[General Discussion] Completionism in RPGs....

"Completing" RPGs is actually something I've only done recently. When I was younger, I'd play games several times over, but I'd pretty much do the same things every time. Chrono Trigger is probably the only exception, and that's just because of New Game + where ever accomplishment you made in the previous run carried over. This was also before the Internet, so finding out many of the secrets that made an RPG complete was more dumb luck than anything else.

These days when I play an RPG, I get a guide and just find *everything* I can. Thanks to emulation, I can also go back to older games and try several new approaches (save states help a lot, as do infinite save slots and debug menus). For example, I've gone back to Breath of Fire II and found several new items I never knew existed, fought enemies I had never seen before, and accomplished stuff like beating Barubary with just Ryu and getting all characters to level 80+ and finding hidden spells. It really adds a lot to the game when you put extra time into it.

I've also *mostly* completed Lunar: The Silver Star on my newest play-through. I saw the hidden bathing scene (never could buy that soap early enough), gotten all items, and nearly have every character to level 99 (once Kyle gets to 99 you can do a cool glitch where you play as Nall for a round). Stuff like this really breathes new life into older games, I think, but I only do it for games I *really* like. It's not a time thing, I can make time for good games, it's just a personal preference.

Jam it back in, in the dark.