If you're thinking of holding off on Atlus' upcoming Persona 4 in hopes that the PlayStation 2 RPG will be followed by an even shinier edition, wait NOT! Following April's release of Persona 3 FES, which added enough new content to the RPG to fill a high school student's locker, Atlus now confirmed that "at no point in the future" will it give similar treatment to the upcoming sequel.

So whether or not you plan on pre-ordering the game or strolling up to the register on day one, buy with confidence, niche role-playing faithful, when Persona 4 drops onto shelves on December 9.

Our initial plan was to give you excellent readers brand new copies of Atlus' upcoming Persona 4, a desire which those purveyors of quirk deemed noble, but overly contingent on them finishing the game. Sensing our outraged impatience regarding the anticipated RPG's December 9th release, they instead granted us some Persona 3 art books (signed by character designer Shigenori Soejima!) and Persona 4 t-shirts (tagless!). The chance to wear Persona on your person, eh?

To enter this giveaway:

• Leave a comment telling us who your summoned Persona is! It could be anyone or anything from Cthulhu to something infinitely more evil, like TV's Patrick Duffy.
  
• You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec and sprawling, otherworldly dungeons).
  
• Limit 1 entry per person per calendar day (comment more than once and you'll be kept in detention).
  
• This entry period ends at 7:00pm ET on Friday, August 22nd. We'll randomly select three winners at that time, who will receive a signed art book and t-shirt, valued at $50 (can you really put a value on that signature?). Please check your e-mail!
  
• For a list of complete rules that you can peruse or shoot in the head, click here.

If you're really set on winning, sign up for the Atlus Faithful spam ... err, mailing list -- another three winners will be randomly selected from Faithful members.

Update: Entries closed! Keep an eye on your inbox over the next few days!

[Update: Entry period is over, folks. We're contacting the winners by email, so go check!]

If you missed out on Persona 3, last year's criminally under-printed and underplayed -- but not under-appreciated! -- high school sim-cum-dungeon crawler, here's your chance to take "The Journey." (And for those who didn't miss out, we know you've been dying to discover "The Answer!")

In conjunction with this week's release of Persona 3 FES, Joystiq and Atlus are giving away three copies of the game, each accompanied by an art book signed by lead artist Shigenori Soejima. This updated edition of the game features the original story ("The Journey") stuffed with new content, including quests, events, items and Personas, plus an additional 30-hour-plus episode, "The Answer," which promises to deliver the true ending. (Joytip: Game data from the original Persona 3 release can be imported into FES.)

Just follow these rules to enter:

• Leave a comment telling us what you think "FES" stands for. (We know, we know, it's short for "festival" -- but c'mon! Be creative.)
  
• You must be 18 years or older and a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec).
  
• Limit 1 entry (comment) per person per calendar day.
  
• This entry period ends at 5:00pm ET on Friday, April 25th. We'll randomly select three winners at that time (please check your email!).
  
• For a list of complete rules, click here. (Total retail value of prize is approximately $35.)

And verily did Eyelinerus decree that in the fourth week of April the goth kids would hold sway over all that they surveyed. And all the films at the cineplex would be replaced with The Virgin Suicides, and the radio would be replaced by silence, for the mere playing of recorded music through electronic amplification makes it too commercial. The week would be peaceful, save for the Great Goth Kid Purging, a bloodless, but still teriffically weepy affair.

And the games? Well, the most impressive console release would be Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3: FES, a souped-up version of the RPG released in August of last year. And on portable consoles? Why, The World Ends With You, sure to be an emo kid classic. Oh, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon would also be released too, for reasons Eyelinerus would prefer not to talk about.

See all the slightly less emo titles that slipped through the cracks after the break.

True to its word (or at least to the word of a timer clicking down to zero), Atlus USA has lifted the shroud of secrecy off of its intentions surrounding Persona FES, announcing that it's bringing the RPG expansion to the US on April 22 for $29.99. The new package will feature both an "enhanced version" of Persona 3 with new bonus features alongside a new chapter -- promising an impressive 30+ hours of gameplay it says here.

Even better, Atlus notes that the new chapter will be able to be played independently of the core game, though players with Persona 3 game saves will be able to use their save data in the new chapter. We'd like to come up with something witty with which to close out the story, but honestly we're too busy already plotting out how exactly we're going to get our hands on the game before it disappears forever.

[UPDATE: Oops, looks like the game is coming one one disc instead of two as previously reported...blame it on lack of caffeine]

Atlus is up to something. We have a sixth sense about these things, though the ominous countdown on the company's website is a good indicator that something is up. Unfortunately we'll have to wait until the clock finally ticks down on February 26 to find out exactly what the something is. We have our own ideas, like a reprinting of Odin Sphere so maybe we could find the darn thing.

However, many internet sleuths have another idea, citing the timer's background as having been lifted from Persona 3, and hoping against hope that when the timer finally reaches zero Atlus will announce plans to localize Persona 3 FES, a special 'director's cut' style edition of the company's earlier released niche RPG. The expansion to the original game was first released in April 2007 in Japan, but has since that time eluded North American players, despite numerous rumors that Persona 3 FES was indeed on its way. Now the Atlus faithful are left to wait a few more days, time enough to ponder just what the niche publisher has waiting in the wings.

[Thanks Kenneth]

Odin Sphere (PS2)

Vanillaware's side-scrolling action RPG caught me completely off guard when it came out, but I fell instantly in love with the game's style. Practically everything about Odin Sphere is unique: the circular levels; the gigantic, beautifully-drawn sprites; the bizarre food-crafting mechanics. Toss in a healthy amount of Norse mythology, and you've got one damn fine, under-appreciated game. Here's hoping Vanillaware's upcoming Wii title is up to snuff.