This only half counts as "until I reach store shelves, no return". Internet shelves and all isn't exactly Walmart. Therefore, I am not returning to blogging just yet! This here is my Dragon album: "Code of the Dragon". It's $11, has 40 tracks, and looks ~nice~. All sales will go to help my family, so if you have the change, it'd be nice. :"3

Sample

Where to Purchase

So we're finally here. The last blog I make until I create a form of media worthy of hitting shelves. But we all know we're talking years here. I made a thank you blog already, but it must be said that for everyone reading this, I am truly grateful to you all for showing support one way or the other. It's not often a blog brings many amazing individuals together as well as them communicating with each other like a mini-forum. So thank you for all the support and for all the knowledge and wisdom a lot of you taught me throughout my blogging experience here. As promised, this blog is a graduation blog that won't be long.

From here on out, blog tricks, bansythes, banjudges, and long blogs from Symphonycometh are finally over. The only reason this blog is here today is to officially allow you to spam this blog with whatever. As my farewell gift to you all. Seeing that I can't set up a party for all of you throuhout the world. Though naturally, since I love music, if you all have amazing/beautiful songs to share, feel free to link them prior to your comments. Thanks Hazelnutman, for the idea!

Farewell Song (Massive spoilers in the comments in this link)

Just as promised, we're reaching the 10th and final blog to my countdown, ending my entire series of blogs. This one being number #9. And instead of being nice and saving the good stuff for the final blog, I'm going to throw just about all of it down here in this blog. Because the last blog will serve as a "graduation" of sorts where you don't have to read much of anything besides knowing you're done with me, I'm going to make sure all the ones who stuck by me all this time enjoys their reads on this blog instead.

As usual I'd like to thank everyone here who had pretty much endured my opinions, which by now, everyone reading this has disagreed with me about something. As you all can tell from my overall decrease of comments, I've lost quite a bit of readers, so it's genuinely appreciated for those who have stuck by. From over 50 to a humble 12-20 readers/commenters in fact. No doubt every last one of us have things to do, and more so, better things to do than to read long blogs that are usually read out of gesture of kindness than anything else. And yet you all stuck by. Some of you for years.

Of course, I am one of those who believe in giving special shoutouts, so I'll be making several brief ones here. Special thanks to Hazelnutman. Clearly a quality blogger and commenter himself, it's always great hearing his own opinions. It makes my blog look good. =p I'll be looking forward to keeping track of his blogs for as long as I can. TTDog for just about always being more than willing to stand up against my opinions. He's missed very very very few blogs and considering I've been blogging for years, it's something I am forever grateful for. I'll be keeping track of his blogs as well. Someone over there needs to continually argue with him on his blogs. lol

Misfit, wherever you are, you've been awesome over the years and it was always great seeing your rants. Seeing you haven't blogged in forever, you probably won't see this, but thanks anyhows. The Tombo, dude, you've been here since nearly the beginning as well, haven't you? Special thanks for sticking around. Your unique attitude is much appreciated. lol Orlandun, we just had several moments of getting along, haven't we? I'll be missing that. So you better make more blogs for me to keep up with. =p And Soldjango. Dudeman, we need to get back to storywriting soon. That is, as soon as school stops sucking the life out of us all. I expect you to blog often, so I can spa-I mean inform you on such updates. lol And quite naturally, Tomas_Crown. Didn't think I'd forget someone so staple to my series of blogs, did you? :P We've always argued or agreed strongly with one another and it's great to know that regardless of what is said, the next conversation is fresh. I'll be keeping track of you. :P

Flip, now that I think about it, I have quite a few shoutouts. lol

N-Real, John_Connor, 1NoteShort, Colmillios, Sokol4ever, Ejstrup, Game_Masta, KH-MixerX, Raahjnaav (loltypo), Raven_Squad, david_lck and Sciantix. You all came in a bit later from the original cast of blogging characters. (Unless Thomas, TTDog, Tombo, Soldjango, Orlandun, Misfit, and Hazelnutman tells me otherwise. lol) But you've all pretty much stuck with me from your initial comment to now. Which is still quite a while. And for the most part, you all have stayed with me and provided excellent flavors to my blogs.

I'm certain when I started blogging, I wouldn't have done so many if I had kept getting a maximum of 5 comments, some from myself. But thanks to you all, I went from 5 comments to over 80 and back down to at least 15, depending on the topic. I owe not only all the original cast, but the new commenters that helped me end the final set of blogs. Some of you had amazing entry comments and others...well...it was apparent you skimmed. Regardless, I'll be trying to keep track of every new commenter that gave me a (real) time of day and support their blogs. As a token of thanks.

