MK634'S PROFILE

I've beaten:

FF's 1-10 + 12 with the exception of 2(not 4) + FFT & TA + MQ
Dragon Quest 1 & 8 (almost beat 7 but my file got erased by my brother's stupid Inuyasha game)
SaGa's 1 & 3
Seiken Densetsu's 1-3 + Lengend, Sword, & Childern
Phantsy Star's 1-4 (only obtained Sean's Ending in 3)
Legend of Zelda (all non CDi/Game&Watch/Satellaview games)
Estpolis Denki 1 & Gaiden
Tales of Phantasia
Illuison of Gaia & Terranigma
Kingdom Hearts
Super Mario RPG + Paper Mario + Mario and Luigi 1 & 2
Pokemon Red, Yellow, & Silver
Chrono's Trigger & Cross
Secret of Evermore
Fire Emblem's 7-9
RockMan X: Command Mission
RockMan.EXE
Breath of Fire's 1 & 2
Golden Sun (both halves)
Quest 64 (I still can't believe that I got this PoS instead of Super Mario 64)
Castlevania's 2, Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, & Aria of Sorrow

Games that I've almost beaten:
DQ's 2 & 7
SaGa 2
Tales of Symphonia
Odin Sphere
Super Robot Taisen Original Generation
Xenogears
Grandia 2

Games that I've started:
FF2 & X-2
DQ 3
SaGa Frontier 2
Estpolis Denki 3
Star Oceans 2 & 3
Pokemon Sapphire
BoF 3
Valkyire Profile 1 & 2
Tactics Ogre Battle: Let Us Cling Together, Knights of Lodis, & 64
.Hack// Infection
Suidoken 3
Diablo
X-Men Legends
Disgaea

Games that I own but haven't started yet:
DQ 4
Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 & 2
SRW:OG 2

There maybe more...

Warning: Wall of Text Ahead

I agree with this as well. I can't bring myself to play through games like FF8, FF9, or Grandia 2 again. For me the card game was the best part of FF8, but the trouble is as you progress further into the game and gain access to new and different areas I lose access to older areas and the mini-games and side quests found within thus making it difficult if not impossible to finish collecting all of the cards. There was also the forth disk syndrome which I absolutely despise where all non-essential previously explored areas are closed off permanently thus making it impossible to work your way to the end of the game without the risk of leaving something behind. FF9 is the same and Grandia 2 isn't much better because while you can barely backtrack at all there really wasn't anything worth going back for to begin with.

For me it was games like FF6, Secret of Mana, Legend of Zelda, Link to the Past, and Super Metroid I consider to be my favorite. All of them possess one unifying attribute that I enjoy the most. Enviroments. For me it's the games atmosphere, the areas that I still, even today, have memorized to heart like LoZ:LttP's Lost Woods, the area just outside of Narshe in FF6, SoM's Lofty Mountains, or even SM's Crateria. All of the these games also reward exploration of said areas in one way or another, and for me that's more thrilling to find something I didn't know of before than to watch a Cutscene of an area I've only been to once before getting blown up and the Magical Healing Type sadly cling to her Generic Emo Teen. For LoZ, LttP, and SM it's all about hidden items and upgrades, SoM gives its players the opportunity to level and build their skills in weapons and magic, and for FF6 it's a combination of the two.

I realize that it has taken a long time for me to write this (I get distracted easily especially when I start to think about what I love in video games). (Btw I started writing this around WIP first post)

The LoZ series is also a good example of story vs gameplay compairisons. IMHO LttP is the best LoZ game with the First and Fourth running up, but games like Wind Waker and Twilight Princess felt kinda weak in compairison. WW's Water World story line did make for an interesting narrative, but due to the vast distances one needed to travel, the difficulty of fighting with only a tiny boat for maneuvering room, and the fact that it was difficult to steer to begin with made doing anything on the high seas more difficult than it needed to be. Plus the vastness of the overworld left little room for the mind bending dungeons the series is know for. It got worse for TP. TP's story is top notch for the better half of the game, but it seemed to lack some of the more interesting tools and abilities that other games had. Only in the later half do tools like the Spinner and the Rod of Domination come into play, but unfortunately these tools were left to languish after their respective dungeon was completed. And despite the fact that TP didn't make travel extremely difficult it didn't really offer any real incentive to explore to begin with as there were no tools, items, or even masks to find, and with the exception of the pieces of hearts nothing else was even worth collecting.

Quote from: The Real Brickroad
If I were 14 when I read this post, I would have been all like "LOL STFU NOOB." But I'm not 14, so I pretty much agree with what's been said.

If I were 14 when I read this post, I still would have said the same thing because when I was 14 I was getting disappointed by FF9 back then.

Quote from: The Real Brickroad
I hear Knights of the Old Republic handles this pretty well too, but I've never played it because you know star wars eww.

There are a few good Star Wars games out there like Rogue Squadron's 1 & 2.

I have:

NES*2
Super Nes
N64
GCN
GameBoy
GameBoy Color
GameBoy Advance SP
DS Lite
Sega Genesis
Sega CD/front loader
PSX/Brick*2