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Are you addicted to Xbox 360 Achievements? If you have a 360, then you at least might have been tempted by the achievement bug. RPGamers tend to be completionists, so Xbox 360 achievements help feed the addiction to "do everything" within an RPG. Just like the way developers handle bonus game content, sometimes things are designed well and other times not so much. Let's take a look at a few examples.
I want to start with the worst offender: Blue Dragon. I played through Blue Dragon, finishing the story in about 40 hours. I explored a good bit of the bonus content, but not too deeply. This game offered a total of 43 achievements totaling up to 1000 points. In what I would consider a typical playthrough, I finished the game with 55 points. Yes, 55 out of 1000 possible. Now, I did miss out on scoring perfect on a few of mini-game events that could have netted me an additional 100 points or so had I the time or desire to reset and replay them until I was flawless. That's just not going to happen. The game also features achievements for finding and defeating certain rare monsters, and that's fine as well. The true problem comes from casual gamers wanting to get at least something for just playing through the game. There are no story checkpoint awards given at all. The majority of achievements, 450 points to be exact, are gained by maxing out characters' jobs and levels. Yes, you have to grind to score achievements. No thanks. Some other extremes are earning 1 million gold, finding one of every monster, and collecting every item. Even those are rational, though not for everyone. Am I overreacting? After all, aren't a lot of RPGamers completionists? Let's compare this with some other 360 RPGs and see.
Eternal Sonata offers 22 achievements for a total of 1000 points as well. Points are awarded for completing game chapters, for finishing the game's bonus dungeon, and additional points are given for playing through a second time for extras. That's not too bad as I completed that game, just doing one playthrough, for a total of 340 points. That seems reasonable for the amount of effort that I put into the game. Next, let's look at Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom. I've played for around three to four hours so far and have already earned 60 points, more than I did in my 40 hours of Blue Dragon. Finally, I just rented Oblivion, played for about one hour, and gained 50 points for completing the first part of the game. Had I played more of the game, I would have easily gained much more just in a normal course of play.
So, let this be a note to developers of 360 RPGs. Reward your gamers for doing what they enjoy, playing your game. Other genres have games were you can sit down for just a few hours and rack up a ton of points, so please don't punish RPGamers just because you can't be more creative. I'm not suggesting that they just give gamers 1000 points for just completing the game, just a decent amount. Mindlessly grinding just for the sake of achievement points is not fun. And you shouldn't title your achievement "Maxed Out All Character Levels." Instead it should pop up on screen and say "Achievement Unlocked - 5G Monotony."
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