Wherein video games are discussed in excrutiating detail.

[crescent_venus]

The last couple weeks have been delivering wonderful news for me on the gaming front. Let's provide a recap!

1. Black Friday and holiday sales slashed the prices of several interesting indie PC games drastically. I picked up To The Moon, an adventure RPG, for $3.99, and Cinders, a Cinderella-inspired visual novel, for $11.99.
2. ATLUS released the Shin Megami Tensei IV trailer, along with screenshots and character info. JP release is 2013; I'm personally estimating a summer release. NA release I'm estimating at winter 2013 at soonest, late spring 2014 at latest. (Could be wrong, of course...)
3. The NA release of the 3DS XL, with a beautiful large top screen. Perfect for me, since I want a nice big screen to see my games on.
4. Confirmation, as of today, of the NA localization of Soul Hackers! Thanks to Aunt Jane sending my Christmas gift over early, I Day 1 pre-ordered, which is the first that I've ever done so. Street date is late April 2013. I don't even care that I don't have a 3DS, I'll try to get one somehow soon. Perhaps.
5. Releases of some other long-awaited titles that I don't have a system for yet: Virtue's Last Reward, Unchain Blades
6. CAPCOM and Level-5 FINALLY released Gyakuten Saiban vs. Professor Layton. No confirmation on a NA release, but I'm 75% confident that we'll see a summer 2013 release at soonest.
7. Jane Jensen is back in business! She launched a Kickstarter campaign to begin work on some news games, and hopefully she'll announce progress soon...

I will freely admit that my gaming ADD has kicked in, and that I'm neglecting my hard copy games in favor of my PC ones. Sort of. I'm keeping a backloggery list of everything that I've started and not finished, so that I can get back on track...and some point. Well, anyway, until I get my 3DS, I'm going to focus on tag-teaming Gabriel Knight 2 and Digital Devil Saga 2. The former because I've having stupid amounts of difficult finishing its predecessor (so it's getting kicked to the curb for now), and the latter because I'm soooo close to being done! I'm stalled for now, because I need to do endless amount of level-grinding because the rest of the final dungeon is just one boss fight after another. Guh.

Actually, that's the majority of my games right now: stuck at a point where I have to grind into oblivion. Eeeeek.

Goals for the new year are:

1. Finish Digital Devil Saga 2 and Persona 3 FES: The Answer, since those have been dragging the longest. I call myself a MegaTen fan, yet they're unfinished...disgraceful!
2. On the handheld front, take Hotel Dusk to work and concentrate on getting that finished over my break periods.
3. Put down a pre-order for Persona 2:Eternal Punishment PSP as soon as it is offered--because it would honestly be stupid of them not to bring it over. (I hope they do soon, so we don't have to listen to the whining for much longer)