Double Agent
Fear in a handful of dust - May 1, 2000 - Chris Jones

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. ToastyFrog has returned. Let there be general merriment. Don't say we didn't warn you.


It's a Monday. And it's a Monday close to E3. So there is, of course, no interesting news for me to talk about. So this will be a really short intro. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Onward.

Pikachu is bigger than a Chocobo. That's just wrong.
If you want to compare the Pokemon franchise to the Final Fantasy franchise (which Andrew Kaufmann did), please note that the combined sales of the Gameboy Pokemon games (red, green/blue, blue, and yellow, and the sequel gold/silver) total around 34 million copies (according to Nintendo's latest press release). The combined sales of all the Final Fantasy games, for every market, is the following:

1 million (FF1) + 750,000 (FF2) + 1.4 million (FF3) + 1.4 million (FF4) + 2.45 million (FF5) + 3.05 million (FF6) + 6 million (FF7) + 5.5 million (FF8) = 21.59 million, but to be fair, the number is probably closer to 22 million.

As you can tell, Pokemon is the biggest selling RPG franchise ever, with the original Pokemon games (in other words, not counting gold/silver) the biggest selling video game/electronic RPG ever.

To the person who said that Pokemon cannot be considered a great game because it has a poor story, well a story is not everything that an RPG is. Of course some console RPGs are mostly story (Xenogears), the majority of RPGs released, especially in Japan and on the PC in the US market, emphasize gameplay and world immersion over watching cut-scenes. If a close-minded person would ignore the trading and collecting aspects of Pokemon, which is what makes it such a great game in the first place, no wonder said person would not see why Pokemon is so great!

Actually, it was me who compared Pokemon to Final Fantasy. As for your numbers, I think they're a bit low on Final Fantasy's side - Square's latest press release on the subject claims 25 million copies. I thought the Pokemon numbers were a little off, until I remembered that the 8 million copies of Red/Blue were for the US only.

So Pokemon has sold more copies than I thought. More copies than Final Fantasy, more copies than other video game in history. None of that changes my thinking that Pokemon doesn't deserve the critical respect due Sakaguchi's work. It's possible that in 10 years when the vast majority of Pokemon masters are around our age Pokemon will be seen as being a huge influence, but from my perspective Final Fantasy's on top of the RPG pile.

I haven't played that much Pokemon, so I can't to argue too much with your last statement. Anybody else got a rebuttal?

Corporate shills are lynched on sight
Hm... you live in Austin, and give what amounts to a laudatory description of LabView.

Could you possibly be an NI employee, brainwashing us all?

No. Good question, but no.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I have worked for National Instruments in the past, for three semesters as an engineering co-op, and I still have friends who work there. However, I was turned down for a full-time job when I applied - NI is a very polished, smooth-functioning company, and I'm an engineer of the type who often puts technical concerns ahead of managerial ones. I like NI's stuff because I think it's really good stuff. End of story.

I'll take your word for it
Ooh! Ooh! The guy talking about Breath of Fire from the 25th got his name from Golem II: The Bionic Vapour Boy from Mr. Bungle's California.

(because i know you care)

nonspecific

This means BVB owes you a cookie, I guess. None of my business either way.

Chris, you Dragon Quest lover!
Did you just mention "innovation" & "Dragon Quest" in the same sentance, Chris? Pardon me while I laugh hysterically for a while. Dragon Quest is easily the most formulaic & uninnovative RPG series in the world. I'm no fan of Pokémon (the games just don't appeal to me), but I can still recognize that the basic concept alone has more innovation to it than Dragon Quest has had in the entire history of the series. I agree that Pokémon has yet to prove to have the longevity of Final Fantasy, but to claim that it has yet to show as much innovation as Dragon Quest is absurd. It did that the moment the first game was released.

Red XIV

<insert standard rant about  being damned if you do, damned if you don't>

Just to clarify my DQ position once and forever: I am not a particularly big fan of Dragon Quest. I tend to find the series relatively dull compared with Square's offerings from gameplay, presentation, and narrative standpoints (although I admit I never played the Super Famicom DQ's.) I think DQ7 looks really primitive compared to what else is already out there, and unless it's a much different game than I understand it to be, I think it's going to be a big disappointment to hard core DQ fans.

However, I can't deny that DQ has, in some ways, been highly innovative. DQ4 had a day/night cycle and multiple storylines, neither of which Final Fantasy has yet managed. Someone sent in a whole list of unique features DQ has, from telling jokes to entering beauty contests to becoming king for a day. To me, none of this makes DQ that great, or even that good. And there are definitely elements in the games I'd consider antiquated. But innovation is innovation, and I can't claim that it's not there, or even that there's no reason for people to like the games. Moving on.

I must break you. </bad Russian accent>
Hey Chis I was wondering, do you have an Arch Nemesis? If not, where can I apply for the position? Thanks buddy...errr I mean...I will cut our your liver and make little hats out of your intestines, MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Serving the forces of Bleakness,

Kandrin on ice.

