ClaDun PSP installed; it was cheap on the store, got X2 as well. I don't have expectations so it is fine, just heard good things about them over time and Nippon ichi usually deliver good games.

At the moment switching back and forth between

[i]Dragon Age Origins, with a ton of mainly visual mods

Blackguards

Hand of Fate

War For The Overworld

F.E.A.R.

Crysis, with HD texture mods

Thief Gold

Risen, with HD texture mods

XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within—unfortunately not available on GOG, which is a real shame.

And soon I’m going to play Invisible Inc. and Expeditions Conquistador.[/i]

I've been playing Wolfenstein TNC for a big chunk of the day, and I'm loving it. Sure, it's really just a case of "more of the same" with some tweaks, but that's not at all a bad thing. Once again, expect some real twisted shit to occur. Good times. :)

Been playing Mario Odyssey since yesterday, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit.

As always, a lot different games.

Reach halfway. Get bored.

Start something again.

Neverwinter Nights Online

I don't really need combat magic (other than that those ice and fire elementals had to be destroyed with magic; why couldn't they add e.g. ice and fire swords to the game so that you could beat them without using magic?), but I'd like to get that kickass robe with high fire protection. For it you have to have all six rings of magic, and I guess I can't really get enough XP anymore to get it, at least from quests. (I hope I can still get the orc armor as a magician; for some reason I didn't get the quest for a minecrawler scale armor, I presume it is because I was not a mercenary, or then there was some glitch).

I found one place where you can apparently get unlimited XP, in the Sleeper's temple, if you hit some switch in wrong order, a demon will appear. It is pretty easy to kill and gives 600 XP, so I guess I could do that repeatedly to level up several times. But I guess I won't do that because it would probably take me hours to get enough experience for fifth or sixth level magic. At this point I need something like 12000-15000 XP to just level up, and you get only 10 skill points per level up.

That is something I don't like in RPGs: it always seems the farther you get in the game, the harder it comes to level up. Fallout Tactics was even worse in this. Even though quests now give more and more experience (per solved quest), still it takes far longer to level up than what it did in the beginning.

I can think of a few counter-examples, in which, past a certain point, leveling up becomes easier as you progress.

In the Bard's Tale series, every level past 13 takes the same amount of XP, and the XP you get from battles continues to increase. As a result, you will gain levels faster later in the game. In the first game, for example, it's not unusual for any character (except for Sorcerers and Wizards) to gain at least one level per expedition into the final dungeon, provided the character isn't level drained (and, in at least the DOS version, even if the character *is* level drained thanks to a bug in the post-level drain XP calculation).

This sort of thing also happens in Japanese Wizardry games as well. This includes the Elminage series; in Elminage Gothic, by the time you reach the boss of the 20 floor bonus dungeon, you could reasonably be expected to be around level 400 (though I note that the enemies at that point can *still* pose a threat, even at such ridiculous levels).

I could also mention the Disgaea series; once you reach a certain point, there is a leveling method that will allow you to gain levels much faster than before. (Of course, that's not the only way to get stronger in Disgaea; there's the Item World, for one, which allows you to power up your items and obtain new items, including rare ultimate equipment, including (in D1) a sword that has longer range than bows and many guns.) I should probably point out that postgame bosses are also at high levels in this series; I can think of one boss, in particular, that is level 4000 (and is a lot stronger than a normal character at that level without equipment).

Too bad I play JRPGs much less.

I think the general idea is that you also gain more XP from later subquests and you face harder enemies that give you more XP, but still very few RPGs seem to get the balance right that it feels like your progression isn't severely slowed down later in the game. Or is that the whole point, you are supposed to level up much more rarely later on?

And no I do not want an Oblivion system either where _all_ enemies level up with you (hence giving you more XP), it just feels fake. In a way I like Gothic's approach where you are free to go fight orcs or hellhounds already in the beginning... only to find out that you can't even damage them at all, while they kill you with one hit. So, you learn to avoid them until you can beat them in some way.

The problem with Gothic is that I have apparently killed almost all the monsters at least out in the wilderness already, and they respawn very slowly (I think only one enemy per a bunch respawns when you progress to a new chapter; meaning that if you e.g. killed a pack of five wolves in chapter 3, then in chapter 4 one of them comes back). So now when I run around trying to find something to kill, at best I run into one singular monster at a time which gives me a bit of extra XP and is a total pushover as it is alone.

In a way I like that respawn system too because if they kept respawning too fast and too often, it would be too easy to just stay in one spot killing the same enemies over and over again. And that is exactly what I could apparently do late in the game in the Sleeper's temple, by "summoning" a demon and killing it over and over again (600 XP per kill), but even that felt far too slow progression at this point, and too tedious to pull out.

As said, apparently I just decided to try my wings also with magic too late in the game. The game apparently expects you to decide much earlier whether you will be primarily a magic user or a fighter type. If you try to have it all, then you pretty much run out of XP.

I got a similar feeling in Fallout Tactics. There were so many perks that I still wanted to get, but levelling up became so uncommon later in the game that e.g. running around for random encounters became too tedious.

The only JRPGs I mentioned were the Disgaea series.

Elminage Gothic is actually not a JRPG, despite being developed in Japan; it plays more like the early Wizardry games than to a typical JRPG. It has first person dungeons with things like spinners and one-way doors, and it even has things like aging, resurrection failure, and even the dreaded level drain! (Good thing levels are easy to gain late game, and that level draining doesn't appear for a while.)

Actually, in Oblivion, stronger enemies do not yield the equivalent of more XP. (It actually is one criticism I have of Elder Scrolls leveling; completing harder tasks doesn't usually give you more skill XP than completing easier tasks.)

Edit: Wizardry 8 would be a better example than Oblivion.

Oh ok, then it sucks even more, (I haven't played Oblivion yet, I just read it has that system where enemies level up with you.)

I actually see this as being a flaw in the widely used skill point system rather than the fault of slow leveling. If the game didn't force you to make permanent decisions (for example, if you could easily respec your character), then this wouldn't be that much of an issue.

Actually, in the case where you want to learn a new skill later in the game, Oblivion isn't so bad.

Suppose your class is a fighter-type class with no magic skills, and you want to learn magic. It turns out that you can increase the skills just by using magic, and while not being a mage class means slower growth, your higher level and fighter skills will not impede your mage skill growth. Just using spells should quickly raise skills from low to moderate levels, though raising them to high levels will still take a while.

On the other hand, using skills that aren't class skills will not contribute to leveling up, and will therefore not contribute to growing stronger.

Interestingly enough, Wizardry 8 allows you to improve skills by use, but unlike Oblivion, in Wizardry 8 skill increases are decoupled from leveling up. This means that it's never too late to develop a new skill, provided that skill is available to your class. On the other hand, the class system is pretty rigid, and class changing usually is not a good strategy. (You can, however, permanently replace a character with a new level 1 character, who will level up quickly at first.) (Also, note that Wizardry 8 has you form a party of 6 characters, and you can have them specialize in different things.)

The 3 main games I'm working on right now are:

Fire Emblem Warriors - Switch - You know, for a Warriors game, it's not bad

I Am Setsuna - Switch - traditional jrpg in many ways

Super Mario Odyssey - Switch - It'sa meeee, Mario

This is my third day of playing Clash Royale on my phone, and it's been fun so far. I avoided it for a long time thanks to Castle Crush, which quickly became an exercise in frustration. I refuse to spend any money on these games, so I hope I can get more enjoyment out of Clash Royale before I take a sledgehammer to my phone.