Levels are a good thing. If you didn't have levels, you couldn't express a form of growth very easily. Certainly you can do it but instead of Level Vs Level character, the act of balancing things becomes more difficult, or more inobvious. ShadowRun on Genesis you used karma points to directly raise stats/skills, Herosystem you'd get points and you can improve or purchase skills with permission. But in regards to monsters, you always know a Level 4 monster was stronger than a Level 3 monster, and you could (hopefully) quickly glance at levels and balance things, adding or removing a few numbers to fudge things depending on situation.

But it also depends on the scale, the gaps in growth, and how it affects it. The problem with the differing stats in D&D has been known a while which was why they put out an 'Epic level handbook' for above 20, leveling the growth to a static type.

In the even growth isn't possible at all and you're static, it will then come to equipment (that may augment your final numbers) and how many enemies you put in their way to add difficulty. And that would probably be it. At which point you may be better off just playing Risk.

Yep. Otherwise the minimum change would be hitpoints increased, or some other misc stat/effect. Quite boring.

Yes, that was ... bad
Virtual NPC man; "This is the most gruesome, brutal and dangerous dinosaur on the whole (known) world. Kill it 30 times and also bring me 50 of the fins from that other dinosaur which you can only reach in the water. And the most dangerous machine from the previous game I'd like to see killed 80 times. Thank you very much.".

When I reached the point that I could get to all important hunting areas, I took a break from the story, set the game to ultra easy and traveled around the world to get the resources for the weapons. At least this way the loot doesn't get destroyed when killing a machine without detaching the component first. Also one can get annoyed and angry offside the story.

The game is completely overloaded, worse than any Ubisoft game. But it's not so much the quests and activities (of course they had to put in hunting grounds and arenas ...), but the insane amount of different weapons, all upgradeable.
It's the best to pick one green weapon (ignoring 30 others) and stick to it, skip the blue ones completely. The purple ones ... some are worth to be upgraded, but most can be replaced with the ones from the arena (also for those I set to super easy and rushed through. I hate that crap).

Until today I could not bring myself to play that board game for the last skill points, even if I found a guide how to win easily. Maybe I'll do that on PC, with my trusty cup of coffee by my side. After all I also played that stupid dice game from AC Valhalla, when the weekly quest demanded it.

A fun thin about HZW was the hidden message #63 (I think) which no one could find. They just forgot to put it in the game. and patched it in later. The message they wrote for it refers to that mistake.

I am sure you are aware that we are talking about character levels / progression.

I played Tetris on the early Amiga version, but not as often as later my mom played it on my sisters Gameboy.
Once you reach a certain level, you play faster than you can actively think, your subconscious takes over (and of course reflexes).
I believe the increased speed was already in the game before it was released in arcades, it already was present in Paschitnow's original version ad of course in all the home computer and game console versions which were released from 1986 on (from different companies, all sued by each other since everyone thought they had bought exclusive rights).
I wouldn't be surprised if the arcade machine had an Amiga or a game console with a custom version of the game inside with extended memory to avoid loading times, that was more often the case than many realize.

I generally prefer levels, in most cases. Feels much more like a structured experience. Might be connected to my dislike of anything sandbox/survival/infinity games.
I wouldn't say over anything else. You can still just grind levels and steamroll over everything with raw stats. If it was mechanics over everything, then there would be no stat system so everyone had the same conditions on every boss. Then it would be a matter of purely mechanical skill. There is a big difference in someone beating a boss with 10 stat points or 100 stat points.

Yea i understand you, then, maybe, a game such as.... Into the Breach is a better example of a pure mechanical game?
Every time i think of dark souls game i think of that one instance in dark souls when,at the start of the game, you leave the castle and get attacked by a manticore. Quite a unique approach in the open world rpg minded genre. Once in a while, i feel tempted to face the manticore once again. I usually manage to subdue such a silly through train pretty quick. I mean, who knows what challenge awaits the player who manages to overcome the hissing beat of the manticore treat. (and how will that affect me, just take a look at all those gamereviewers, certainly when found in the wild on some discord area)

Things like 20G and Death/Shirase mode didn't come until later. (In particular, I note that lock delay had to be added before 20G would be feasible; without 20G without lock delay would mean that pieces would lock into place as soon as they spawn, and that's an instant loss.)

That comic, I think, is actually what gave me the idea for this topic, at least in part..