Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor is nothing but one huge painful boring grind.

Rogue Legacy is a lot of fun, but there's a bit too much grind for me. Depends a lot on your skill level though.If you're really good then you won't end up grinding as much as others

Trails in the Sky.

If you like grinding and you like spaceships, Rebel Galaxy is for you.

Edit: I've remember something, Punch Club, you need to manage the fighter/character so you will have to grind money and stats.

I'm having fun with Grim Dawn, basically it's a mechanically better Titan Quest.

Why? I think the more you grind in that game the more you get diminishing returns.

At least you have to grind for th gems (or what they are called in this game) and, of course, for having a high enuff level to have a chance in many fights.

This is a good site for beginners.

Anyway, the first few hours of a playthrough are always the same (unless you're playing as the Bankrupt Assassin): start by trading energy cells. Invest in cargo space and engine upgrades as soon as you can afford it, so as to make more credits per run (unfortunately they suffer from exponential cost increase, so it's not worth to max them out just yet).

Grind until you have around 10k credits, then buy a trade system extention (found in Argon/Teladi equipment docks). After about one hour of grinding your trading rank should have gained a level or two, which means that doing missions should be almost as profitable as selling cells (rewards are affected by your rank).

Keep grinding for another hour or two until you can afford a new ship. Get a TS if you want to trade, or a M4 if you prefer combat. Regardless of your preference, start buying satellites and drop one in each sector, that'll allow you to monitor ship traffic and goods prices remotely.

After that, well, that's where the real fun begins. You'll have to grind money for ships/stations/equipment, grind trade/combat rank for better quest rewards, and even grind rep to gain access to alien sectors and their goods! And should you want to proceed with the main plot, which is totally optional by the way, especially the part about a certain HUB... man, you're in for a treat... XD

I fnished both games by just clearing every area once, and had septims to spare at the end of it.

And as I said, grindng is discouraged since as soon as you get a level advantage enemies give a lot less XP.

A some games listed don't really require grinding. Disgaea for example allows you to grind or go past the base story mode (level 80 or so) but doesn't require it usually, not too much unless you wanted to.

Defender's quest is the same way, set it on easy (with x3 xp/scrap) and you can pretty much blaze through the base story with little to no level repeats.

Diablo/Diablo 2 did require grinding as I recall, although not a lot. Although Zy-El was much harder.

TripleTown I don't see where the grinding comes in, because it's just the core gameplay loop, aside from decorating that island I don't see the reason to grind at all.

I'd say a number of Rogue-likes are grindy, since permadeath requires you to start over. I've probably played ToME up to level 20 on 30 different characters & classes. Far more with ADOM.

7th Saga is grindy, especially the US version since you get less experience than the original game. Dragon's Crown, Odin Sphere are both grindy but not excessively.

All Level-5 games.

Actually, no. JRPGs generally do *not* require grinding.

Final Fantasy games from 4 onward, in particular, are balanced so that you can play through the entire game without having to take extra time to level up or earn money. (In FF5, you might *want* to take time to learn extra abilities, but it isn't mandatory at all.)

Even Dragon Quests, starting with 4 or 5, tend not to require grinding. (Exception: Dragon Quest 9's postgame.)

With that said, maybe I should add a couple recommendations:

Dragon Quest/Warrior (the *original* Famicom/NES version; the remakes all drastically increased the XP gained from killing enemies, making the game *much* shorter)

Dragon Quest 9's postgame

Also, I could point out that the Disgaea series (and some of Nippon Ichi's other games) are like this in the postgame; the other poster who mentioned level 80 for the story neglected to mention that the series has traditionally had a superboss who's at least level 4000 with very high stats for its level.

I thought the difference was in stat gains at level up, not XP awards.

Sorta both. But I think you're right, mostly stats.
That's if you want to go that far. There's always more to do, but the main story doesn't require heavy grinding. To try and get super characters, defeat challenges or get 100% completion, yes that requires a lot of grinding. Too much actually.

I just finished Space Pirates and Zombies which also requires quite some grinding. It was also really enjoyable!

HAHAHAHA!!! Tony Hawk!! hahaha!!

2 things:

1. Random encounters do not come "every second step", unless you get *really* unlucky.
2. If you are not going out of your way just to get into encounters, it isn't grinding, any more than fighting the enemies that attack you normally in any other game.

By your definition, I could argue that every game with combat has "mandatory grinding". That's not how it works.