Cosmic Star heroine should have post story grinding mode.

Lords of Xulima has a limited number of encounters in each area, so it's not suitable.

Then I guess it just felt grindy to the reviewers because combats were repetitive and unrewarding. Same difference to me, but certainly not for the OP, so thanks for clearing that up! :)

Hyperdimension Neptunia games got an arena later in the game in which you can grind to your heart content(though its best to be done in NG+ when you can unlock more fights)

West of Loathing allows endless grinding, so in theory you could max out all your skills by summoning the same groups of enemies over and over again. Of course, it would be pretty hard to retain your sanity in the process.

You can run your alchemy-enchantment-blacksmithing cycle continuously, growing the power of your gear. Sure, you do have to collect ingredients - but as far as I am concerned, it is dull work that is part and parcel of a nasty grind.

Ah, I see. I stand corrected.

Yes. You can play NG+ or can stick around at the end of your first playthrough and endlessly grind "maps", basically smaller dungeons.

They do reward doing the same thing over and over again - just not with "experience points". But it does raise your skills, at least from Morrowind on. Attacking enemies, casting spells, letting people beat you while wearing heavy armor, going swimming by jamming a key...good times :p

As for the scaling, it was negligible in Morrowind. Oblivion was broken in this regard, but you could just remain at a low level while maxing out your skills. Skyrim scaled as well, but per creature and not past a certain max level - 50, I think? - which made it really susceptible to utter steamrollage after the cap was essentially removed. Not that it was a problem before, as Skyrim is by far the easiest of the three regardless of level - I mean, in Morrowind, you kill the gods (!), in Oblivion you kill the spawn of the gods, but in Skyrim you butcher flying lizards, bully primitive cattle herders and engage in shouting matches with your extended family. Riveting.

Optional grinding to breeze through later parts of the game is fine. Games that force you to grind just to be able to get ahead are just terribly designed.

Forced grinding is really one of those design features that shouldn't exist anymore. It's something that probably only started to pad game time when games had limited resources to use and it only continued with lazy developers. I'm not a kid anymore, I don't have time to spend being forced to fight the same slime 10000 times.

in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning you can steamroll most content after a bit of leveling

Just the topic I need after finishing tedious Storm of Zehir for tenth time or so...

Thanks for the recommendation! I picked it up and I'm glad the game allows that!