Enter Sochen Cave

After Assassin's Creed, I have played a couple of nights again with Final Fantasy XII.

This is my first JRPG, as I haven't ever owned a PlayStation.

I bought FFXII in December 2006 with the purchase of the PS3. I have played it on and off since I bought the system.

I restarted once, when I was in the late-twenties levels or so with all the characters because I put it down for about 3 months.

My characters are approaching level 40 as I progress towards the Imperial City Archades. I enjoy this game a great deal as an old-school RPGer (Bard's Tale, Gold Boxes, anyone?). I mean, there is so much gear, so many secrets (which I haven't explored much as I am primarily on my FIRST PLAY-THROUGH AT 50+ HOURS).

Sure the plot is convoluted, its politics instead of romance in this particular iteration, from what I hear.

I think I am somewhere around half-way to two-thirds of the way through. I really have no idea, but after going through Assassin's Creed, I am looking forward to sitting down with it the evenings that I can, ding a level or two, flip the party around and repeat. Some people hate grinding, but when you go back to a previous area and are swiping once or twice at critters that were hard last week and they hit the dirt, it's pretty satisfying.

I'll probably get the Oblivion GOTY when it drops a few bucks as I already played it on PC as the original 2 years ago, but now I can see it on a BIG screen (eyes light up).