God Hand- best 25 bucks I spent on the PS2. I would have paid 50 bucks when it first came out and would never regret it. I love the hell out of that game and it's probably the best beat-em-up game ever in terms of customization; no other beat-em-up game comes close to it. My style is impetuous!
Shadow Hearts- I liked the surrealism mixed with fantasy and the Judgment Ring system was cool. I have SH2, but it's in my backlog.
Bully- A surprisingly refreshing and original game from R* despite the recycled story of betrayal and rising to the top. The music was great and the environments were awesome, not to mention that giving a poor sap the swirly never got old.
Yakuza 1 and 2- If God Hand is king of the over-the-top, super deep, tongue-in-cheek beat-em-up, The Yakuza series is the king of the realistic RPG style beat-em-up. Great story, satisfying combat, tons of stuff to do and collect and it's set in Japan; good stuff.
Ratchet and Clank- Great game; open environment, funny humor. Going Commando built up on it by adding an RPG style system, but different VA which disappointed me, but it was good. Never played Up Your Arsenal.
Kingdom Hearts- I loved the open environments and the colorful world, so it was pretty damn good, but the KH2 went crazy with the story and it was a hell of a lot more linear game than KH1 like ME1-->ME2 changes. The Final Fantasy characters were kind of shoehorned into the games.
Dragon Quest 8: Journey of The Cursed King- I need to find my copy! I only sunk in about 36 hours or so and I was only 1/4 done with the game but the VA was pretty awesome and the characters were charming, especially King Trode and Yangus. Plus the music in that game is fantastic as are the environments.
The GTA series- It set the standard for open games. My favorite game of the series was San Andreas because of the huge amount of stuff to do and the massive enviroments are relaxing to get lost in.
Persona 3- I never played FES, so I can't say, but who knew that a Sim mixed with an RPG could be so good. I loved spending time with people and building social links. Plus the combat was pretty good as was the plot.
Hitman: Blood Money- I loved the hell out of the way you could approach the missions, eventually borrowed the 360 version from a friend and got 1000/1000 and the New Orleans level was amazing at the time with all the amounts of NPCs walking around. Crazy good game.
MGS3: Subsistence- Good game, very sad ending but it was good. Like Hitman, there were a variety of ways to approach levels so that was good and the bosses as always were crazy over the top but good especially The End.
MGS2: Substance- I got around to playing it circa 7 years after it came it with The Essential Collection, but I found it to be good and I loved the themes and the messages that it sent out plus the last part of the game. Plus as a person who literally lives right next to the George Washington Bridge, it was surprising and nice to finally see it in a game (although it later appeared in GTA4 as the Hickey Bridge, but that sort of doesn't count).
That's it for now.
