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. Don't put your faith in gods. But you can believe in turtles. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Rapture.

That's what I felt about half an hour ago, around 7:30 PM CDT. Vagrant Story is finished, and I'm 100% satisfied with a game for the first time in a long, long time. Not sure what else to say, except I'm already looking forward to the next game from those involved and I'm gonna be really freaking upset if Square doesn't release something else in the FFT/VS universe.

Onward.

It's the last point that's really key here, I think - most games ultimately play 2D, so it makes sense to have graphics that look 2D as well. As long as depth perception is nonexistent and movement is largely limited to a flat plane with little vertical movement, 2D works ok.

But as Vagrant Story just showed, you can also create quite decent combat systems that take advantage of all three dimensions. And once rendering hardware gets just a little faster, the possibility of true 3D shows up. (Two rendered images of the same scene with the virtual cameras placed slightly apart from each other displayed in front of your eyes will give the impression of depth. Displaying such a thing is tough, but not impossible.) Given those facts, maybe it's not a bad idea for companies to be trying their hands at 3D, even if 2D does have certain aesthetic advantages.

Once more, KZ brings us news of the Canadian gaming crisis, and we are thankful. Our hearts go out to our deprived northern brethren.

Actually, all I was going for was some reason why going 2D (which is, these days, a relatively unusual thing in the gaming world) is worth doing. That doesn't have to involve numbers, in fact I'd be surprised if that's what Square's programmers were thinking when they decided on the graphical style of SF2. In that case the animation of the world and the characters increased the power of what was ultimately a very character driven story. But not all games would benefit from such a thing, so I wanna hear some reasons why it might make sense to do other types of games in 2D.

While you could argue that Xenogears draws a distinction between "good" religions and "bad" religions, the amount of apparently anti-religious stories and symbols in recent RPGs does seem excessive as of late. It's not hard to see why this is the case - Japan is a mixture of Buddhism, Shinto and a small bit of Christianity, but none of them seem to be taken with the same seriousness that many Americans take Christianity. Thus, it's probably no more difficult for the Japanese to take creative liberties with our sacred cows than it is for us to turn other mythologies into our pop entertainment. (See The Mighty Thor or Disney's Hercules as examples, though admittedly neither of those mythologies are currently viable.)

I'd also prefer to see a little more rounded portrayal of religion, but one of the things that a lot of people like about RPGs is their "Japanese-ness", which would be compromised when you start changing the chosen content of the stories. It's a case of bad-with-the-good, I think.

We don't generally hear from the folks who sell us our games, though we send a fair amount of abuse their way. So it's only fair for salespeople like Jinnai to get their say.

The basic question here is if gamers' freedom to play games is being overly compromised by measures designed to stop incidents like the one mentioned above. While there are those who'd argue that ratings should be abolished and it should be entirely up to the parent to monitor content, I'm thinking that the best alternative would be an accurate ratings system enforced across the board. If Jinnai and company keep their end of the bargain, it only falls to the ESRB to get their act together.

Someone also pointed out that E-rated Wild Arms 2 contained some questionable content, whereas E-rated Grandia got things pulled out that shouldn't have made much of a difference, like alcohol. It's clear things need improving, but it's probably out of our hands for now.

It's probably worth noting that old school or no, hard core or no, people seem to get more emotionally involved with games on the appearance level when they're 2D, as Malika proves. I still say someone needs to develop a 3D style that has the same character as 2D animation can have, and although FF9 looks like it might be a step forward, I don't think we're there yet.

I have pretty poor eyesight, so my depth perception's shot anyway. Still, most people would probably miss having more than just height and width, so let's all keep both eyes open for the moment.

Closing Comments:

This is the moment you've all been waiting for - the moment I finish VS and the debate about the significance of the ending can begin! Let's hear your thoughts on the matter, whatever they may be. Later.

-Chris Jones, about to get Manafied