I spent a lot of time in my childhood playing Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI on the SNES. I would play these games over and over again–spending hours just wandering around and battling enemies to grind my team up to be super powerful. Although it took a lot of time and effort, when my level 99 characters were crushing bosses, it was all worth it. However, in the current era, many RPG series that had previously used grinding for experience have moved away from the practice. Does grinding still have a place in modern RPGs?

When discussing video games, the term grinding is generally used to mean repetitive actions the player takes to gain items, experience, or cosmetics. While grinding exists in many different genres and can take many different forms, the focus of this piece is on grinding for experience in RPGs, and in particular JRPGs.  

Many…