Is Bigger Better? On Size and Scale

Today I intend to tackle that age old question: Does size matter? But I’m not talking about the volume of your junk drawer, I talking about numbers, baby. Big ones.

To the uninitiated, a battle in a role-playing game may look like a convoluted blur of random numbers. After a few hours of play, however, you begin to see method in the madness, like Cypher reading the Matrix. White damage numbers cascade in throngs, green healing numbers twinkle and fade, yellow crits pop up in bold, demanding attention. There is something satisfying about getting these numbers as big as you can, but sometimes games take it a bit too far.

Though for games like Disgaea, taking it too far is sort of the point.

The latest offline installment in the Final Fantasy franchise was numero 13. I won’t be touching on the game’s quality, only its use of numbers. Simply put, the numbers are too damn high.