Warning! This is the first time I've ever attempted a blog, so sorry if it's fail.

Hey there, my name’s Mark. I suppose this can serve as a first blog, but I don’t want it to be overly “Hey, this is my life story.” So I’ll try to phrase it as a “what I’m playing/question”…thing. Anyways, on to the topic I wanted to discuss.

Normally I play a lot of shooters, fps’s, action games, adventure games, and North American RPG’s. Every once in a while though my staples don’t satisfy my cravings and I venture out into a genre which I normally criticize, the jrpg.


This is my bologna sandwich.

I believe that I can count the number of jrpg’s I’ve played on one hand. Typically I try to play one and get five or so hours in and lose interest. Sometimes the battle mechanics become tiresome, or the characters reveal themselves to be the shallow excuses for the humans they are, or sometimes it’s simply the distractions of life. Despite these difficulties, a time will eventually come where everything about the jrpg fits my gaming appetite. I recently got into one of these moods and to get my fix I chose Persona 3.

I remember when Persona 3 was released and seeing the entire Destructoid community set ablaze by how exceptional it was. Me being apathetic to jrpg’s, really didn’t take that much notice. Still, the game left an impression in my mind.

After getting out of college this past April, I began to look for games that I had missed over the last eight months (poor college student is poor) and was reminded of Persona 3 by some random occurrence. I picked up the game off of Goozex and thankfully received it quickly. I started up the game this past week and have been absolutely lost in it. The game has such a brilliant blend of character development and combat that so many jrpg’s seem to miss the mark on. I even began to wonder whether I would have liked the game outside this bizarre jrpg craving. I’ve been enjoying it so much that I’ve completely forgot the other games I was in the middle of playing. Essentially, I’m completely enthralled by it. Now, back to the aforementioned question I said I would ask at the beginning of this blog.


This still isn't old!

My question is, has this ever happened to you? Is there some genre which you dislike and normally wouldn’t play (even if it was made by Valve), but then mysteriously had an unquenchable desire to play?