To keep the blog happy, I won't call out anyone that I think is a heavy skimmer of my blogs, but from here, I think it's time to finally say my closing statements:

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to support me and remind us all that Gamespot isn't filled with trolling idiots. It's been fun reading every last comment and answering most of your comments. Some of you will miss my blogs, and some of you will be relieved that I'm no longer creating huge rants after this blog. As for if I'll ever make any new blogs after #10 is released, I wouldn't count on it unless I have huge news to reveal about myself. Like I'm in charge of making a dream PS3 game or something. My Media works such as musical compositions, novels, and my RPGs will be on my alternative account, ProjectTrinity. I'll be updating that far more often now that I don't have to take care of blogging and tidying here. Contacting me off this site is possible. symphonyiscoming@yahoo.com is my email and instant messenger for right now. I'll add/respond to anyone as soon as possible.

And I think that's everything. This is my last long blog. Congrats everyone! You got through it! Next blog, we celebrate! Ideas are welcome. :P

If you unintentionally missed #3 or #2 and don't mind the spoilers on the last two animes listed on those blogs, pleaes hop to those! If you didn't read it, lets just hope your past resume with me is shiny. (Or at least I know you didn't read it because of spoilers)

This can cover TV shows or video games. So make sure if you've been meaning to watch or play said title, skip this blog in its entirety so you don't get spoilers. Pictures are being included.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4: 50 Hours of Gameplay

Yes, a video game topped all of my anime experiences. Though having 50 hours, it's hardly a thing to blame. This emotional blow took place as the game's single biggest twist of events. To be honest, it would be hard to explain exactly how and why this has had such a huge impact on me, but I'll try and do the game justice anyways. Especially since I'm sure some of you thought it would be Final Fantasy X or Shadows of the Colossus. =p

Unless you include the Persona series, you're probably going to be inclined to think that there is always a whiney little kid and a crappy annoying mascot. That's not my fault, because by now, you should know Persona scoffs at being too cliche. Right off the bat really, you notice the youngest character, Nanako Dojima (Pictured above) is questionably the most mature character in the game. And the mascot known as Teddy is quite literally the best mascot character in a JRPG yet. Hence his huge fanbase. Anyways, you meet Nanako after about 5 minutes into the game. Not even an hour from your first meet with her, you learn that she's very humble, modest, accepting, and a very good daughter to your uncle, which who you'll be staying with for a year.

Every day you come home from school, dates, training, ect, Nanako will welcome you home. The plot quickly reveals that she's usually home by herself since her father is always out working and she's taking it almost too well. And being honest here, it's like this almost all year. Now, the point of this JRPG is to figure out who's been throwing people into an alternative world and killing said people. (Transfer method is a TV.) As a main character, you too can go into the alternative world and try and save them before they die. The police, which Nanako's father works for, can't do a thing since the bodies found have not a lick of evidence. But since you and your party can walk around the alternative world and gather clues on your own, it's pretty much up to Scooby-doo - I mean you and your gang of awesome characters to solve the mystery on your own.

45 Hours of gathering clues, and a lot of heart warming moments with Nanako passed by. (45 Hours, duh! xD) The moment you find enough clues to figure out where the kidnapper will strike next, it's literally minutes too late. Nanako is kidnapped.

Naturally, Nanako's father chased behind the kidnapper's van where he placed Nanako in. One anime chase scene later, and the van makes a horrible crash. Big heart scare. It's almost a good thing that the kidnapper had already thrown her into the TV into the alternative world before the crash. (Something the game was more than willing to neglect telling you until the moment of truth.) And if your party doesn't go in there after her, she is pretty much scheduled to die just like everyone else who stays in that world too long.

So we went ahead as a party and went inside the TV in order to save her, and we managed to eventually get her out after a plot boss fight. The cost of her going into the TV world however put too much of a strain on her body. (Long story. Play the bloody game) She had to be hospitalized along with her father (He crashed his car chasing the kidnapper) and for around a month, you had to live all by yourself for the first time in 50 hours. And every day, the silence reminded you that you almost lost the best little girl character in the history of gaming. (Debate it!) Anyways, ignore my comment on the comment section saying that there's a trick comment. There isn't. That in itself was the trick. Persona 4 snailed along and every day you wished to check on Nanako, she remained in critical condition. It was one shopping day in an attempt to cheer each other up that things took a turn for the worst.

A phone call bought the party to the hospital and Nanako's health suddenly became worse. Hearing her in the hospital having difficulties even breathing seemed to tear at mine, and thousands of others' hearts. As the party was taken out of Nanako's hospital room, the party gradually became irritated at how helpless they were. That's when Johnny Young Bosch, aka Adachi told everyone that the kidnapper the party spent 50 freaking hours to catch will most likely be able to walk free. Lack of evidence. After all, even in that world, the thought of alternative worlds and throwing people into TVs seemed silly and unrealistic. So, our kidnapper will walk free right after he's feeling better from the boss battle we beat him in. Forget the fact he kidnapped Nanako and put her into that condition.

A nurse quickly came to the main character after busting out of Nanako's room and begged him to go see Nanako right after Adachi told us the bad news. It was then every player pretty much had to helplessly listen to Nanako say a few words in utter and complete pain, and even with your ability to pick your responses, it didn't make us feel any more influential or good. You pretty much just felt like trash watching someone so young, desperately trying to live. And without even bothering trying to make us feel any better, Nanako flat-lined in the hospital. With her father coming into the room right after.

