I've been enjoying Persona 3 immensely the past month and I've actually done up a proper review for the game while playing it. At the moment I'm playing through the expansion but unless that throws something drastically different at me before it's over my review is all but done. While some bathroom renovations are keeping my gaming time to a few hours a day once I do finish the game I'll have my review up for those that might be interested. I mean to do game reviews more often then I do but for some reason I just don't often bother. Personally I found Persona 3 to be an absolutely outstanding experience deserving of a proper review. Perhaps that's how I know I'm playing something fantastic, I feel I have to review it.

Hoping life finds you well,

Dark Orb

+ It uses a turn based combat system. Seriously, nobody does this anymore and that make me sad.

+ It's pacing is nothing short of brilliant. Every time things start to get comfortable something happens that mixes everything up. Your never doing one thing for too long and that's awesome in a 70+ hour game.

+ Persona 3 has a fantastic story beginning to end. Finally a villain that I just hate the second I see them. This is something I haven't experienced in a long time. A fictional character that can elicit that kind of emotional response is always a sign of quality.

+ Rather then using a generic forgettable symphonic score Persona 3 boasts some unique jpop which makes for a refreshing change.

+ Some of the best written dialogue I've seen in a long long time. Not just the main story but all the side characters have wonderfully well written dialogue. It's genuinely enjoyable to watch each relationship grow as you spend time with the various side characters

+ Managing your normal day to day activities alongside your dungeon crawling just works so well. It's refreshing to see "hero" types doing normal things like going to school, doing homework, and using the bathroom rather then going from one epic confrontation to another in a quest to save the world. It helps you connect with your characters when you see them doing things you can relate to.

+ Symbolism is everywhere. Shooting yourself in the head, an act that destroys your body, in order to free your persona which is an aspect of your mind. Brilliance.

+ Hiding from scantly clad girls while wearing nothing but a towel. Enough said.

+ It's long, like 70hours+ long. I've played too many RPGs that end around the 40 hour mark of late. I haven't finished the story but the end is in sight and I'm sitting on around 98 hours of good times had so far. I'm guessing that by the time I've finished I'll be somewhere around 110 hours and that's just awesome.

- Watching five minutes of voice acted cut scenes which advance the story then going on to a boss fight without the option of saving. This happens around just about every major plot advancement and it's annoying. Sure if your well prepared things will probably be fine but I just like the convenience of a save point.

- If a member of your party falls in battle things keep going. The second the main characters HP hits 0 it's game over. In a game where random enemies have instant kill spells it's really annoying. After dungeon crawling for half an hour only to make a mistake and die, you just have to stop playing for a few hours.

- The board chairman's jokes.

- Eventually you end up a a screen that says "The End"

Yellow Lettered Link

Seems like everybody is using Twitter these days. I've been hearing all kinds of things and finally decided to check the site out for myself. While I do agree that it's basically a fancy way of updating the world about the little details about your life. The little details that you'd think nobody cares about but at the same time I think it's much more . . . . . . . "human" then myspace or Facebook (neither of which I've bothered with). It could be said that our lives are just collections of pointless thoughts, events, and details. Daily life isn't like what you see on TV, it's much duller, for many of us it's slower, but most importantly it's real. Twitter seemes to make some of the people that use it more "real". A glimpse of the pointless details of an artist like Trent Reznor or a movie actor seems to make me feel like we're both human as opposed to them being something more. That said Trent Reznor has over five hundred fifty thousand people interested in whatever he says so maybe I'm just full of crap.

Either way, if I at least somewhat know you and you leave me a comment with a link to your Twitter page I'll likely follow you.