@Jojothegoodperson @redneonglow @p Two.

Every stat grew and/or decreased based on what you did. You wanted high defense and hit points? You had to let monsters beat you nearly to death. Every fight. You wanted to have a lot of magic points? You had to spend hundreds of MP - and you might get a small mana increase.

Your spells - they started out garbage - you had to level each spell up to 17 by chain killing monsters with them. There were about 100 different spells.

Want to be good with a weapon? You had to murder a million things with that weapon type. Want to be strong with a shield? You had to spam the guard command for hours on end to build your skill with it.

Except ultima. It's power was based ALL of your weapon masteries, all of your mastered spells, the combination of your stats and finally, your levels. It was either an abysmally weak spell that was joke-tier or capable of erasing the final boss faster than the (bugged) blood sword if you had spent the requisite months of time maximizing the user.

Did I mention stats atrophied if you didn't use them every so often?

They never revisited this type of character system - and it was almost as hated as the Junction system in Eight.