Linky to vid

As for the reason this was actually the biggest blow to me. It doesn't stop there. The story leads you to the kidnapper's room, where you and the party are conveniently there with a mighty big TV. What you have with you right now are your clues from playing the game for 50 hours, your theories, and your own emotions from what just happened to Nanako. One of your party members, Yosuke, seems to represent your feelings perfectly. The kidnapper just caused Nanako to die, and he's about to get off on murder charges. You're given the choice to throw him inside the TV and kill him yourself the same way others have died, leave him alone, or think that something is "off" about the entire thing. And it's not easy either. Branch upon branch, you have several branching combinations on how things could go terribly wrong. To top things off, the television randomly turned itself on and had an image of the kidnapper basically bragging that he was going to get away with what he did and pretty much dared you to do something about it.

And in my eyes, all I saw was that the guy we were searching for 50 hours was caught, killed my favorite character in the franchise, and was about to walk free. So, I threw him in the TV, not even seriously considering that not everything matched up. Therefore, I killed him. I think you all know that I usually am against murder and/or killing innocent people. But I was so angry that the possibility that he was innocent didn't strike my mind until I calmed down and loaded up the game again after receiving the bad ending. Comes out, after figuring out that something was off, the kidnapper was set up....very elaborately. And my emotions were completely tooled in sake of great plot. I bet your favorite RPG doesn't do that. =p

The whole complex setup of using your own emotions to further a plot of mystery is brand spanking new to the genre and it's an embarrassing shame that some really do not want to try the game out. Or more to the point, JRPG fans that don't want to try this game out. But hey, that's one more thing I have experienced that they themselves hinder themselves on. With that said, here ends my series of emotional blows. 'Till next time!

If you missed my previous blog which had #3, hop to it if you would. There are still 150 friends on my tracked list out of 250 that haven't been bansythed. Judging by how much blogs are flooding down the blogs of friends who actually take the time to read and respond to my blogs, I think I need to do some bansything. Think it not as a punishment, but as a means for me to see more of my supportive friend's blogs. Which is more than fair. On to number 2!

This can cover TV shows or video games. So make sure if you've been meaning to watch or play said title, skip this blog in its entirety so you don't get spoilers. Pictures are being included.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Episode 7, "Night of the Chimera's Cry"

At this point, it should be painfully obvious that I have a vital weakspot for little kids and baby girls. Meet Nina and Alexander. Nina is the girl, obviously, and Alexander is the dog.

Meet Nina's father, Shou Tucker. The main characters Edward and Alphonse stayed at his house with his daughter and dog in order to study for the exams to enter the military. Shou Tucker was a loving father and for the most part, a supportive mentor to Edward and Alphonse. Now, as some of you know, Fullmetal Alchemist is all about Alchemy and relationships. Shou Tucker ended up taking care of Nina all by himself since he claimed his wife moved away and left him because he was borderline poor. He even added that the irony of it was that the very next day, the state issued him an amazing home and budget. All because he was the first person to ever make a Chimera that speaks English. (Chimeras are beasts that are two or more creatures combined into one.) Sadly, the chimera shortly died before Edward and Al could see it.

As it turned out though, the state was threatening the man that if he couldn't do something that would allow him to stay in the military, he'd be poor again. When his daughter saw him in distress, he ended up hugging her tightly and telling her he's at the end of his line. Now you're all probably asking me: "What's the point with all this information?"

Near the end of the episode, Edward was kicked out of Shou's home by the military for snooping around for private documents. So when night struck, he broke into Shou Tucker's home and found a hidden basement where he found several caged chimeras growling. Shou Tucker was there, practically bragging that he'd finally managed to create another talking chimera. One he was sure wouldn't die. He introduced the two characters to his newest creation:

This was the chimera Tucker created. You know, there's only one way a chimera could possibly know/learn the human tongue from the getgo...

Link: For those who either didn't connect the dots or for those who wanted to know exactly how things went down from Ed finding the mentioned Chimera to the outcome.

This can cover TV shows or video games. So make sure if you've been meaning to watch or play said title, skip this blog so you don't get spoilers.

Gunslinger Girl, Episode 10: Season I

A backstory is in order. Most of you are probably like "Gunslinger Girl? Lots of hot chicks?" But in short, no. The show isn't about girls looking hot with guns. It's an anime with an interesting premise: "Little girls brainwashed to kill". Each of these girls have been assigned an older brother (Fratello) or "Handler". And I mean mid-twenties-early forties older brothers. Each girl has been "conditioned" to love and value their handler to an incredible degree. Since they're considered tools for the most part, each handler is free to treat them however they deem fit. And of course, we have variations of how each relationship is. And those relationships, are the prime focus of this anime.

Meet Elsa. Another girl who had been conditioned to kill and conditioned to love her Handler unconditonally. The episode before this, episode 9, revealed that her handler considered her "a cool toy, but nothing else". And he treats her as such. The only thing she has from him is a picture he took of the inside of his car where the rearview window showed a part of his face. She seemed mainly accepting of her role in life, but when she met the main character, Henrietta, and her handler, Jose, things changed.

