"These kinds of things are meant to enlongate a game. They're meant to manipulate you into thinking you are achieving something more than you are actually achieving."
"Things came to a head when I clopped three complete circuits around the town like a three-legged, badly-dressed donkey ride, killing things, taking quests, and waiting for the window to the next story mission to open. But when it did, the first enemies I met kept taking off all my health with one attack! Blocking didn't seem to do shit! So what am I supposed to do now, game? Grind? Buy better underpants? I've only got four in-game hours to do this bloody quest! I'm finding this whole timer thing to be very paralyzing — but not as much as the knowledge that even if I get through this, my only reward will be more time spent with Shite-ning and Hope-On-A-Rope. Whereas...if I stop playing...I can eat all of the individual Mr. Kipling apple pies in the house. Sorry, Lightning Returns, you lose to Pie. (beat) -Ting. (beat) Returns."
—Zero Punctuation on Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
"I once read a quote on gamefaqs that was something like this "EXP parties aren't supposed to be fun. They're a grind you have to get through to get to the fun stuff, which comes later" Well that's bullshit, why should combat not be fun? What the fuck is the point of a video game if 90% of it, isn't actually fun! And not to burst that guys bubble, but it never gets better. There is a grind after the grind. Each area it gets worse. There is no top of the mountain where FFXI suddenly becomes fun. It just gets worse and worse, the grind steeper and steeper, until at the very end, the mountain becomes a wall."
—Rhete's Top 10 Worst Games of All-Time on Final Fantasy XI
