Hmm, I'd have to say that Halo 3 was the second best in the Halo series for me. It was a great ending, the levels were varied and fun to play, especially for the first time, but...
It just didn't have that feel of desperation. Yes, it was difficult, at least on insane. But you didn't feel the desperation, not the way you did in the first one. The characters were memorable, but they weren't captain bloody Keyes. The easter eggs were interesting, but not seeing a grunt and elite talk while everything explodes around you.
my second favorite TES is Skyrim
my second favorite DA game is DA2
my second favorite Pokemon is X/Y
my second favorite Civ is.... probably 2
my second favorite SimCity is... oh wow that's tough, I'll get back to you
my second favorite WoW expansion is Wrath of the Lich King
my second favorite Zelda is Ocarina of Time
FF - VIII
Tales of - Xillia
Zelda - Wind Waker
Atelier - Sophie
Tekken - 3
Suikoden - II
Ys: Seven
Persona - 3 Portable
Xeno - Xenoblade or Xenosaga I
Star Ocean - 2, PSP
Agarest - Zero
Pokemon - Diamond
Soul Calibur - II
Spyro - 2
Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven
(Platformer) Mario: Super Mario World
Uncharted: 1
Gran Turismo: 4
Tekken: 6
Street Fighter: 3rd Strike
FF: VIII
Donkey Kong Country: 1
King's Quest: 6
Doom: 2
Castlevania: SotN
Zelda: Link's Awakening
I'll probably post a few more when I think of them, for now:
Metal Gear Solid - Fantastic game with some of the best writing, pacing, acting, and visual design. There is a reason it's so beloved and iconic. With that said, I find the gameplay has just not aged as well for me and I really hate auto-aim. It's still fun to play, but every new playthrough always makes me wish I was playing some of the later and more challenging systems.
Dragon Quest V - I love the monster collecting and building your party up mechanics of the game, and it certainly has one of the more memorable stories in the series, but I the last stretch of the game was just not as memorable or interesting as the first two-thirds were. After the Wham Episode and the revelation of who the hero is; I just kind of felt the game just loosely wrapped up everything, in addition to overloading you with Human characters who are vastly inferior to your monster party you've been building u for most of the game. The villain is also completely weak as a character compared to Baramos and Psaro who were both better played up in the previous games. Still fantastic but I wish it could have held my interest to the very end.
Suikoden II - Fantastic game with a better story, pacing, political intrigue, and while not mind blowing, much better battle mechanics. With that said, SII had a harder time introducing new faces for me to love, instead many of my favorite characters were returning characters from S1. Also, S2 probably has my least favorite Army Battle mechanic in the series. I'll even take S1's rock/paper/scissor/death ray mechanic over S2's poorly designed turn based RPG system that is handicapped by one of the worst RNG's I've ever seen.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep - Easily the best battle system in the franchise, and I adore how distinct all three characters play from each other. I also ended up enjoying all of the classic Disney Princess worlds despite how awful that sounds on paper. Even though the game makes you g through all of the worlds three times, I did like how the story made it somewhat fresh with Terra often causing the world's problem, Ventus making it worse, and Aqua having to clean up their mess. With that said, the story could have been better. While it wasn't the drama for the sake of drama bulltrout of KH2, nor the plot hooks of a bad Silver Age DC comic mess that Dream Drop Distance pulled; BbS still suffers from some cringe-worthy issues, ranging from the weird ass plot that is Ventus' story to Terra's awful road to darkness/redemption story that only works because the idiot ball is firmly lodged into his head. Only Aqua comes out of the story relatively respectable but sadly isn't as interesting or engaging as her carnival freak show partners. Xehanort was great and deliciously hammy though.
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood - While it lacks the immersive blend of RPG and Metroid game design that propelled Symphony of the Night as the popular kid of the franchise, Rondo is still a compelling and beautifully made Classivania title only rivaled perhaps by Castlevania IV. Introducing more of a plot and cast, as well as the iconic Item Crash ability, the game has excellent if brutally challenging level design and the who dual world mechanic that roughly doubles the amount of stages with secret paths makes for a truly engaging experience.
Wild ARMs 2 - For the most part, WA1 only beats this game out for me on a few basic merits. In truth, WA2 is a better game over its predecessor in almost every way. More characters, expanded mechanics, better OST, better themes, and a more original story than the cliche storm that is WA1. The game even boasts a macho gay character that doesn't fall into the usual slapstick stereotypes found in Japan, though you'll have a hard time finding it in the original dub since it was kind of scrubbed away. Why it's number 2 really has more to do with the game's poor balancing among the characters. Not only in terms of gameplay but story relevance. Brad and Kanon are probably some of the coolest characters to come out of the series but both are not nearly as well utilized as I wish since they are constantly sidelined for generic Ashley and woobie Tim. Not to mention Kanon's story ultimately gets hijacked by an NPC with a similar background. Latkia is a wonderful bumbling piece of a character who serves as comic relief, but she is largely irrelevant to the story at large and got screwed over the worst mechanically among the cast, making her a permanent bench-warmer once you get a fourth party member. Ashley's journey thematically is really powerful and serves as a cool deconstruction of the genre and just the whole "hero" business in general, but he is such a generic atypical hero that it ultimately feels like the theme of the game is great but the vehicle in which travel through it is kind of boring and predictable. Sadly, he gets more screen time than he deserves. None of this is helped by Ashley becoming a crutch character for most of the game.
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