And now that I see there are Sea Quests, I can keep interested in the game while the whale continues to kick my @##. There is soo much I don't know about this game. Does it explain all of this in the instruction booklet (I'll be honest in that I didn't really read it)?

Your not really stuck. You just need to keep mapping out the levels eventually you will find her. I'm on floor 8 and still haven't found her yet either. Got a feeling I'm going to hit the whale MERG keeps talking about soon!

Now on the other hand MERG yeah he's stuck!! LOL.

@Tech ohhhh... I can't find the stairs then, so I thought I had to find her before I could move on. Must've mapped something incorrectly then Thanks.

Thanks Tech! Thanks a lot.

I FINALLY BEAT THE #$%#$%^#$%#$%^ WHALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What was that I couldn't hear you!!

Sorry for the screaming but you have no idea how happy I am to have beaten it. It took far too long and I died far too many times. It was much harder than it needed to be.

Sounds like my reaction from when I beat the first optional mission in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days on proud mode (thank you to everyone who recommended it to me and thank you to my friend for suggesting that any real man would only play a KH game on Proud mode )

hey dudes. haven't played a Trauma game and I'm wondering what you'd recommend as the best.

Also, I need Atlus PS2 recommendations. Besides Persona. How's Odin Sphere and Disgaea?

Odin Sphere is fantastic. Beautiful game, long in-depth story and unique gameplay. The combat does get repetitive so for me it's a play-over-time game - thankfully you can review the whole story in the menu.

I also highly recommend Persona 3 FES and Persona 4. They are great introductions to the Shin Megami Tensei series, which is one of my all-time favourite series.

Disgaea is legendary, but I haven't gotten very far in it. It's a tactical RPG where your characters can go up to level 9999, and every item has a world inside of it. O_o Crazy! I have friends who swear by it though.

Trauma Team is my favourite in the Trauma series (really great characters and story, but retains all of the expected cheesiness) and it's quite different from most in the series since you play more than just surgery. If you want the original gameplay then you could start with Second Opinion on the Wii - it's an expanded version of the first DS game. Beware the series' high skill-based difficulty and how easy it is to forget the controls after a while.

BTW I'm considering choosing one of the Wii Trauma games for a later NintendoLife Game Club session.

thx for the recommendations duder!
Odin Sphere looks the most appealing to me, but I've heard so much good about the Persona series that I'm def gonna give it a go. As far as Disgeaea goes, I've never been super into SRPGs but... "every item has a world inside of it" I mean, I have no idea what that really means, but consider my interest peaked. I'll have to read into that.

Good to hear about NLGC! I need an excuse to check out the series. thx again.

@lockelocke I mean quite literally, you can go into item worlds (like "Iron Sword" or whatever) and duke it out with the creatures living there. O_o Yeah. Every item. Then the item gets stronger as a result.

Just be careful though, the game requires a heck of a lot of time and grinding. That's why I'm not very far.

word, mayne. I just took a look at some videos of the "Item World"
I can tell just by watching a few minutes of gameplay that Disgaea is not for me. Oh well. Odin Sphere, on the other hand, has my name written all over it.

Odin Sphere's one of my favorite RPGs. I can certainly recommend it.

nice! i'm sold. too many glowing recommendations to ignore.

Never been a better time to buy Hexyz Force and Crimson Gem Saga. I'll repost this in the Atlus Fan Club.

Thank you, Flandy for bringing this to my attention. Also please note it doesn't start until Tuesday.

So I am at the gatekeeper on floor 11 of EO3 and have to choose between defending and protecting the gatekeeper...is there a way to make a wrong choice here? Does this choice affect the rest of the game?

@MERG It makes a big difference. Do you mind spoilers? It affects the storyline (which faction you side with), what new class you get, as well as what bosses you'll be fighting later on.

ummm...I don't think I mind spoilers...

To be honest I was siding with the Senate but I'm not sure. I get a bad vibe from the undergroubd king.

It's really your choice. In new game+ you'll get to choose again and see the other side (and retain the extra class from your first playthrough) so don't worry about missing out.

I went with the Senatus btw. People generally say that's a good one to go with first if you're not sure. The underground city option reveals more of the backstory, but the Senatus choice gives a "better" character class (not really better though, just easier to use and more straightforward). If you play the Senatus way first, you'll probably have a better experience with the story than if you play it second.

Either way I'd say go with your gut.