Level grinding

Level Grinding, Leveling, or Training, is a fan-term used to describe walking around an enemy infested location and fighting enemies for the sake of leveling up. The point of this method is to strengthen up your team, usually for an upcoming boss. Level Grinding may also be called Farming, which is usually used for more specific cases, like AP Farming or Experience Farming.

Being a long-time method in role-playing games, Level Grinding has been received with a lot of negative reaction. Many reviewers criticize games that require excessive level grinding in order to defeat difficult enemies. In early role-playing games, the original Final Fantasy being one of them, level grinding was almost mandatory. Since then, grinding has been somewhat disguised as other gameplay elements. Final Fantasy XII, for example, introduced the Hunt system, which many gamers use as a means to grind and earn various items.

Final Fantasy
Early game, the Peninsula of Power has many high level monsters that yield high experience and gold and are easily defeated with Fira and Diara. Additionally, since certain bosses always appear when a character steps on a tile, easy bosses such as the Dragon Zombie and the Evil Eye can be fought repetitively for high experience.

Additionally, on the first floor of the Cavern of Earth, there is a section that contains a random battle on every tile making it an easy place to level up.

Final Fantasy II
Similar to the Peninsula of Power in the first game, south of Fynn is an area with powerful monsters that will cause the party's stats to raise quickly early game. Later, the Tropical Island and the Jade Passage have high level monsters that can be defeated with little effort in attempt to boost stats. Additionally, in the 20th Anniversary edition, players can use the Arcane Labyrinth to quickly boost their stats. Also, players of the NES and Origins can exploit the Select/Cancel trick, in which the player selects an action and cancels it, but the stat boost still registers. Players of all versions can attack their own players to quickly boost HP or MP.

Final Fantasy III
On the Floating Continent, there are few good places to grind. However, the Surface World has a few places to grind. After obtaining the Nautilus, the Sunken Cave and the Saronia Catacombs are used often by players to level up. Later, the Forbidden Land Eureka is also used with its many enemies that easily defeated.

Final Fantasy IV
The Lunar Subterrane, though the enemies are powerful, is often used to grind. Players of the Advance version use the Lunar Ruins to grind, as the enemies leave a huge amount of experience and gold.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Areas to grind in The After Years differ from the tale, and each have a level cap, with the exception of the final tale of the game. The most optimal place to grind in the last tale is the Depths of the True Moon. Alternatively, if the monsters are too hard, the best place to go to is the Subterrane.

Final Fantasy V
Players use the Objet d'Art in Castle of Bal to quickly farm AP as they die with one Level 5 Death and leave high AP. EXP is easily farmed from the Interdimensional Rift, as the enemies pose little threat and leave high EXP. Players of the Advance version could use the Sealed Temple to grind, and possibly the Cloister of the Dead, as many bosses are fought in a row. However, by unlocking the Cloister of the Dead the player has completed everything in the game and grinding is generally pointless.

In World 2 and onwards, the player may opt to fight the Shield Dragon, if they possess the Control ability, to earn 2500 EXP for each party member as well as 5 AP by simply having the monster use Blaze on itself until it dies. For World 1, players may opt to fight the Mini Dragon enemies near Istory Falls for lots of EXP. For AP farming, the monsters in the final floors of the Interdimensional Rift gives lots of AP with very little effort (most can be slain by using Odin), though the most notable enemy that gives AP is the Mover enemy, which must be defeated before they escape or the battle ends, though when defeated, gives away 199 AP.

Final Fantasy VI
In the World of Balance, the Triangle Island has the Intangir, which can be easily be killed with Doom in the SNES version. In the World of Ruin, the Dinosaur Forest is used by many to grind, as its enemies leave huge amounts of experience. Also, the desert south of Maranda holds Slagworms (Hoover in the original version) and Cactuars, both of which give out high amounts of AP (though the Slagworm gives out high EXP as well).

Final Fantasy VII
The earliest point in the game where some players choose to level grind is in the Sector 4 Train Tunnel. If the player heads south right until the end, an infinite amount of troops will appear which can be dispatched by use of the Attack command. If the player gives a character the Restore materia and heals when they need to until that character runs out of MP, they can switch it and do the same for the other two. This is also a good place to get Limit Breaks quickly, and it is also a source for a vast amount of kills. At this point in the game, each character should be able to kill each enemy in one attack from the back row, including Tifa.

After leaving Midgar, if the character's levels are high enough, players use the Midgar Zolom to grind, as they infinitely respawn and give high amounts of experience. Other players use the Matra Magic Enemy Skill acquired from just outside of Midgar to defeat enemies that appear outside of the Chocobo Farm since they appear in large numbers. If the player uses Hyper items to get into the Fury status, the enemies should also make getting and using Limit Breaks simpler.

On Disc 1, upon reaching Junon, the player can pull an alarm in the tunnel that leads to the Junon Underwater Reactor, which will allow the player to fight strong enemies from the start of Disc 2, which yields high EXP and AP, as well as high Gil.

Outside Nibelheim, the player can fight and Manipulate the Valron enemy using the appropriate Materia. Using the Dive Kick, which takes off one-quarter of the player's maximum health, the player can fill the Limit gauge quickly, while not being threatened with Death since the HP decrease can be calculated beforehand.