The two above accidently revealed to Elsa that Handlers/Brothers and sisters were more than capable of sharing mutual love for each other. Jose and Henrietta are the closest out of all the other sister/brother relationship. After a while, you can even get the slight hint that Henrietta is getting more and more spoiled. When both pairs of siblings see each other, they decide to work together to take out a corrupt police chief the next day.

As Elsa began to try and get some affection from her chosen handler, she ended up only making him uncomfortable. Blasting his music specifically after he saw she was emotionally down. When time came to take down the police chief I mentioned earlier, Jose helped out Henrietta with her sniper rifle at the top of an abandoned church. This was all Elsa needed to see before she started slipping up.

Elsa lost focus and ended up upsetting her brother. She doubled her own emotional heartache when her Fratello snapped at her and told her she didn't even have her safety (thingy? xD) off. Regardless of Elsa's plea to please him, he had Jose take over Elsa's sniper job on the spot and Jose/Henrietta ended up taking down the police chief with two headshots. At the end of such a confusingly sad event (considering what they're doing!), Elsa's brother called her useless and walked away from her. Not caring how completely devastated she was.

Now, Elsa was only really a character in 1 episode. Not because the anime was in a rush to compare relationships, but because the very next episode after that, it starts off with Elsa dead, along with her handler. Killed in the exact spot Elsa received her name from him.

After the anime tears your heart with almost a minute of just watching Elsa's lifeless body to with a tear-jerking song to match, it is revealed at the end of the episode...that Elsa wasn't murdered. She realized that no matter how much she loved her brother, he would never love her back...so she shot him in the back of the head, and then killed herself by shooting herself in the eye. The lives of the handlers are everything to these girls. Elsa was no exception.

Disclaimer: Unless somewhere in your gamer heart you feel the dire need to empathize with the happenings of my life, then I'm not expecting to receive any. (Aka, I probably don't want any. =p) After all, I'm only posting this blog since I told you all I would. If I'm lucky, some may catch why I am the way I am today.

More or less, I was born 20 years ago on December 5th, 1989. My mother cemented a cool name onto me: "Johnathan Johnson". I was raised on heavy love from my mother and loads of endurance love from my father. Since as long as I could remember, my dad always found the smallest things to yell at me about. Often, meaning almost every day, my father would punish me by making me do 20-100 push ups and then 20 sit ups, depending on his mood or my deeds.

This doesn't sound too bad, actually. However, as life would have it, it can't leave things as simple as that. Have you ever been in a pushup position for over 45 minutes? On the stairs/bathroom sink/what has you? At a fairly young age? This was common fair as well for me. And the justification would often be because I didn't clean up to his standards. Or rather, I couldn't clean up to his standards. (Army guy) I guess in the end he helped build my body into one that can take some serious abuse. So it works out in a way. Anyway, this is pretty much my life from years 1-9.

As you all should pretty much guess, my dad finally left everyone when I turned 9/10. But he left us in a financially critical condition that I was still too ignorant to grasp the scope of. On top of that, he left right during my mother's pregnancy with my youngest sister. This was no doubt the beginning of the death of my blissful world, where the only thing "bad" was my father's treatment towards me at times.

In four year's time, I learned that some children act evil, people don't want to help you if you don't have money, people expect others to randomly be able to come up with cash when they're in serious trouble, my father was living nice and healthy, even got himself all the latest toys and gadgets like an expensive car, and, that people tend to make up logic or realities and use it to argue with. And because they have power, they had the final say and what is "truth". Ah, justice and court.

When things got better, just about three years later, I went from cheerful, ignorant and confident, to observant, quiet, and cold. Right around the time I initially signed up for Gamespot. That being said, I think you all remember how I unapologetically used to slam people for whatever I deemed to be a stupid post. I'm not even quite sure why TTDog gave me a glance. He was one of the people I tried to slam. Anyone noticing something important? Not once have I mentioned women and relationships!

I, for the most part, considered that a far away world where only pain and stupidity awaited me if I tried to enter a relationship. After all, during the time, I had no real social skills back then. Leave it to a lovely Mexican to slip through my barriers. xD Right when it happened, I made a noticable change with my posting. Some of you remember me being overall more patient with idiots who tried to troll me and more understandable towards arguments bought to me. That, was because of her. So feel free to blame her. =p We're close friends, Andrea and I, but until some drama in my life is fixed first, I won't be going out with her again, or anyone else for that matter.

A lovely Filipina woman that also found a way to get close to me made a 180 on me. Like, she has changed darastically. 0_o In short: Her and I were nicknamed "Mirrors" for being so close to each other as well as having the same logic/thoughts. But now she's trying to spin the tale that apparently I have the ability to lead an entire group of people into betraying her, as well as staging events in her life (?) to destroy her life. And somehow succeeded. Therefore, by this tested and true logic for which I am accused, she now believes (so she says) that I'm out to destroy her life and I'm pretty much, evil. You can imagine my complete and utter pain I went through when she VASTLY preferred to believe that than to just talk it out. Logical woman is logical. Needless to say, I was, and still am, in no mood, to hear anything else illogical or slander on my name right now.

