I hate grinding too. In my experience with Dragon Quest IX, it's a non-issue until the very end of the game. I actually stopped playing because of this...
As my for recommendations, if you're a puzzle fan, you definitely need to check out the Professor Layton series. Once I started each game, I...
I had a PS3 that wouldn't spool up any discs that were put in the drive, but everything else was fine. Could log onto PSN and play downloadable games/demos. The MLB.TV App should work even if the drive doesn't.