Merry Christmas 2008!!! 

I got an XBox 360 a few weeks ago and I just finished Tales of Vesperia and I'm playing Eternal Sonata right now.  I have to say though that I'm pretty disappointed with this generation's choice of RPGs for the top 3 consoles when compared to the previous generations on the SNES, PS1 and PS2.  I just hope Star Ocean 4 makes up for it a bit.

I was curious if anyone has tried Last Remnant because I'm hearing such dramatically different things about it.  Some are calling it a technical disaster but then others say it is outstanding and I heard Famitsu gave it a 38 out of 40.  I just went in for that cheap hard drive offer from Microsoft because they said it was impossible to play the game from a memory card that I have.  Hopefully the hard drive will be easy to install.

I've never needed to install a new hard drive to my computer before, but I'm guessing it won't be too challenging for the Xbox 360.  I'm just relieved that I can install one at all so I can store the really intensive games that might have slowdown on the hard drive.  I read that helps a lot with Last Remnant because of the scale of some of the battles.  I'm curious about the game because it seems to have some interesting innovations displayed on such a grandiose scale. 

Dragon Age also seems to look interesting and its supposedly the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate.  I think that game is still pretty far down the road.

Whats Suikoden Tierkries like?  It comes out here in a few months and I was worried they would make it some kind of side or gaiden game.  Is the game pretty close to previous Suikodens?  Do you still collect the 108 stars and build your own town?

Haven't been on in awhile, so this response is a little late. 
To Nightcrawler: If you still haven't started Shadow Hearts or are still considering it then I highly recommend playing them.  Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts: Covenant are some of the best rpg's I've ever played.  They have a good storyline, and fun battle systems.  I haven't played the third Shadow Hearts because it seemed different from the first two, and didn't have the same main character.  As for The Last Remnant I thought it was good except for the battles, where you basically get to choose you actions from a list of choices randomly generated by the computer.  The often moronic choices you are given make battles artificially difficult, because if you could actually control each characters actions you could implement actual startegy and use decent moves every time( as well as being able to properly heal your guys whenever it was necessary).

I now realize that my post has nothing to do with z-mas so I'll stop now.  Happy 4th of July though( sorry that's the closest holiday available :/)

I have had alot of minor tendon pulls, and strains; for me they are unbearable, as everything I do relies so heavily on that entire region. I honestly cannot fathom the difficulty of some basic task without full or relatively full use, and range of motion.

I sincerely hope that this is not something that will require more surgery, or become permanent. More so than it already is at least. I wish you well, and hope you regain full range of motion.

Onto lighter topics, I did love Shadow Hearts: Covenant, I never had the chance to play the first one or Koudelka, and I am not sure if I want to play the 3rd in the series. My only gripe with Covenant was that it seemed like 2 condensed games instead of one long game, though my view is skewed by not having been introduced to some characters from the first game.

Recommendations for the 3rd?