Speaking on the matter, I've been screwed over by family logic and woman-logic alike. In the end, it was all justified under "It's my opinion, and since you're you, you better deal with it because it's the absolute truth.". I've grown tired of it. Justifying stupidity or ignorance under "opinions". The whole disrespecting me as a human being just because I don't abide the script known as life. And worst yet, it's contradicting to their own logic! "Just because" doesn't cut it for me.

And finally, the side Gamespot simply doesn't see about me, since it would be deemed off topic. =p My personality outside of arguments and/or enduring faulty-logic is actually a pretty emotional one. I cringe at the very concept that someone may genuinely hate me after getting to know me, I hate being lied on, and I actually hate hurting people's feelings. Even if the person wrongs me, I rather not go overkill and milk pain out of them for all it's worth. Some say I don't like some of the members here, but I'm being honest when I say the quickest way to find out how wrong you are is to hurt someone I care for. I've lost absolutely no sleep behind Gamespot or its members. Even those who blindly call me an ignorant child for going against the unspoken laws of Gamespot. (Thou shall not dislike generic games, apparently.) Needless to say, It's very easy to annoy me, hard to anger me, but you're pretty special if you have hurt me.

That covers everything I think! =D You all know I'm a music fanatic that believes people need to keep an open mind for all things, all genres, or at least admit they're narrow-minded in a said area. (ANIME) Stay tuned next time for my top three most emotional experiences in gaming. Expect spoilers, sirs and ladies!

Symphonycometh is bought to you by: Life Lessons! Live and Learn! More Gaming News, after the break!

Can anyone here say that they do not get annoyed and/or angry whenever someone not only goes against your opinion, but they make it a point to belittle you because of it? I'm not talking about my method, which consists of me attacking your opinion's foundation and pointing out it's contradiction... if you get angry at that, that's probably just you fearing that I may be right. The type of thing I'm talking about is someone truly looking down at you as a human being. If anyone can say that it doesn't bother them at all when someone does that, I have a television I'd love to throw you in. Because quite frankly, I don't believe that.

Looking down on someone is a fundamental flaw, regardless of who they are. I may blatantly look down on your opinion(s) for whatever well-backed reason, but unlike some, I completely separate your opinion from how you treat me outside of arguments/debates. In other words, your personality alone is what I go by. There are some that either take debates too far and avoid you or they give off "signs" that they think you're unworthy to speak to. These types of people are a huge irritation to me. It doesn't matter what ****you are, how much money you have, what type of gamer you are, or even how extreme your opinions are. You don't compare or treat that individual like dirt because of differences. By that logic, we could essentially flip the situation around, and if that individual hates the feeling, he's a walking contradiction and we all should know how much I hate blind contradictions. If I ever find someone looking down on me or my friends, I will not leave the situation unscathed for that person.

Another thing that angers...well...annoys most of us (with good friends), would be keeping vital pieces of information from each other. The real reason good friendships die is because people have the tendency to take the coward's way out and not communicate what their problem is with said friend. That's right, I went there.

As someone who has taken many blows from situations where friends would keep their animosity for me tucked in their hearts, I do not appreciate the concept of keeping things inside of you like that. It is perhaps the reason why I am dubbed "loud" online and "honest" in real life. I don't like to keep grudges, and I don't like people keeping them on me. Something that could easily be fixed just by explaining what's wrong and working it out becomes to complex to ever save the relationship. If you're one of those people who are holding grudges instead of working/fighting them out, then I am sorry but:

You do not have the right to ignore/hurt/insult the other person if they don't know why you're doing so.

Don't you see, by you not simply talking, you yourself make the situation worse. And if you value that friendship, I would hope you would want that friendship to be the best that it can be. And keeping crap in is certainly not the pathway to do that. Especially if you're going to be a jerk about it. In fact, I could easily go as far as to say that you yourself are on equal footing as the person you're holding a grudge against. Sure that person did something that angered/annoyed you to the point you can't treat him/her with the same kindness you give others, but, if you too are now providing tension in the relationship, explain to me how you're any better in any sort of way? I've lost so many friends and so many potentially great friendships and it stings. Horribly. Almost as much as anyone who doesn't put an asterisk on their post so I know they didn't skim through my blog. And yes, I apologize beforehand for those who feel annoyed at me putting tricks on my blog, but hey, I would like to know who's skimming and who's not. In any case, I can assure you that if you have a problem with a friend and don't fix it, it WILL get worse and that bond will most likely shatter during the worst time. Just talk to that person. Especially if it's me (of course!). If that person values you as a friend, they'll try and work it out. And that my friends, is the first and only "nice" rant you'll receive from me. :D

And now, back to Symphonycometh's regular programming... Games.

