I’ve been playing games like final fantasy 2/4 and 3/6 since I was 14. I look at the speed runs and gamers are beating these games in five hours and some change.. How? How is this possible?? It takes longer the five hours to level your character so you can beat the end boss. Hell I can’t beat FF3/6 in less then fourty hours and someone has beaten it in less then six! How do you play those games normally and beat them that fast?? I’m genuinely asking.
Yeah, just watch the runs lol.
But, in general, RPG runs aim to do the most minimal amount to progress the story while also doing the most minimal amount of level grinding. Usually you can avoid needing high levels by exploiting certain mechanics to maximize your damage (like using Rikku’s Mix in FFX). Some RPGs needed a lot of grinding (like DQ1 before a lot of the glitches were found) but it’s still about doing as little as possible and by exploiting as much as possible to make your life easier.
Understanding game mechanics like damage caps can also help with this. As an example, in Kingdom Hearts 1, your strength stat past a certain point will result in your damage on the final bosses being scaled down to prevent you from obliterating them. So, we manage our equipment precisely so that way we can reach that important strength point while only having a level in the 40s (all Exp is from required bosses). It takes clever working of mechanics like that, but you’d be surprised how much you can get away with without grinding for hours and hours.