If you're like me, chances are you're a mild mannered, very polite individual in person. A prince among men even. One with a chilled back demeanor who just so happens to love videogames. Rarely losing control of your emotions, your mind prematurely going out to lunch and flaking out in a destructive state is as common a sight as is Haley's Comet. You just wont see it often if at all. Unless of course you are frustrated to no end because you feel you are being robbed of the progress you should be making in a videogame. Especially when for all intents and purposes, before whatever infamous section of said videogame in question makes you its bitch, everything was smooth sailing.

There is nothing more discouraging and frustrating than playing a game that is super awesome, everything going great, maybe a bit difficult but hey that's all good, then all of a sudden it throws you into a situation that you can't figure out, get around or succeed in because it wasn't like the rest of the game. Or maybe it was. Maybe all this time you just didn't know that while you were blazing through the game and its objectives you were secretly or subconsciously flexing some big ass game nuts. Its just now it's asking you to flex bigger ones and you're stuck.

Right now, I'm so pissed off , I feel like the only thing that could alleviate my anger, is if I could strangle someone to death. Preferably the designer of the game I'm playing. Before strangling him though, after the process of kidnapping him, I would torture him for a bit and leave him be alone, making him think he can escape, then catch him just as he thought he saw the daylight of freedom... then I would strangle him. Dear God, I sound like a complete psychopath. I thought videogames were supposed to be a soothing and entertaining experience.

To be fair, most of my games, about 65% of them I get to section in them where I feel that way. I'm doing fine, dandy as a sunflower on a summer day then BAM, I get stuck, can't beat whatever boss, or figure out whatever puzzle, or don't know where it is I'm supposed to go. For someone who's turning thirty-eight years old very soon and has been gaming most of his life you would think occurrences like these would be non-existent or very few yet that's just not the case. My backlog of games, which is impressive indeed, is the result of this cycle I go through with most of the games I play. Sometimes I can legitimately blame the game because its poorly designed but really its something in my DNA as a gamer that makes me go through this again and again.

So what usually happens is that I discard the game and move on to something else. But this time I refuse to do what I usually do. This time I swore to myself I will get myself unstuck. I will beat this game because I want to move on to its sequel. So what game is so cool that is making me break my cycle?

The latest episode of my gaming ineptitude and the reason for this blog is the masterpiece JRPG Persona 3. Specifically Tartarus' 110th floor. There's a sub-boss, a shadow of the dancer type, that I can't bypass because he's so CHEAP that it's killing me. I'll go about picking my team, go through the motions, have him down to a spec of health...a spec mind you, and like clockwork he charms me and I start killing my own team members, or they kill me. I'll even use a Persona that is the same as he seems to be, he dishes out wind attacks, so that I'm immune to his stuff, and BANG! here comes that charm spell and my utter defeat.

AAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!

If you happen to know how I can get passed this, by all means leave this miracle solution in the comments below so that I can stop banging my head against the walls of my house.