If you missed the last 4 bosses, shame on you. I'm not even going to link it for you it's so shameful. Anyways, number one is coming right up since everyone is apparently done with the other blog. One last warning, if I think you didn't read all of this, don't even comment. It's better that way. Seriously. Otherwise, you'll just annoy me and I won't count it as you actually making a comment. This boss fight clearly didn't have to be entirely original, or even be the most engaging battle ever, BUT, there is one thing gamers can't control, and that is simply their emotions when fighting bosses, and by far, THIS boss tops all of them. The moment you see the game's title and you don't want any spoilers on it, avoid it because the battle and part of the ending of the game WILL be spoiled for you.

"The moment man devoured the fruit of knowledge, he sealed his fate. Entrusting his future to the cards, man clings to a dim hope. Yes. The arcana is the means by which all is revealed..."

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3: FES~ Nyx's Avatar

The first and only JRPG to make it to the list. And with good reason. Any reasonable and self respecting Persona 3 survivor (yes, survivor) that played this game without a use of a guide or forewarning...and actually made it to Nyx's Avatar did NOT survive the first time around. Those that want to "claim" they did can either feel happy up there all alone in that or they're some childish liars. The Representative of Nyx is practically your bragging rights to the genre these days. Without having beaten him, crying about other final bosses this gen or last seem pretty insignificant. And here's why:

You spend about 70 hours getting to the top of Tartarus. Around 40-50 in training, and 20 in storyline. With that many hours of training, you can bet that your level is higher than normal JRPGs before you enter into a final boss fight. I was level 65 or so when I came to fight Nyx that day. It was a Full Moon. I was full of confidence because every boss before him...sucked. And every Full Moon boss sucks pretty much in Persona 3, right? That's what I told myself while I tried to control my heart/exitement from actually reaching the very peak of the 264 floors known as Tartarus. Our Death Angel came down and basically beat it down my throat that there was no way we could beat him because he was death itself. Just by listening to him, you knew he wasn't going to destroy the world out of malice or anything. He was just trying to do his job as the Harbinger of Nyx (Death). With one semi-final warning to step down and accept death, Nyx's avatar braces himself for combat and we're off into the final battle of Persona 3.

Okay, easy enough so far. One of the best final boss songs to die to started up and the final boss wasn't attacking. I figured Persona 3 had finally gone easy on me. In fact, the boss didn't attack at all...no matter how many turns passed. He would only smile arrogantly. And it about a few moves, his HP was taken down. Anyone could tell he wasn't done. He then starts to actually give a short life lesson. About 10 seconds long, but the best 10 seconds a short lesson I could ever receive from a game. From there, he does something odd. He "switches Arcana" and all the sudden he gains the ability to both attack AND attack twice in one turn. And of course the Arcana switch gives him full HP. Not too bad, he's hurting baby damage to my party, so who cares? We took that bar of HP out and that was that. His 2nd life was gone. He changes Arcana again. Okay, I can expect that. It was too easy.

He can still attack twice and now he hurts a bit more. Kills a party member or two every once in a while. Got it. Still kicked his HP down after a few turns. He changes Arcana again. Okay, now I'm starting to question if his 4th form was the final one. Not only was he doing enough damage to take us down if we wern't careful, but he was still getting 2 attacks per turn. (Bare in mind that if the Main character dies, it is game over.) I was still smiling arrogantly at the battle, thinking this Final Boss was a complete let down...expecting him to officially drop at any time...

4th Arcana is taken down...

5th Arcana is taken down...

6th Arcana is taken down...

At this point, I'm worried that Nyx is screwing with me and when exactly his HP will stay at 0. I took him out 6 times and he keeps acting like we're doing absolutely nothing to his true HP because he surely doesn't make the players feel better by at least acting dead. He stays standing and barely flinching as you give it your all. I'm also worried that I'm doing something wrong...or the hard way...like there's an easy way to beat him. (Zombie meet Phoenix down) Luckily, that wasn't the case. Nyx began using status effects and even death attacks at this point and God forbid you didn't pack some sort of immunity to death...you'd die and it was all game over. And no one wants to die to Nyx after fighting him for half an hour, trying to knock his forms down. I had Throne, so I was immune to death attacks anyways. Heh.

7th Arcana is taken down...

8th Arcana is taken down...

Symphony is taken down....

See, on his 9th form, he not only has an obvious attack/defense raise, but everyone who knows Persona 3 knows that sometimes crap happens. For example, when fighting him the first time, he raised everyone's critical rate up and slashed me specifically. I fell down, so that gave him a bloody 3rd turn based on Persona 3's battle system. 3 turns with Nyx is NOT something you want to have at this point. And you know what? That third turn killed my main character with Nyx's lovable Almighty attack. Which is annoying. That attack is so far off from Almighty and to die to it is pathetic.

Several days of gamer frustrations pass...

I tried again. Died at Nyx's 6th form this time. Annoying. Tried another day after leveling up 2 or 3 times. (In this game, one level up makes all the difference.) And finally, the 9th Arcana is taken down...

