Eidolon, Esper, Persona, Pokémon, it's all the same

I've been occupying myself the last couple of weeks with Persona 3: FES. And I must say, it has been an interesting game so far. For an avid grinder like myself, the idea of being forced out of a dungeon, because your party is tired, seems a bit distracting from gameplay. But the game has so many distractions that you scarcely mind staying out of harm's way for a couple of days. You go to the movies, exercise at the gym, sell all that hard earned loot and make sure you do not miss those scripted events or you will have to load your last save game again.
Saving seems to be the only thing that has been bugging me about Persona 3. The game has 2 save points, one located in your dorm and one located just outside of your random dungeon. Usually this does not pose such a problem, but once the Full Moon events of the game get started, it can be a hassle. Last night I was playing through the third sequence and when I finally got to defeat the boss, my main got hit by a critical strike that hurt him for his HP and then some. Needless to say, I was quite p'd off, but worse yet, I had to load and go through the same set of cut scenes once more, without any option to skip them. All in all I spent an hour (including the first run) to finally kill the darn boss, and I still played the game for about two hours after that. I guess I am hooked, as I imagine it will not be the last time that such a scenario might occur, but nonetheless I will definitely keep playing this, as I am a sucker for a good RPG.

On the same front I have been steadily making progress with Final Fantasy VI Advance. The advent of some new spells and Espers made me giddy with joy. And as it stands, my party is killing Cactuars left and right to get those sorely needed AP to fill up their magic lists. After that it will be a quick trip to the Veldt and levelling in the Dinosaur Forest to abuse the stat boosts of those friendly pieces of magicite.

As if this would not keep me occupied, it just so happens that some friends and I have started our own internal Pokémon competition, so I guess I'll finally have to blow the dust off my cartridge and show those Elite Four that you should have a more balanced team than just the one type.