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. 73% of all statistics are made up. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Well, isn't this is comfy chair!

I'm Ed McGlothlin, PR guru and previews/reviews editor here at the GIA, and I'm inserting myself into the Double Agent rotation for the next two days to help out my pressed-for-time coworkers. Strong opinions and loud expressions thereof are no stranger to me, so why don't we just dig right in and start the mud flying. Er, start the high-minded intellectual gaming debate.

Remember the point in Army of Darkness when Ash dropped into medieval times with both his car and his shotgun? The knights were amazed. It was like nothing they had ever seen before. I wonder if people who thought Legend of Dragoon was a good game shared a similar experience.

Even so, that wouldn't explain how professional reviewers, from Next Generation to Daily Radar (haha), gave the game high marks. I haven't seen a less innovative game since whatever the last game 989 Studios made was. While it's certainly true that innovation isn't everything, if you aren't going to innovate, you better be skilled enough to execute at a comparable or higher level than anyone else who tread the path before you.

Also worth noting is the distinction between "good game" and "fun game" -- the first requires such things as quality and innovation, while the latter is almost completely relative. How many people don't find RPGs fun at all, no matter how well made? I think that people who enjoyed Legend of Dragoon need to be more comfortable with the fact they enjoyed a bad game, rather than blaming others for pointing out its obvious and pervasive flaws.

The only problem with that point of view is that games are ultimately supposed to be played. If you are doing more watching than controlling, then you might as well be at the controls of a glorified RPG version of Night Trap. But there's plenty of space in the spectrum of development philosophies between "lots of watching" (Metal Gear Solid) and "lots of playing" (Mario), and each end is better suited for certain types of games.

As for the complaints you mentioned, I don't buy the interactive movie argument for a second. I absolutely loved Xenogears, but the second disc was far more like an "interactive movie" than anything seen yet in the Final Fantasy series. People villified CG cutscenes solely because they happened to come about at the same time as the leap away from fantasy motifs, which was their legit gripe.

Your metaphor is an admirable one, but watching a bunch of 20 minute shows without a consistent plot doesn't equate to watching a television series, it equates to watching different shows on the same network all day -- an infinitely more boring proposition to most people. I do agree that Legend of Mana is a change of pace and should be enjoyed in a different manner than your usual game. Unfortunately, that the game gives little sense of progress when there is no ultimate goal to achieve or storyline to follow. I'd rather have the option of playing a game for 20 minutes because it was fun or playing it for 10 hours because the quest was simply that engrossing. Chrono Cross, for instance.

Since I prefer Batman's dark sense of style over Superman's primary-colored tights, I'll have to say that old-school Krypton Boy gets stuck with Dragon Quest as an ally. Besides, there isn't even a "Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy debate" to speak of, considering that the former hasn't put up a fight here in the states for years. I may have disliked much of Final Fantasy VII and not even played most of Final Fantasy VIII, but Square deserves a huge amount of credit for pushing the boundries relentlessly.

And from what we've played of Dragon Quest VII, don't expect it to be beating anything up any time soon.

Hey everyone, can we guess what happens when people who don't know a goddamned thing about gaming start trying to legislate and regulate games? Well, this is it.

B.C. Attorney General Andrew Petter was widely quoted saying that parents don't know if a game "contains graphic depictions of violence that involves their child in killing or maiming or torture -- or whether it's a benign hopping hedgehog that's bouncing off balls and collecting points." This is exactly the same as saying "parents don't know from the posters and trailers whether their child is watching a Disney movie or people having sex with animals!" The idea that a game based on a magazine which can be seen freely in newstands belongs in the same category as the hardest of hardcore porn is ridiculous. Besides, any parent who looks at Soldier of Fortune's box and Sonic's box and can't see the difference needs to blame bad luck in genetics, not the gaming industry.

People are bashing Dragon Quest VII because it looks and plays like a game from 1993. Granted, the play time given thus far was extremely limited, but it wasn't very pretty in any sense of the word. What exactly is "traditional," anyway? It sounds suspiciously like a code word for "old" to me in many instances. Lunar was allowed to be old because it was a remake - can you tell me that people should have looked at Lunar the same way if the game had been an original late 90's project?

I do hope that Dragon Quest VII turns out to be a good iteration the series, but a game's potential is instantly slashed if it only aims to continue doing well something that has already been done well before. If I want nostalgia, I'll play the old carts -- the idea behind a sequel should be something more than repetition. Super Mario 64 and Legend of Zelda: OoT were such astounding games because they took what made the old games fun and built layers of new and immersive features upon that foundation.

Closing Comments:

You may be wondering how someone of my lovely manner does PR, but I believe that a little edginess never hurt anyone. Though I hate dumping on a game before I sit down with it, Dragon Quest VII hasn't demonstrated any reason to think it'll stand out from, oh, Dragon Quest I-VI. Maybe playing games like Vagrant Story and Chrono Cross has raised the bar a bit high, but the bottom line remains that Square has fought the hardest during the last console generation to evolve the RPG genre from 3D retreads of NES games.

Without Square and Nintendo, I wonder if most popular genres would have moved an inch in the past 5 years.

Whether you loved it, as I did Vagrant Story, or were turned off by it, as I was by Final Fantasy VIII, the idea here is that a company that only repeats or refines itself is doomed to be left behind.

-Ed McGlothlin, trying to hide his lack of graphical skills by avoiding awards