Video Game obessions

I'm in love.

Seriously, I'm in love. With this:

[Not a Cyberman]

If you're a gamer of any kind, you know the euphoria that comes with falling in love with a game. It's always the little things, like the music, or the way that the menu is sorted the way you would've done it if you'd designed the game. For me, this new love affair comes from the suggestion of two of my most trusted gamer sources. They both, independently of each other, told me about Shin Megami Tensei when I asked for advice as to what game to purchase for my DS (I left all the games the TSA didn't steal from my stupidly checked bags in Chicago, again, stupidly).

For me, games are all consuming. If I like a game, I love it. And if I don't, I probably don't even want to be in the room while it's being played. I was mildly excited to see that the game came with a CD of the music when I opened the box. Now that I've sunk some serious play time into it, I'm ecstatic that I'll be able to annoy all my friends with music from the game. The only reason I put it down last night was because I died a few times (okay, ten) in a boss fight and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I tend to play a game through once doing all the stupid stuff I tend to do, then go back and, um, to use a term gamers often use, rape it. For that, I'll use gamefaqs and walkthroughs unabashedly, but for my initial play through, I try to do it for myself. I asked Morpheus (please review your Greek mythology if you thought the Matrix) for a dream which would present the solution. What did he give me? An epic battle tale which I might glean some knowledge from? Unless a flying cruise ship my father saved me from and a mall employee dropping my phone into a custard-from-whence-it-would-never-return counts, no.

THANKS MORPHEUS. I should send you back to the Matrix.

Anyways, which I'm trying to say is I'm in love with this game. There are a few of these games released in the US, and all in the Final Fantasy vein- all set in the same world, all independent stories. This particular installment, Strange Journey, chronicles the exploration of a strange void growing at the South Pole. It's a strange world you find yourself in where this is the smart-mouthed rebel:

His name is Jimenez. Isn't he suave?

This is what an angel looks like:

And yes, you fight these (and can ask it to be "my demon")

And this is a dude:

Oops!

And yet I still love it. It's originally from Japan, which will not surprise you. I'm not reviewing it or anything, because its been done. You can Google for a review and find about a million that would be better than mine.

I just needed to express my love.