The official position of Arch Nemesis has not been filled as of yet, but there are already candidates better qualified than you. Whoever gets the job will have to do things far more interesting than threaten my liver. All I can suggest is to be more outrageous - don't threaten my liver, threaten my dog. Don't threaten the world oil supply, threaten to stop the release of Chrono Cross. You can do it man, I have faith in you.

I listen to Kefka's theme while flossing
I'm sending this to you instead of AK, because it's 8:30am EDT May 1st, and there is still no sign of an April 30th column.

In regards to listening to game music before you've played the game, I'll have to go with Kaxon on this one... I've been listening to a lot of Eternal Blue music recently (I'm too poor to import CDs, however), and it's only made me want to play the game more.

One thing AK probably didn't take into account is that game music is *meant* to be background music, and should be treated as such. Listen to it while you drive, while you surf the net, whatever!

Game music is written to convey a mood, not necessarily match a given scene. Some music doesn't make sense without actually seeing how it fits in the game, but most music is more general than anything else. (as for not making sense, anyone who's heard the Wind Nocturne (Boat song) from Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete should know what I'm talking about).

Of course, my opinions may be a little biased, since I'm the operations manager of the Videogame Music Archive.

Ross Bemrose (Powerlord)

You did the right thing in emailing me, son. I agree with you about music, but don't really have anything else to add to the debate. Well said.

Can't make a joke when I don't know the game.
Just finished Bahamut Lagoon. Really fun game, and its a pity my Japanese wasn't better. As it was, the plot was only mildly comprehensible, and all the Kanji had me utterly confused (except that I figured out all the elements! Yay me!)

Anyways, for whatever reason BL is a lower profile notranslated Super Famicom game than SD3 (which I've also played an enjoyed, but with no Japanese, so I may replay it sometime in the future...) and I haveta say that I'm really disappointed that it didn't make it over here.

It plays kinda like a proto-FFT , which I like to (one can definately see Tactics' roots in this game) and it has a strange variety of New Game+ (Ex-Play, it be called), where you start with a bunch of funky dragons (okay, so you start with the normal dragons, in their penultimate forms), and a wierd spell that summons the final boss. Hooray!

-Ryan, in a good mood, even though he shaved this morning with a dangerously dull razor. ouchouchouchouchouchouchouchouch.

I'm surprised about your comment about BL being an early version of FFT - I'd always heard that FFT was clearly an example of Square wanting to one-up the Ogre Battle franchise, going so far as to steal most of the associated development group. But you've played it, I haven't, so I'll take your word for it.

I guess Bahamut Lagoon will just join Live-A-Live and Treasure Hunter G as SNES Square games that never got over here and that we'll never play.

Legally.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Ah I remember my experience with Silent Hill. I was just near the end of Grade Twelve and I had gotten a television for my graduation present. I rented Silent Hill from BlockBuster and started playing it by myself at around 11:00pm in my totally dark basement. At around 12:30 or 1:00 I got to the school and I was pretty freaked out. By the time I got to the "warped" school I was screwy in the head. People laugh at me when I say the scariest piece of media that I have ever encountered was Silent Hill. Well I laughed through Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. Alien and the Exorcist were interesting but not scary. Resident Evil made me a little jumpy but it didn't really scare me. Silent Hill made me have nightmares. When I got in the elevator of the Hospital and saw the button going to the fourth floor I was freaked. When the weird little babies with knives came after me I was freaked. When went into the bathroom and there was a scream from the stall and all that was inside was blood, I was freaked. I think I'm going to by Silent Hill now that it is cheap, just to freak myself out again.

--
BeerGoggles_FromMARS
Daniel Kaszor

I have no problems with admitting I find Silent Hill much scarier than just about anything else I've ever read or seen - the only thing that even comes close is Kubrick's "The Shining". Rumor has it that the writer of Neon Genesis Evangelion went off of Prozac to make the series. If true, then I deeply fear the drug Silent Hill's writer must have been on.

How to be a playah
AK did it again.

~Ian P.

AK! Dude! Score! Tell us all about it - was she hot?

Closing Comments:

Looking over Friday's column, I realize it's the EMACS config file that's the exercise in masochism, not VI. My mistake.

Ok, question for tomorrow: Is there any work of Japanese manga or anime that can compare to Alan Moore's "Watchmen"? Didn't think so.

Wait, this is a game site. Ok, how's this - Hideo Kojima has suggested that the next Metal Gear will try to express the elements of temperature and humidity. The reasonable thing to do would be to wait and see how exactly Kojima intends to do this, but that's no fun. So how do you suggest such a thing might be done, if it's even workable? Is it workable? What would you like to see in the next Metal Gear, and what would you like to avoid? Let me know.

-Chris Jones, drinking Barq's Root Beer. (Gratuitous product placement! Run!)

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