Thank you one and all for your welcome... The first to step forward appears to be a Tonberry, an interesting omen. Moving on to a few more direct replies.

Turn based is great for extended strategy, especially if the system is like FFX where you can clearly see the order. On the downside it seems to mute the feeling of the game, while in an action-RPG done well you can get both the planning and rush of playing rodeo with a hostile wyvern.

My favorite Persona game is Persona Q: Shadows of the Labyrinth. While I think the art-style choice was off target... I must praise it for being the only Persona game thusfar to not have a massive feeling of ending fatigue come with the late game. Bash it for being an Etrian Odyssey copy if you wish, but I still love that combat system enough to overlook it. As many can guess I went with the P3 side, though a side file for P4 side so that I can hear Minato Arisato(I prefer his old name) speak exists. SMT 3: Nocturne however ties with it for favorite of the extended Megaten series. Despite the mainline SMT having muted characterization and somewhat dully presented story, they just do the bone-crushingly difficult journey so well... Truly I miss the Demon Negotiation system. On that note might anyone know another Megaten Game where the Demon Negotiation was done well?

Ah Freya, Master of the Fork, thank you for the article recommendations. I'd overlooked the article section during my initial browse of the forum. My start of posting has been a bit sluggish with so much to look through.... and over-detailing everything as I do.

Mirage brings up an interesting point. I wouldn't say I hate FFXIII, I'd say I wish the series had a neck that I might slowly strangle the life from it! Those are the only FF games I have sworn to never play. I gave it a chance via researching the game for a while, even watching a fair bit of them on video walkthroughs.... in my eyes FFXIII failed. Yet I will admit a bit of guilty pleasure in finding the magi-tech designs for some of the monsters rather interesting. I'll keep the seething spite to myself so long as nobody tries to get me to play the FFXIII series, and even then I'll keep it forum friendly.