Dynafire has 132 chronicles

1. My Top Ten Favorites - Honorable Mentions
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Nov 25 2008

   Well, I got my top ten favorites series wrapped up, and it was pretty fun writing it. Those games represent what I found to be the most enjoyable games in my experience. However, there are several others the I would have really liked to include in that series, and here are a few.
   
   Alundra (psx)
   Alundra is the playstation's best example of a Zelda clone, but with much more emphasis on puzzles. The music, story, characters, and gameplay are very good for the time, and I still try to play this as often as I can. There's lots of stuff to find, and a giant world to explore. The puzzles are ridiculously hard sometimes, and some absolutely require you to look up solutions online, or have a strategy guide handy.
   
   Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2)
   I've always been attracted to games with great replayability, and this is one of them. The main story is great, filled with a fair mix of comedy and tragedy. You get to know the characters, and actually care about them unlike many other RPG's. The first playthrough is incredibly balanced, and plays out like an SRPG should, if you don't go out and power-level immediately. After the main story comes the power-leveling, where you can get you characters leveled extremely high through a ton of grinding. It tends to get a bit crazy after a while, when you start getting stats into hundreds of thousands of points and each turn simply becomes a massacre of your enemies. The grinding is where the game's only flaw shows up. There are only two battle soundtracks, and one only occurs in special stages and every 10 levels you advance through the item world. I have to mute the game every time I play because the music starts to dig into my soul after a while. Other than that, the game offers a great experience to both hardcore and casual gamers.
   
   King's Field: The Ancient City (PS2)
   You're probably wondering what the hell King's Field is. Think of it as a poor man's version of The Elder Scrolls series. Since each game in the series in on a playstation console, obviously it has to deal with the system's shortcomings *cough no hard drive cough* and can't quite achieve the open-endedness and glory of Morrowind or Oblivion. All the games are pretty linear in their advancement, but the world is very big, and there are a lot of side areas to explore and items to find. The only problem with the KF games is the combat. It always consists of strafing around your enemies and slashing them until they die. This isn't as boring as it sounds though. While you will likely never take damage from a lone enemy, you have to be extremely careful around multiples. If you get cornered by a couple of them, you will either be killed, or just get real, real hurt. There are also plenty of traps that can kill you instantly. This is one of those games that makes you keep track of your surroundings, and provides for a fairly difficult experience. I definitely think that you should give these games a try if you like The Elder Scrolls games. KF doesn't have nearly as much to offer, but they are still very good (and very overlooked) games.
   
   There are a few more I didn't mention, because I can write a lot more about them. Expect to see them in future chronicles.

   
   

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Dynafire has 1 comment on this chronicle.

1. BEN
   Posted On Nov 26 2008

   What a great series for you to have and nice touch with the Honorable Mentions!
   
   I'll have to get something like this put together for myself soon