By now, I'm realizing that my HP/SP/Items are taking real hits to this boss whose stats just keep on growing every time his gets his HP back. If Nyx didn't leave his HP at 0 soon, I was going to die of natural causes. His other forms I had just BARELY lived through...truly...barely.

10th Arcana is taken down...

11th Arcana is taken down...

12th Arcana is taken down...

And then it came, Nyx finally said something different. Unlucky number XIII revealed his final Arcana. Or in easier terms, Death. His 13th form. That's right, he has a total 13 bars of HP to take down from start of the battle to the end. That can be argued as 13 boss fights without stopping to heal or anything! I was finally happy though. That after about an hour, he reveals his true Arcana and I can actually end this battle. With my confidence that this battle DOES have an ending, I offhandedly did the first strike...and to my horror... his HP didn't even really flinch! Not only did his HP feel like it was tripled from his 12th form, but his defense had to have almost tripled as well. Everything we hit him with hurt 1/3 of our usual damage and Nyx surely wasn't taking it easy with his final Arcana. Bringing his HP down even 1/10th of the way was a boss fight in itself. However, when his HP reaches around 85%, I guess he takes that as a slight threat and decides to introduce the players to a brand new attack. Moonless Gown is what it was called. Basically, if you try to do the slightest physical/magic attack in any sort of variation, 500 of your HP was going down via amplified reflected attack. And of course Nyx didn't feel a single bit of pain. Even at level 99, you're sure to die if you attack him twice, so you can imagine what that would do to a party at a much lower level. There's no way to dispel the attack, you only have to endure it while he attacks you until he lifts the Moonlight Gown on his 3rd turn. (6 attacks.) However, my party were set to go AFTER Nyx used Moonless Gown...so all 3/4 party members dropped dead. And how many important fights have YOU won with one member surviving that was dependant on the other players? That's right, I lost to then and there and refused to touch the game in days. I believe it was even two weeks. That's far more difficulty than I was ever used to in my JRPGs.

Eventually, I tried again after leveling up a bit. I made it to the 13th form easier...sort of, and even survived his frequent Moonless Gown attacks. We took him down to his 30% HP range and I was feeling confident again. After all, how many final bosses had a secret move on top of a secret move, right? Right?!!! And then he used it...the infamous Night Queen!

"Let us finish this! It is the path of your choosing!"

He finally seemed to be getting annoyed at standing around taking 13 rounds of beatdowns. So he handled me...and handled me well. Night Queen will either kill your party or at least make your party just about dead. But of course that couldn't be it. He inflicts status ailments on your party...and quite naturally, one of the status ailments can make you heal your enemies. One of my party members became inflicted with THAT specific ailment and cured Nyx 100% of his health. (6000 HP) Now if I'm only doing 50-100 damage and fighting nearly on empty, and I cure Nyx 100%???? You can bet that I simply gave up. I stared at the screen in pure disbelief and knew that my little Throne and Surt couldn't take on Nyx at our state. We had no items and our SP was about out. We lost. And with nothing to show for it. I had everyone attack Nyx until we died. There was truly nothing I could do at that point after fighting the beast for an hour.

A few more days pass and for some reason, the music of the boss fight compelled me to turn the darn PS3 on and try it again. This time I beat him...only because he didn't charm anyone this time. At level 77, we scrapped by and took the fool down! The moment he finally kneeled down and made a humble grunt of defeat, that was the closest I was ever was to screaming out in sheer victory. Humor enough, after the battle, Nyx's Avatar got back up. He might as well just have dusted himself off as if everything we did was nothing short of throwing dust on him. The anime scenes that followed after... cleanly represented the hardships and determination I felt during my 77 hours of play (yep). Heh, they represented the hardships and trials of the Nyx Avatar battle alone! It's worth a look for those who have no interest in the game because it had the nerves to be on a PS2.Whoever used that cheap Armegeddon move to take down Nyx is being cheap and cheating themselves out of a great experience, by the way.

Never before has a boss presented me with a challenge that frustrated me to the point where beating it will prove to myself that I can beat him as well as feel a true sense of accomplishment. Those that don't agree with number one, please bare with me and understand that Nyx is the only boss that actually put up such a fight. It's a true pity that on the 2nd playthrough, they didn't up Nyx's difficulty. I would love to have that sort of challenge again sometime in my gaming life, and let me tell you, regardless of how unique the other fights were in comparison, accomplishment that high is something none of the games can accomplish gameplay wise to me. Nyx and Persona 3, congrats on making it to number one! Nyx, congrats on having perhaps the biggest sword in gaming! And there's my top 5 Boss Fights everyone! :D

If you missed numbers 4 and 5, that's fine, just don't go whining about how I somehow "missed" your blog. K/tnx. (Okay? Thanks.) For everyone else, we have the next two bosses lined up and ready. But believe me, picking something for number 2 was a heart-tear. Anyways, if you recognize the game title, but don't want to hear spoilers on said title, stop reading ASAP.

