Oh boy, more of these! And more Playstation guffawing, why not.
Steamwood - Brave Fencer Musashi
Repetition gets real boring after a while. How much fun would you have doing the same thing over and over? Even some fun things can be hard to enjoy after repeating them for so long. And speaking of, how many iterations can you handle? Steamwood isn't really a dungeon per se, but in Brave Fencer Musashi, you go through this machine not once, but twice. And it's a royal pain in the ass both times. Twice in this game the place runs out of control, and it's up to you to prevent it from exploding. Here's the issue, you've got to shut off valves in numerical order, and there's an annoying minigame in order to shut off each one. It gets progressively harder of course. And let's not forget the jumping as well as the waiting for lifts, oh did I forget that this is a timed dungeon? It is. The second time around, you have to find valve handles on the floor and bring them to their respective valves. Real nasty stuff.
Desert of Death - Breath of Fire III
Again, it's questionable to put something that isn't really a dungeon in this post, but screw it. The Desert of Death is an entirely new mechanic in a game with way too many required-to-get-through mechanics and minigames in it already. Basically you're walking the desert at night, cause it's too hot in the day, then you also have to worry about several other things. Miss out on drinking water from helpings, and characters have the Max HP reduced status. There's several tough monsters that show up in random battles at inopportune times, which screws with the final caveat, navigation. You gotta use the stars to get to the Oasis, and while you can deviate and get some rare and awesome equipment, they are much easier to fish for. Perhaps the thing that really puts this on here is that Horis, you're apparent guide, gives you very misleading directions. Screw him and screw this desert.
Ice Cave - Dragon Warrior III
Well, looks like I ran out of Playstation dungeons that are crap. Oh well. There's not a whole lot of terrible ones (even the worst Valkyrie Profile ones have some decent and enjoyable challenges to them). Onwards to Dragon Warrior III. The Ice Cave is a post-game dungeon, so it probably shouldn't be on this list. But it is because in all honesty, who really is arsed to get every single monster medal ever just to enter the main floors of this dungeon? The biggest issue with monster medals is that they are random drops, not common ones either, and you only get one each time. It's always a bronze the first time, once you get two bronzes, there's an even slimmer chance to get silver, and a considerably more slimmer chance to get gold. You need to get EVERY BRONZE MEDAL just to get past the first floor, and EVERY SILVER MEDAL to get to the end. It's ridiculous for the obvious reason that it's much more likely to wind up at Level 99 for fighting so long, or possibly beating the main game around ten times. The Ice Cave's biggest prize is the best sword in the game, but it's one of those "why bother" moments overall, since you'll steamroll the end bosses regardless.
Abyss - Wild ARMs 3
Randomized dungeons usually aren't too bad. You get a lot of replayability out of them, as well as explore every nook and cranny to make it all worthwhile. The Abyss makes a return in the Wild Arms franchise at 3, whereas it was a simple dungeon before and in its remake, it's a 100-floor complex filled with some of the nastiest monsters and no save points to offer. Wild ARMs 3's Abyss functions in the same way, except it is all randomized. In a way, this dungeon isn't entirely randomized the first time, because a guardian idol is required at one point and it's in the Abyss. There's even a considerable amount of mid-bosses in this one too. What you need to conquer the Abyss is A LOT of preparation, and that is A LOT. All the healing items you can muster, all of the good skills like status prevention and fire prevention (for Ragu), all the time you need to actually get through the whole dungeon, and some luck as well to avoid nasty attacks like Kirlian Buster or attacks that steal and flee at the same turn, kamikaze attacks from Brants, doppelgangers, the list goes on as the enemy list also goes on. Never go here unprepared.
Elemental Chambers - Suikoden Tactics
The Obel Ruins is a nice place to train your characters, you can just fight on the first floor, hope you get the pattern that respawns enemies, switch out characters who hit a good level, and that's about all there's to it. When entering it, obviously you can't leave until you hit the exit, and the enemies scale according to your current level, getting progressively harder the further you head inwards. On the fifth floor you gotta deal with some nasty golem enemies, and they have a ranged attack that can really hurt characters out of terrain. You know, I just sort of described every floor that isn't an elemental chamber. Getting to these things is the hard part. First off, finish floor 5 and eliminate the poison, then return there and finish that room again (you have to defeat all enemies on floor 5). Depending on what day it is, you go to the respective elemental chamber for some really difficult enemies. The elemental dragons are of course the nastiest, especially in the Mother Earth Chamber, but it applies in every chamber since they have a full set of magic, tough HP, and proper strategies. Big issue? Sidequest items for lots of neat stuff, especially if you're trying to get Dragon Meat or Dragon Fins. Simeon's little sidequest has you going into the Mother Earth Chamber especially, and this one might just be the hardest because despite its openness, there's a swarm of strong enemies right off the bat. For the sidequests, these may not be all that worth it.
Up next, I'm done with Playstation stuff! Let's try another platform.
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