat of the game and want it to have something left to give me. Maybe that means it's time for a second save file with some self-imposed challenges to help me get more out of it.
Thanks a bunch for being my first comment ever!"
I've posted only three articles to this point on bitmob, but I plan to write more. Like you, I'd love to have that dream job in games journalism, but I've braced myself for the cold reality that there isn't much out there, and there's a lot of competition for the few available opportunities.
The thing bitmob is giving me is validation, and that's payment enough for now. I've had trouble all my life being an ambitious go-getter, so the first time I wrote something that got front-paged, I was floored. I couldn't believe that somebody thought I had written something worthy of attention. For now, I'll continue writing here. I'll build confidence, experiment with styles, and see if I can refine my craft. Maybe someday I'll take a swing at something bigger, but until then, I'll stick to this low pressure proving ground."