In Persona 4, I learned to drop into dungeons more often so that I could play around with other characters instead of only relying on the times I had to in order to progress the story. It wasn't an ideal solution, but there was a way out.Įxp Share makes it so that there's no need to spend time grinding levels for characters that aren't in your main party. However, I realized that you can technically revisit dungeons to grind levels for all the characters if you want to. Even if later recruits gained Social Links more quickly, adding them to the party still felt like a temporary disadvantage because they lacked the combat bonuses I had with veteran members.Īt first, the lack of Exp Share made me less willing to experiment because it would mean letting other party members lag behind the rest. It then seemed counterintuitive to invest in the new character because their Social Links (another part of Persona 4's complex ecosystem) were much less developed than those of the characters I already had. I didn't start craving Exp Share until I recruited my fifth party member, at which point I was forced to start benching characters. Persona 4 Golden was ported to Nintendo Switch earlier this year, but it's essentially the same as the 2012 version that came out for PlayStation. That's why it was so jarring when I picked up Persona 4 and there was no Exp Share to be found. Instead of worrying about grinding all your characters to the same level, you could just progress through the story using whichever characters you wanted.Įxp Share seems like such a natural, welcome element in any RPG, making it all the more noticeable when it's absent. By allowing Heroes to accumulate experience points even when they're not in battle, it opens up opportunities for experimentation and variety that would otherwise be untenable.Įven One Piece Odyssey, Bandai Namco's first time creating a One Piece RPG, was a much more seamless experience thanks to this mechanic. All members of your main party are there to stay, but it would've been a daunting task for even the most diligent player to level up each of the Heroes separately. In Xenoblade 3 especially, it felt almost criminal to ignore your Heroes (seventh party member) when there were so many character classes to try. These games have multiple characters with distinct abilities, enough to encourage players to experiment with them. Just in the past year, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and One Piece Odyssey both offered their own version of Exp Share. It wasn't an addition that stayed unique to Pokemon, though. Starting from Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu and Let's Go, Eevee, it was built into the game as a default mechanic rather than an item that you needed to obtain. Exp Share eventually turned into an item that distributed experience points to your entire team. It was especially convenient for raising low-level monsters into regular party members. In Pokemon's case, Exp Share started as an actual item that you could give to an individual Pokemon so that it would gain experience even without being involved in a battle. I'm calling it Exp Share because that's what it's called in Pokemon, and it doesn't seem to have another widely recognized name. Despite what might seem like a minor quality-of-life feature at first, its presence-or lack thereof-can have a big impact on a game, causing you to play much differently than you otherwise would. Its absence or limited implementation especially stands out when revisiting older games like Persona 4 and comparing them to newer ones like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Sometimes, it's just for members of your current party. I first heard of Exp Share-a mechanic where all party members gain experience points regardless of if they're in battle-in Pokemon.
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