Grindtastic?

[blammo]

Late to the party…. but am I doing anything wrong or is there an incredible amount of grinding in EO2? Also is there an easy way to see your playtime? I am not sure I want to know.

[Pibbman]

You could build up your force points and do the special moves too. Other than that there is a lot of grinding.

[blammo]

So- is there a play clock anywhere?

Thanks for the info on the force points.

[Redips]

So, compared to EO1, is EO2 more or less grindy? I don't mind either way, but after spending several years off and on EO1, I like to know what I'm getting myself into.

[dungeon_man]

Late to the party…. but am I doing anything wrong or is there an incredible amount of grinding in EO2? Also is there an easy way to see your playtime? I am not sure I want to know.

Haven't played EO2 yet, but if you built a good party in EO1, there really wasn't any grinding until the postgame.

[Wave-tan]

So- is there a play clock anywhere?

Thanks for the info on the force points.

It doesn't look like anybody ever technically answered this. As far as I've ever seen, no, there is no internal clock to let you know how much of your life the labyrinth has consumed. We're probably better off not knowing anyways! :devil:

If you build your team the right way, you can mitigate a lot of the grinding as far as levels go, but there will always be a bit of grinding in the sense of "enter the labyrinth, work a bit further, bail out, rinse, repeat."

When you build your party, there are typically three categories of effectiveness to be aware of:


Can I handle a decent number of random encounters?
Can I handle fights with FOE's?
Can I handle fights with bosses?


Some parties are fantastic for one of those but not so hot for others. Try to experiment a little until you strike a balance. For what it's worth, the two parties I played through were:

Original Party
Front: Ronin
Front: Ronin
Front: Dark Hunter
Back: Medic
Back: Gunner

Second, "Easy Mode" Party
Front: Beast
Front: Protector
Front: War Magus
Back: Alchemist
Back: Alchemist

[darkTAP]

I've played all three games and EOII has the most grinding. Also there is nothing in the first two that really keeps track of any thing but your saves and your map. The guild card in EOIII is the closest we'll get for keeping track of specifics until EOIV.

[Laethiel]

It's a really cheesy combo, but if you want to save a lot of time grinding in EO2, you can go with War Magus (front)/Hexer (back). War Magus quickly goes for Cursecut & Transfer while the Hexer grabs Corrupt and Revenge. Revenge from a low-health Hexer (equipped with the best +HP items available at the time) will let you simply brute-force through most of the game, and Corrupt/Cursecut/Transfer turns the War Magus into a TP battery for the whole team (but especially for the Revenge spam). This pair also has the advantage of being very powerful for post-game dungeon crawling with Torpor + Sleepcut. I also suggest bringing a Medic for Lv. 1 Revive, since your Hexer will die whenever it takes a hit.