Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is something of a departure from Atlus's more recent first-party titles: it is very unlike Persona 3 and Persona 4. It is relatively light on plot (and named characters), and instead is much more focused on being a good old-fashioned dungeon crawler. Fans of Nocturne will feel right at home.

Crimson Gem Saga is a game that has all the traditional elements, but is self-aware to make fun of them.

Final Fantasy IV DS is not a new game, nor does it pretend to be original. As with many of Square Enix's re-releases of older titles, it is aimed primarily at the nostalgia factor for those of us who were old enough to play it the first time around (and, were it human, Final Fantasy IV will be old enough to vote next year.) However, even if you didn't play it as a wee small thing back when it was on the Super Nintendo and it was called Final Fantasy II, there's still plent...

A city lies helpless before a virulent plague. Ancient demons rise to walk the lands. Farmers' wives have been kidnapped by giants. The venerable defenders of justice, right, truth, and kittens are powerless in the face of these trials. The solution? A first-level Dungeons and Dragons character!

Given that I have an almost obsessive love of the fantasy genre, it comes as something of a surprise to my friends that I have never read the Lord of the Rings trilogy in its entirety. In fact, I never read any of it until after I had seen The Fellowship of the Ring (which was all of about a month before The Two Towers hit theatres.) To this day, although I love the movies, I've never managed to plow through all three of the books. It's on my "I'll do it when I have time"...

On the one hand, it is made by Square Enix and says FF in the title. The dressphere system sounded like a really cool variation on the various FF games that have included job classes (FF1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Tactics to name some.) I was intrigued. On the other hand, FFX-2 looked a whole lot like ''Let's play dress-up!'' and Yuna's new costume made me skeptical. I absolutely could not picture the uncertain, apologetic Lady Summoner running around a la Lara Croft, and I really wanted to kn...

I found myself hooked into the story almost immediately. You're given a mystery of sorts to investigate in the very first scene--who is this girl in the strange clothes? Why is she here? And it just gets more interesting from there.

The plot, too, is forgettable. It's the RPG standard--destroy the bad guy--but without the lovely trimmings that usually come with said standard. There's little to hold my interest, and even less to inspire me to replay the game.

Valkyrie Profile has a strong background based in Norse mythology. The end of the world, the Ragnarök, is at hand. The Vanir and Aesir (gods) must battle the dark forces to keep the world from ending. In order to do this, they require the souls of slain warriors.

FFX's gameplay, though, has some truly significant differences from its predecessors. The most drastic change is that you can swap characters in and out during battle simply by pressing the R1 button. This is extremely helpful because it keeps you from getting jacked in boss fights because you brought the ninja instead of the black mage.

The Espers were another thing I loved. They were as powerful as Rydia's Summoned Monsters from FF4, but more useful in that they taught you spells. I also happened to love the spells (but then, is there anything I DON'T love about this game?)

I pride myself on my ability to guess plot twists, and some of the events in this game caught me totally by surprise. I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of plot revealed in this game. After I finished the game, I was disappointed that I was finished--I wanted it to just keep going.

Each character has conflicts to resolve, both outer and inner--such as the, uh, tempestuous relationship between Jessica and Kyle . . . Also, something else I appreciated is the fact that the characters were mainly original, and not stereotypes.

The Additions system was all right, but the Dragoon magic really annoyed me. First of all, in order to use the right spells, you have to have the right person in your party. There is no way for Meru to use a Fire spell, or for Albert to use a Thunder spell.

Like the Materia system, you lose spells when you change Junctions and magic around. And I tend to forget who has what spell, so I go to have Rinoa cast Aura, and find out that not only did I give all of her Aura to Quistis, but Quistis isn't in my party. AAAAAAACK!

Final Fantasy VII was Square's first attempt at a Final Fantasy for the Playstation. As an RPG, as a game, I suppose one could classify it as average. But given that Final Fantasy has a history of truly extraordinary games, ''average'' is hardly a compliment.

I laughed, and even cried a little, at various points in the game. Not since Final Fantasy VI have I gotten so totally sucked into a game. This game will be within easy reach of my Playstation for a long, long time.

However, another massive mistake Square made was in the emulation of the Super Nintendo games onto the Playstation format. There's tremendous lag time between when you push a button, and when you see the results on screen. It can take up to ten seconds to get in or out of the menu screen.

If I have one major gripe with this game, it is the perspective from which you play. (Well, that and the ANNOYING little faerie who flits around being a complete airhead.) Sometimes it became difficult or impossible to really see what I was doing due to the perspective.