Since I was a big fan of Ahriman's Prophecy and Aveyond 1, I recently played through Aveyond 2. It seems to have been dumbed down for 8-year olds. I was very disappointed, and don't think it deserves first place at all.
×* The story is a re-hash of the Ahriman's Prophecy and Aveyond 1 stories. Strong sense of deja vu... waited for a surprise or twist that never came.
* Side quests are easy and linear, missing the interesting tangled-ness and complexity from the earlier games.
* Money is very easy to come by. If you need something, just buy it. You don't have to complete any of the side quests that give you extra money, because you've already got enough.
* The battles are not challenging. It's supposed to be a puzzle where you use different characters' strengths against different monsters' weaknesses. Not.
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×Since you've got so much money, you eventually fight the harder monsters by buying a lot of a certain scroll, and wipe out every monster party before it even strikes. The female protagonist becomes strong enough to blow the final boss away in 3-4 strikes all by herself with a sphere that costs a mere 100 gp. There are magical weapons obtainable by completing side quests, but these are not needed. There are special powers obtainable by joining guilds, but these are not needed either.
The City Beneath has plenty of its own flaws, but compared to Aveyond 2, it is well worth your vote for first place!