After obtaining the Tiny Bronco, the player can head to an island close to Mideel, where they can fight the Mideel enemies, such as Head Hunters for grinding. Being equipped with three Rune Armlet armor from Bone Village, and each player's Double AP growth weapons they should have obtained by this point in the game, the player can stock a lot of AP to level up Materia. With a level 3 Restore materia equipped with an All materia, the player can cast Regen and allow the enemy to attack the player and get Limit Breaks. If of a high enough strength, three Fury Ring accessories from Gongaga Village allows the player to kill the enemies quickly without need for user input to get EXP quickly.

After obtaining the Submarine, the player may opt to go to the Sunken Gelnika, where they can fight powerful enemies that yield high EXP, as well as being morphed into various sources for stat grinding.

Later on, Cactus island is useful for its Cactuers that give out moderately high EXP and AP. Additionally, Movers in the Northern Crater give out insane amounts of AP, but are very rare. Also, players also exploit the W-Item Duplication Bug to give themselves 99 Elixirs to feed the Magic Pots and gain large amounts of EXP and AP.

Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-
Due to the nature of the leveling system, it is difficult to level grind in this game, as there is a lot of luck involved. However, leveling up is not determined entirely at random. Although it is not shown in the game, enemies still drop EXP, and the more EXP the player gains, the higher the chance the player levels up during a Modulation Phase. If the player wishes to level grind, they can do so by fighting enemies in missions that are labeled "Very Hard".

As Zack levels up, the rate at which his stats increase reduces, meaning at higher levels, level grinding is not very effective. Players often increase their stats by utilizing Materia Fusion.

Final Fantasy VIII
Grinding is almost imperative in Final Fantasy VIII, but in a different way. Since the party's level means less than what Magic the player junctions, players grind by drawing many spells from enemies, and refining spells from items or lower level spells. Players looking for EXP go to the Islands Closest to Heaven and Hell, where there are many powerful enemies that give away huge amounts of EXP. AP grinders head to Cactuar Island where the Cactuars can be easily slayed by Squall's normal attack, and give out 20 AP each.

Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy IX has less places to grind than its counterparts, however, they still exists in some forms. The crystal version of the Four Fiends in the Crystal World yield high amounts of AP. The Grand Dragon and the Yans on Vile Island both give huge amounts of EXP; Grand Dragons can be easily felled after a certain point, especially with the help of Dragon Crest, but Yans remain exceptionally difficult even at optimum character levels.

Final Fantasy X
The Omega Ruins' enemies give high amounts of AP, and with Double/Triple AP and Overdrive -> AP large amounts of Sphere levels pour in. Also, using Tonberries and their ilk with Overdrive -> AP causes many Sphere levels to come in if the player has killed enough enemies. Also, killing the Monster Arena's Species Conquest enemies give Spheres that add new stat nodes to the Sphere Grid and boost characters' stats quickly.

Final Fantasy X-2
End game's Farplane and Via Infinito are places which holds powerful enemies; it should be noted, that Via Infinito's battle difficulty rises as player goes deeper into underground.

Final Fantasy XII
Using the Hunt system, many players grind while collecting useful items. Additionally, players use the Great Crystal to grind, with its powerful enemies and many rooms. The Subterra and Stage 2 of the Henne Mines both have many powerful enemies that give out large amounts of EXP.

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
Because all official Missions are one-time-only events, players are forced to rely on Monster and Summoning Melees if they wish to spend some time leveling up. The Summoning Melee at the Gates of Shattered Time and the challenging yet rewarding gambit of Midlight's Deep are two exceptional grinding locations, though the latter requires some time commitment.

Final Fantasy XIII
There are several places in the game that allow players to accumulate large quantities of CP in a relatively short time. Although many of these are only accessible (or practical) at or after the endgame, this is also the point at which they become particularly useful anyway. One notable spot is the penultimate configuration of the Tesseracts in Orphan's Cradle, where a moderately powerful party can defeat, for example, the lone Wladislaus enemy in about two minutes (using a slightly risky Evened Odds -> Relentles Assault strategy) for 32000CP, and it can be respawned quickly by returning to the lower Save Station of the area. This is a good spot, but one which can never be revisited after the Tesseracts undergoes the final reconfiguration in order to access the final bosses.

Final Fantasy Tactics
Since EXP and JP are gained by performing successful actions, regardless of who the action is targeting, players can level grind by defeating all but one enemy units in any battle, prevent the remaining enemy unit from taking any action (such as by inflicting Sleep or Disable) and command the player's units to use their commands on each other, including offensive actions. In addition, Midlight's Deep contains many high level monsters which the player can fight to earn EXP and JP, as these parameters are mitigated by the unit's and target's level.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance received EXP from one action is dependent on the relativity between the acting character's level and the target character's level. Though missions usually offer challenging enemies at high levels to defeat, they can be completed only once. Enemies throughout the map in random battles will always be a levels relatively average to the player party, and any enemy at the same level will give the same amount of EXP, even if they are as different as an enemy Black Mage or a Thundrake.

Because of this, one random encounter is as good as any other in order to level up. That being said, if a character is to target himself or herself with an action, preferably a healing or supporting one, they will gain 10 EXP; targeting a character one level higher will garner 12 EXP; targeting a character one level lower will garner 8 EXP, and so forth.

Therefore, weaker characters can easily level up quickly by affecting higher level characters in battle, even if these characters are party members.

An easy trick to gaining levels extremely fast is the Smile ability the Juggler learns. It is learned by equiping the Orichalcum, and when two moogles are on the field with that ability at the same time, they can continue useing the ability on each other to create a cycle of experience gain and canceling out the other units' chances to move. With this ability, they can easily get to level 50 so the rest of your party can beat up on them to gain levels themselves.