PixlBit

Receiving God Eater through PS+ is a ridiculously good deal.  It offers a very different experience than Monster Hunter, thanks in part to its dedicated story mode and less extreme difficulty.  Still, there is plenty of grinding to be had--if you choose to do it.  It's not as painful or as lengthy as it was in Monster Hunter, though (God Eater has far less equipment to forge), so you won't be stuck fighting the same monsters for too long.  Anyway, whenever you start playing it let me know: Perhaps we can work some Ad-hoc Party magic and play through some missions together .

That said, going through a whole month without any progress is a killer (I should know; I have plenty of experience in this department ).  It also doesn't help that you added another bundle to the backlog (which I also did this month).  But, you probably don't need me to tell you that.

Grind-heavy?  That's not exactly the words I want to be reading, especially for a game this short.  Is there anything to do in the game besides combat, like exploration?  Or is it just a constant string of fights from start to finish?  Also, do you have to fight everything, or can you run past them if you don't want to engage them (like if you're sufficiently leveled or they are just worthless fodder)?

I know exactly what you're going through.  When it comes to fighting games, I went through the same exact period.  I haven't recovered from it, either.  With no local access to competition and no desire to put up with online bouts (and sore losers), I don't think I'll ever return to the genre.  It's a shame really, because I had a lengthy history with fighting games.

As for your question, I recently had a huge falling out with turn-based (and realtime) rpgs.  It's one of the few genres that I understand too well, and I no longer enjoy the gameplay it provides.  Actually, now that I think about it, this is my second falling out with the genre.  I have a feeling I'll be parting ways with it for good this time.  As to the fine details why I'm moving away from these games, well, I'm not going to discuss that here.  My reasons will definitely upset somebody, so I'll stick to the old phrase and say nothing at all.

Wanting games and not having the money to buy them was one of my least favorite situations, too.  I do hope everything works out for you, though, and that you don't miss out on anything that will cost you more later on.  While buying games is not a top priority, it's quite disheartening to watch good deals (and sometimes a game's availability altogether) pass you by.

It's a crazy coincidence that you brought up this topic.  About a week ago I did a very lengthy and exhausting sweep through the game libraries of all the systems I own.  The reason for the sweep was to answer a question similar to yours.  I wanted to make sure that I was content with the current state of my game library, so I did one final search to confirm that.  What I discovered was that I was pretty much done buying games and that I only needed to pick up a few more.

Within my shopping list - that is only two games long now - is one Wii game: Rune Factory Frontier.  Once I pick that one up next month I'll be shifting my focus over to next generation hardware, namely the 3DS.  Rune Factory 4 is coming out soon for the system, so it's a good thing that I'm ready to move on.

As for the games you've chosen, it almost seems like cheating that you put the Legacy Collection on there .  How many games are in that again?  Seven, eight ?  At least it will keep you busy, especially if you really dig into each game.  Red Dead Redemption is another long one, too, regardless if you play online or off. 

That's what happens with remakes !  I mean, the character portraits are fine in Silver Star Harmony because they offer the least amount of discrepancy from the originals.  But, the character sprites were completely redrawn for a new audience (to mixed results).  In fact, this is the third time they've been redrawn! 

As for where the old graphics would fit in, they would have been terribly out of place amongst the redrawn backgrounds (which is why the inclusion of the older games would have been nice).  They were also incredibly tiny and would have needed to be resized to fit within the higher resolution.

At this point we can only hope for better options for the inevitable fifth release of Lunar .

I haven't played Final Fantasy V yet (which is shameful, because I've owned the GBA version since it came out), so this will be some simple speculation on my part.  You mention that game is flexible and that it allows you to get through the game with the class combinations you like.  I wonder if the game's difficulty was purposely kept on the low side to accommodate that.  I know FFII was like that, because the developers had no clue how your characters would be developed at any given point.  As for FFV, I suppose if the game were harder everyone would stick with the tried-and-true options, which would render many of the other options useless.

Any RPG that makes use of a realtime battle system, especially one where you have more than one character on your team, requires careful balancing.  If a game doesn't offer absolute control over your AI partners, you're essentially penalized for mistakes that are not yours.  Level 5 should have created a different system for the AI partners to compensate for their lack of brains.  They should have been given a cool down system for their spells instead of MP, as well as an auto-revive that kicks in a few seconds after they've fallen in battle.

Or, they could have made the game fully turn-based and avoided a great deal of trouble.

So, uh, where does Gust fit into that little Ar tonelico 2 equation ?  I mean, without Gust there would be no Ar tonelico (or Atelier series or Mana Khemia).  By the way, are you aware of the game crushing glitch in Ar tonelico 2?  It shows up near the end of the game, during a boss battle, and it requires the deployment of one of two methods to avoid it.  One has you overleveling your characters to demolish the boss, while the other has you exploiting a different glitch (I'm not going to mention it because it could ruin your playthrough) to power through the fight.