Bracing the cold winter break

Hey, so much has happened in between then and now. Actually, most of it started happening after my last post.
Trying to get it all in chronological order here in my head.

First I believe was New York Comicon!
First con I been to, it was pretty fun, they had many great things there, I met lots of well known people. Like the guy who does SMBC, that was fun. I got one of his t-shirts that has a dinosaur kamikaze'ing into an asteriod saying revenge. It is pretty awesome.
Although the best part about the trip, i would have to say would be the midnight escapade I had with one of my friends. I went under a school sponsored trip, and one of the students under my friend's supervision got lost. Of course, this lost student's phone died of batteries and this is almost midnight in Manhattan. This student was nowhere to be found so my friend decided to go look for the lost student. I tagged along with him because looking for someone alone in Manhattan at midnight doesn't sound like a fun idea.
This search actually ended up becoming more of an adventure as we got to meet a replica cast of jersey shore on the subway, at the subway station we also met this one guy who kept calling people country and trying to pick up chicks from across the tracks. At the end of the trip, it was 5am and then we get a call that the lost student made it back to the hotel we were staying at. Best pointless trip ever. There was also two really drugged out people later that morning on the bus talking about missing their phone. Moral of the story; don't stay at a hotel in new jersey.

Not long after that, I managed to get my hands on a copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES.
It's a jRPG game produced by Atlus. You are the silent protagonist who recently transferred to Gekoukan high school. Upon entering the city of tatsumi port island, the protagonist experiences the dark hour; an hour that exists at midnight in which all normal people are turned into coffins and all power turns off. Only people who wield the power of persona, facets of the selves that appear when one is confronted by an extraordinary situation, are not turned into coffins. Also things called Shadows appear only during the dark hour and they feed off the minds of people turning them into mindless beings incapable of doing anything. These mindless beings are called the lost and the symptoms they have are known as apathy syndrome. The source of these shadows comes from a tower called tartarus that only appears during the dark hour. The silent protagonist finds and joins up with others who also are persona users to find out the truth behind the existence of the dark hour and tartarus.
The gamplay is quite interesting since half of the game involves you managing the school life of the silent protagonist in a simulation like game while the other half is dungeon crawling. Their combat system is pretty unique in the sense that I haven't seen anything even remotely like it. Whenever you hit someone where it hurts or do a critical hit on them, it puts them into a state known as 'down', when you do, you get an extra turn. However, hitting someone in 'down' state will not give you an extra turn. Also aoe attacks don't give extra turns either. If you're down, you take a whole turn to get back up. It's a brutal game that presents it's challenges fairly well. I enjoyed this game, both gameplay wise and story wise.

Shortly after that, my three month old laptop decided that right in the middle of the semester to die on me, never to boot ever again. So that became a problem rather fast.I managed to get around it by using the hard drive in it as an external hard drive to a computer in the computer labs. Was it a pain? yes. Was it worth it? no. Never again do I want another laptop to die that hard ever again.

Meanwhile during the above mess, I managed to borrow someone's copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. A sequel to persona 3, but mostly by name. It features a brand new cast in a totally new location. The story behind it is, you're the silent protagonist who is the new transfer student to yasogami high school. However, the day you transfer there, a murder has taken place inside the small town of Inaba, the town you're staying to going to school in. The body of the victim was found hanging upside down from an antenna on someone's roof. You quest to solve the murder that has happened, to find out who did it and how did they do it. Along the way, you look for the answers to many other mysterious things that arises as you continue further to solving this mystery.
The gameplay is the same as persona 3, half simulation and half dungeon crawling. Although they improved alot of small things from 3. Which made playing a bit more easier. Also one major change they made from 3 to 4 is the battle system. Now down doesn't take a turn to get up from, but if you're hit in the weak spot or crited while down, you become dizzy which takes a whole turn to recover from. Also aoe attacks now gives extra turns if you hit them in the funny spot or perform a crit on even just one of the enemies. Still a fun game, I liked it alot. The gameplay is something I enjoy and the story is pretty epic. Although one thing I didn't like was how the final boss music wasn't as epic as the final boss music in persona 3. Oh well.

After that I picked up Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. Is there a trend? I think so. I might be going SMT for a while. I can see why they're the third most popular game series after Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest currently. Back story of this is You're a silent protagonist who is in high school in Tokyo.(Whoa not a transfer student?! I can't play this anymore!) Who one day got a call from your cousin to meet up with him in front of his apartment. You meet in front of his apartment, but your cousin isn't there, but two of your friends are. Apparently he gave one of your friends threew COMPs, DS replicas with the abilities of an iPod touch really. One of your friends is a hacking genius and boots the comps causing them to summon demons from them. Shortly after, the Yaminote Circle of Tokyo is put into a lockdown where no one can leave. There is a cult of weird orange costume people called the Shomonkai that preaches that the lockdown is an ordeal by God and we, mankind, must overcome this ordeal. The silent protagonist lives through the lockdown trying to find a way to survive.
The gameplay of this game is quite different in that it's like a tactical battle system, where each chara forms are group of that chara and two demons. But upon attacking another unit, they enter a turn based battle system that lasts one round of attacks from both sides. However, if you hit someone where it makes them cry or perform a critical, you get a status called 'extra turn', and they'll lose that status if they have it. If you have extra turn, then the battle will last one more turn and only those with extra turn can act that turn. This is a nice game with an intricate storyline in which all questions become wrapped up the more paths you complete. I enjoyed playing it and I still am playing it since I haven't completed all the paths.

And lastly to this wall of text is what happened so far this break! I punched out the lights. I stood up stretching and my fist accidentally made rough contact with the lights, shattering it, causing shards of glass to cover me. Needless to say, that hand is now a bunch of cuts. I managed to clean myself of all glass and off the floor, but I earlier yesterday I found a shard of glass in my hair. I forgot to check my hair for glass. Skillz bro. So that meant I slept with shards of glass in my hair? How did I not feel it? I guess it's because my hair is badass.
Until next time, whenever that may be.