#3: Metal Gear Solid 4~ Old Snake Versus Liquid Ocelot

Once you're fighting your brother, you once again get to see exactly why the PS3 is no longer a graphical joke. You also can't help but feel the need to say "I want to see the 360 do this!" And with good reason! Quality that is far too close to CG and far too good to just "download". It has to seen in HD, in real-time, and not on your computer. You miss what PS3 owners are talking about if you do that. Period. Anyways, the graphical presentation was a grand bonus of course, but the real meat of the matter is that you're bought into the battle under the most dramatic (good) music and fight scene this generation has seen thus far, but apparently Kojima didn't want to end the "epic" feel of the fight just because the player took control. Oh no. It's far more than just randomly mashing buttons to hit Liquid. Forcing the player to master a near new control scheme on the fly had its rewards as every "good" hit you landed on Liquid naturally turned into a 1-2 second camera change, again showing off that the graphics were all real-time, and continued the fight as if you were kinda/sorta directing the very last battle yourself...again...kinda/sorta.

You could still die and only those youtube-MGS4-fanboys could perfect that battle. And lets not forget that Symphony loves when he can figure things out himself...and that's exactly what I did when I noticed the camera angle took a final change for you and Liquid to exchange final blows. It LOOKED like a cutscene, camera angle and all, but it wasn't! The boss fight was still on and just like The Boss battle from MGS3, you had to finish the fight after learning that you still control Snake's hands. In my entire gaming life, THAT, has never been done before, and quite frankly, if anyone mastered what was done here for an entirely different game, it would have my support. What kept this game from being number 2 or 1? Well, let's just say that you don't ruin my gaming experience by having QUICK TIME EVENTS during such a great fight! It ruins everything I just said!

#2: Shadow of the Colossus~ Delta Phoenix "Avion"

Most of you HAD to have know Shadows of the Colossus had to be somewhere on here, right? The big question was, which of the 16 Colossi was I going to pick from?

If you're wondering how an oversized bird actually beat out "TEH GREAT LIQUID", let me tell you. Both fights were unique to me, but come on... in terms of originality, SotC has it beat. From the moment I walked into Avion's lair and saw the beast, my heart instantly started beating in amazing fear. "How am I going to take out a flier"? I told myself. Up until I saw it, all of the bosses were slow and grounded somehow. Out of confidence of being surrounded by a cage, I shot an arrow at the beast and gave it an arrogant smile....before it flew near me and simply used its wings to blow a gust of wind at me. I flew off into the lake and started panicking. That thing was flying around and angry that I threw an arrow at it and I was blindly swimming -1mph, hoping to find some type of ground nearby. To my happiness, I found the famous square patch found floating on the water and climbed up it. After hitting the thing with my feeble arrows once more, I noticed that this time, it was aiming to tackle me down with it's entire body this time. I was too panicked to actually "look" at Avion. I actually jumped back in the water several times before my mind actually picked up that it had grass growing on it's wing...meaning it was climbable. I just had to jump at the right time...and in the right place. Naturally, I missed my chances several times, but man! What a heart-jumper that was to actually clench on to it's wing. And the moment I grabbed on, I knew I was going to remember this boss battle for a long...long time.

The new music played, (Heart pump) and Avion flew quickly through the area, having the wind push against poor Wander while he was trying to hang on for dear life, WHILE Avion was trying to force him off via air spins. Heart pumping. (It should be noted here that Wander is the predator here. Avion is just trying to live...apparently in peace.) God forbid you don't have the strength to hold on to the monster's wing...you're just out of luck and down you fall. In this battle, you had two ways to win... You could be like me on my first go and crawl your way to the wings and then the tail to stab all its weak points, or you could do what the pros do and use the game's gravity mechanic and drop from one wing to the other when Avion does those amazing flips in the air. For those who arn't used to playing gems or are too used to action games, none of this was done with Quick Time Events. You had to jump, climb, survive with your own skills and merit. This was the first time in my gaming life that I felt bad for killing a boss, not only because it was 100% innocent, but because the boss fight was actually a blood-rush for me. Think back to that one generic cutscene some of you may looooooooooove so much. Take that, and amplify it and that's how I felt.

Sand Tiger "Dirge", (The Sandworm) as well as Trail Drifter-Phalanx (Sand Dragon...it flies) were the ones I was debating over for 2nd place. Using the horse in a way most would expect to use it in those annoying quick time events was nothing short of gaming brilliance and it is a darn shame that most of you readers haven't experienced the thrill of riding a horse during a tense and quick boss fight and (manually) spinning around while you controled your horse, (manually) aimed your arrows at a boss' eye, and (again, manually), riding your horse up to a flying creature trying to fly upwards to the sky and aiming/jumping to the wing before the Colossus can take off.

Do you all seriously still wonder why I'm so hard on boss fights in other games? Or games in general? The last game is probably unpredictable, because considering my list, you would probably be lead to believe that this boss fight had to top SotC's AND Metal Gear Solid 4's boss fights. To be fair, the top boss fight is questionably the least original boss fight on this list, but the feelings and determination that followed before/during/after sure gave it top boss fight for me. So have fun guessing and I hope you all at least read the Shadows of the Colossus winner!