I beat Final Fantasy III. I have played a lot of Elite Beat Agents. I'm on the final difficulty, stuck on Material Girl. I've probably gotten 90% of the available enjoyment out of EBA, so I'm counting it as complete. I'll keep playing it of course (it is one of those games like Katamari that I plan on playing periodically for a long time).

My final opinions on FFIII-

This game was all about managing expectations for me. Had I went in blind expecting a modern RPG akin to FFX or Persona 4, I would have quit the game within a couple hours. I knew what I was getting myself into, so I was able to cope with the total lack of meaningful story and basic battle system.

It was not nearly as difficult as I expected. I used a faq once, to find the underwater temple because I would never have found it on my own. ever. Other than that, I never used a faq. I only did sidequests that I stumbled across on my own. I had to grind for 1 hour to beat Odin (one of the few sidequests I stumbled into) and I had to grind one hour for the crystal tower. Other than that, I was fine. Yes, I died several times, but that was me getting lazy or stupid, not the game being overly difficult. I found that if you steal from every enemy, the bosses will be a joke because you can just use the items you stole to deal 30% of the bosses health with a single item. That worked for about 2/3rds of the game. After that, I found that adjusting jobs was the key.

My final party- High 50's in level, 1 Dark Knight JL about 50, 1 Dragoon JL about 45, 1 Ninja JL about 35, 1 Divine JL about 25. 22 hours 39 minutes on the clock.

I felt like this game was all about knowing what you were getting into and being ready for that. I knew what I bought when I picked it up for $10 and I got about $10 of enjoyment out of it. It was about 25 hours (including time wasted when dying) of entertainment. It was the kind of game I played while watching TV or conversing with my girlfriend. It definitely wouldn't be the kind of game I'd expect to grab my attention single-handedly, but as a secondary form of entertainment, it was just fine.

My final opinions on EBA-

Fun. That's about it. Definitely worth the $4.34 for roughly 10 hours of entertainment. I plan on playing it another 5, at least.

Next on the list is Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, which I bought for $9.59 after tax. Supposedly this is the worst Advance Wars game out there, but I have never played one, so I have nothing to compare it to. I am going in blind, knowing nothing about it (or the series) other than that it is a turn based startegy game with little story.

I'm going to order some more DS games off of Amazon today, I think. I'm going for cheap games first, so I'm thinking Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. We shall see, I might search around for some cheap GBA games too.

This whole unemployed thing leaves plenty of time for gaming! Even if it has only been a week and a half since graduation.

I find out "the middle of this week" about one of my jobs, so that should be in the next couple days.

If I get the job, my gaming will be limited to Wii, DS and gog.com PC games. That is fine though because I should really give Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 a real shot. I've put about 2 hours into the first one since Christmas and haven't even touched the second. I also have plenty of other Wii games to play, so that will be fine. For the DS, everybody has provided me with a great list of games to check out, so I'll be checking those out as I find them. As for PC, once I finish Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal (which I've taken a break from due to my DS) I plan on getting Planescape:Torment, Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics from gog.com (in that order).

EDIT: Ordered Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume and The World Ends With You off of Amazon. They will be here in 5-8 business days. $9.99 after shipping and taxes for VP:CotP and $22.49 after shipping and taxes for TWEWY. By buying both at once I saved $5.98 on shipping.