Actually the reason for the name Final Fantasy is much simpler than that.

This is taken from an interview I read with Hinorobu Sacaguchi. Accourding to him he had been designing games for a little while at the time but wasn't extremly happy with it. He had made Rad Racer (I think, the game where the hover craft would attach guns and missle launchers to the top of your car) and a few others, none of which had garnered him much success. He was about to throw in the towel but he had to complete one more game as per his contract. So he began work on his last game, his (wait for it) "Final Fantasy". It was supposed to be one game but it became so popular that Sacaguchi decided to try this old video game thing for a little while longer. The interview was conducted between Next-Gen and HS, I'll have to dig the mag out tonight to get the details.

Now on to the old-school topic. TMNT was beatable without a Gameshark. The trick was to collect missles from the first or second level until you had a full load. Then not use them until the last level at the technodrome which was incredibly hard to get through with at least one healthy turtle. Then you face shredder and unload them all on him. He died very quickly after that. Now for Ninja Gaiden I remember the way to get by the bird was to jump out to scroll the screen enough then push back to land back on the platform. Fake out the booby-trap bird and kill him easily. That brings me to the point. The way to beat older games was memorization. It took many many tries to figure out that turtle strategy. My problem for wasting all that time wasn't because I didn't like the outdoors I just refused to be beaten by the machine. Say it with me "This game is a cheater." Now adays the games are new experiences every time so you can't totally memorize where that Koopa is gonna be.

Man this E-mail's getting long. I am convinced that the reason the older games were so hard is because of the hardware limitations. Prime example. Castlevania versus Super Castlevania. In the first game you could whip straight ahead. That meant if you wanted to hit something above you you had to either jump up to get at it or climb up there then get it. Normally by that time it had already hit you. The game was hard because your character had little he could actually do. Now in Super Castlevania you could whip at any angle (to hit guys above and below you) and you could do the loose whip to stop any projectile that came your way. Basically Simon became invincible because of his abilities. The medusa heads which sucked so bad in the first game where rendered useless pretty much. The reason this was possible was they could include more frames of animation on the Super Nintendo enabling all the whip tricks. Another problem was that Simon evolved but his enemies didn't. Definatly makes the games easier.

Y@

He who isn't sure if it was worth all the time played just to see Dracula's castle sink into the ground the first time, or Jason and the frog watching the sunset atop Sophia..... what am I saying, of course it was worth it. You will never conquer me Nintendo. Shadow Link is one of the hardest challenges to come along in quite a while.

Man, hearing that Ninja Gaiden tip almost makes me want to replay the game and see what the durned ending was. Almost. I don't think I have that kind of energy.

Interesting point about how characters are more versatile now, making games easier... I had never thought about it from that perspective. You just might be, at least in part, right.

Just to clarify, Mr. Arthur letter yesterday left out one very important fact: the DQ's are built on a three game cycle. They don't "deserve" to be sequels, they *are*.

For instance, DQ1 the story of Erdrick. DQ2, the story of his descendants. DQ3, the story of how Erdrick came to Alefgard.

The next three, 4-6 were supposed to be all part of the same story, and for those lucky enough to know japanese, they already know this. That's one of the reasons so many fans of the DQ series over here were so ticked off when DW5 never made it to US shores. We got DQ4 as a teaser, and a promise of DQ5 from multiple mailings from Nintendo and Enix, only to see it not happen.

The big deal about DQ7, is that it starts a new storyline, and if/when it makes it to US shores, there's a chance the rest will, too. Making it the first full blown trilogy from ENIX since DQ1-3. Playing games this way is very similar to reading a long trilogy from a set of fantasy novels. You have to wait for them to come out, characters are developed more slowly, and you get more back-story.

Don't get me wrong, I love every FF I've played, but I've always been disappointed that not a single one was part of the same storyline.

Just a thought.

Trifthen Zifthwar of Kildosphere.

Hey Andrew

I know that a lot of people will stop reading this letter as soon as they see the word Final Fantasy, bt... whatever:p I recently translated some parts of an interview on some french web site and posted it on the message board. The interview was about FF in general and FFVIII more specificly. Nomura said that he thought about the character Edea three years before FFVII (yes FFF7), and that Raijin and Fujin were supposed to be Turks in FFVII but they didn't fit with the rest of the gang. Also Kitase mentioned that Zell and tha gang where just there to make the couple move forward through the game.

So the way I see it this only confirms the view I have on why FFVIII felt "weird" for lack of better words. By that I mean that some scenes seem to have been added to the story just to have them in the game instead of having scenes related to the story. I think that unlike FFVII where you have a plot that is solid from one end to the other, in FFVIII all that they really thought of was "Let's make a love story, it hasn't -really- been done before (well it was done with Lunar)." Edea was included in the game (she is supposed to be a major character btu she wasn't even created for this game int he first place?), Rinoa was given more screen time since Kitase said that untill he saw the sketch Nomura had drawn he didn't give her that much of a big role.

There is probably a lot more than we know of about all this, but I think it might explain why some people didn't like the plot. It wasn't well built in the first place (in my opnion!). Of course Raijin and Fujin's role couldn't have been better than how they were in FFVIII, but still I think that they shouldn't make stories that way. Maybe FFVIII was sort of experimental in a way, or they were too excited about making a love story. But I doubt this will happen with FFIX because even with the little I've seen of it (I try to avoid everything about it untill I buy it:) I'm pretty sure the story is more solid and not just a core with a few things thrown to revolve around it.

-Phil

howdy.

i loved crono trigger. it was one of the best rpgs i've played, even better than some playstation games. but i read that about half of the team that made it so great will not be working on crono cross. that means that probably the only thing about the sequel that resembles crono trigger will be the name. and the cameo appearances. but should i be suspicious? maybe i'm reading too much into this.

i think i'll maintain a state of skepticism until i can see or play it.

and by the way, i always played as michaelangelo too. he was so cool in the cartoons.

-sharc

I wish I had beat FF1. I've beaten every other one thats been released here but 1. When I was in 4th grade I spent my entire summer playing that game. Then when I was fighting Chaos (and stomping all over him) my uncle through a nerf football at the nintendo causing it to freeze. After that I lost any drive to play that game. To this day, I still fear nerf footballs and uncles. Go figure.

6025

p.s. your roommates name is stevo? did he used to do vocals for the old vandals? that guys name was stevo

Dear Peeps,

Being my first letter ever written to the GIA's Agent column... I just want to make a quick statement then go to bed :) "Is it just me or is Garnet (from FFIX) HOT?!"

~GS~

ps. It is FFIX related eh? ^_^

This is to the guy (Scott) who was talking about their CG demos involving FFVI characters.

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/affw/ffsgi.html

As with all other useless crap, it can be found at RPgamer.

-Matt

Just saw the Final Fantasy movie clip. Y'know... all the people complaining about FFVII and FFVIII deviating from the series and taking advantage of the name should be pretty insulted by the movie. It looks awesome, but completely sci-fi, eh? not very "Final Fantasy," eh? Just trying to stir up some controversy, eh?

Sunn, eh?

I'm wearing a cowboy hat right now, and listening to Rainbow Brite on TV. it's like a surreal Beastie Boys video.

Gilbert