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. Why would I make a good Shakespearean character? Just because I'm a fat, world-weary, drunken old knight who hangs out with the future king of England and will eventually end up hung for wartime looting... er, never mind. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Did a little reorganizing this weekend, in order to get the N64 out of storage and ready to play Ogre Battle next week. During the course of this I came across some old games and tapes - specifically, my old Game Boy copy of Double Dragon and Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints. This brought on a major nostalgia trip because I got them the same day, a Saturday in early October, 1990, my freshman year of high school.

It was a major nostalgia trip for a couple of reasons - being 10 years removed from that punk high school kid, the fact that Paul Simon's now releasing another album, 10 years later, and just remembering the general carefree nature of the year - but mostly it's the games that get to me. 10 years ago the NES was still king, and was releasing some of the greatest titles ever on the system. Fall '90 I picked up Castlevania III, which I got all 4 endings for (Trevor solo was pretty damned tough) and which is still my favorite Castlevania game (although I'll now catch hell from SotN fans.) For Christmas that year I got Mega Man 3, also a classic, and Nintendo Power posted a few measly prototype pictures of the Super Famicom, which I drooled over appropriately.

However, it's also important to see the differences between then and now. Sony's PSX makes a tolerable stand-in for the NES of old, and once more Sega's running a respectable second - then with the Genesis, now with the Dreamcast. But now we've got three major consoles forthcoming, and rather than a few paltry screen shots doled out by Nintendo Power, we've got massive marketing campaigns all scrambling to get as much info out as possible about their systems. Games now may not be as straightforward as back then, but they're also capable of doing and expressing far more than 2D run and jumps ever could. And I suspect in 10 more years, FF9 will seem just as great as C3 does now. Time waits for no one, but I'm not asking it to.

Onward.

I'm gonna go ahead and guess that the font does look better on TV, because of a little something called "anti-aliasing". And even if it doesn't, if FF9 really is returning to its roots I'm sure you'll have the option of changing the gray boxes into blue boxes, or transparent boxes, or whatever. All praise the little config menu option, making FF games more interesting since 1991!

I'm for it, but for different reasons. I tend to side with Harlan Ellison's take on sequels - that as a rule they're shameless attempts to cash in on the popularity of the first book/movie/game without really adding anything more to the story, and in fact if the author did their job right in the first place there's nothing left to tell after the first story, because it should have settled everything that needed settling.

Obviously there are exceptions to this - there may be rare cases where the same character can be used in a different way to tell a completely different, but still meaningful and original, story. Vernor Vinge's use of Pham Nuwen in A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky is a great example. Or perhaps the original story was merely a small part of a greater story arc, and that's completely ok too. Obviously Star Wars and Lord of the Rings aren't complete if you just look at one piece.

So on the one hand, setting up any game as "the continuing adventures of..." is kinda lame. As much as some of you might love to see Terra, Locke, etc. back for another round, the central mysteries and conflicts of those characters are over and done with. A direct FF6 sequel would just be pimping them out for a few extra bucks.

On the other hand, I'd really love to see a game spread out over multiple installments that uses the same engine to look at one large story in small chunks. Shining Force III did this, if memory serves, but we never got all of that. Shen Mue looks to be doing something close to it as well. As you say, the big advantage is that the developers don't have to work on another game engine, which gives them room to deepen the characters and plot, which should be the main focus of the game anyway. End of rant.

First off, the Dreamcast has already far surpassed the SegaCD and Saturn both in terms of sales and public awareness. Yes, there are a lot of people completely hyped up about the PS2 - mostly among the hardcore gaming market, and I won't deny they're (or rather, we're) a very important demographic.

But we're not the whole demographic.

Most of my gaming friends are ecstatic about the PS2, but most of my non-gaming friends don't even know it exists. They do know about the Dreamcast though, because it has "that cool football game" and "that cool basketball game" and they either own a DC themselves or know someone who does. They're not hardcore and they couldn't tell a polygon from a sprite, but who cares? Their money's just as green as anyone else's, and even if they don't buy as many games, the system's still in their living rooms and they're still gonna be playing it for the next two or three years, no matter what Sony or MS or Nintendo do.

This argument's been dragged on nearly long enough, but I do think it's important to point out this one thing: Sega's got a much broader reach than the teenage/college age population of America, and even if they don't thrive, they will survive. Count on it.

That is a cool poem, especially when you consider that if he could work in "yellow" or "gold" and rearrange the colors just a bit, it would make a great clue for the Chrono Cross sequence. But personally I can't see this extended angst over Harle - she honestly wasn't around long enough for me to get attached. Of course, you can say the same about Kid... hmm.

Problem is, gaming is an evolving medium, and as such doesn't really have an "epitome". Things grow, change, adapt, and what was the pinnacle of success gets dwarfed by its descendents... unless it has no descendents, in which case, it's hardly the pinnacle of anything.

And now that I've played pointless semantic games with your word choice, I'll say that at the moment, I also think Vagrant Story's about as good as RPGs get, and I doubt it will be the last of its kind. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it has the best gameplay (although it's great) the best graphics (although they're probably the best on the PSX) or even the best plotline. But the combination of the three was memorable enough to place it at the top of the stack. It's also worth pointing out that Vagrant Story makes an important breaking point in Square's RPGs - it's arguably the first game to offer something other than the standard "plucky crew of attractive young people band together to save the world from evil".

Ok, I admit that Ashley, Callo, and Sidney are all young, and Callo's certainly attractive. But they're not plucky, and when all's said and done, I don't even think the story was about saving the world as much as making things right with Sidney. It's a subtle distinction, but it makes the difference for me.

Ok, so let's have a little gedankenexperiment: if such a high percentage of preorders end up paying (and Sony can certainly find a market beyond the preorders) then why is it in Sony's interests to cause a panic?

I don't think they're kidding about this one, folks. If you've been paying attention in Japan, they've had production difficulties over there and it doesn't surprise me in the least that they're having problems supplying the much bigger US market. Some stores are going to be nice guys and honor their original agreements, but in light of recent difficulties others are going to be shaking people down to see who really wants their PS2 and who just thought it might be a good idea to put their name on the list.

Just as a reference point, I also went to the local EB this weekend to preorder OB64. The clerk estimated that preorders made now would get their systems between March and May, and said that he didn't think there'd be anywhere near enough systems come launch day. Take that for what you will.

My personal vote is for JP to stay far away for RPG Maker, since any development he did would probably eat into time for other projects, and I will be very unhappy if ToastyFrog goes on break again. Comprende?

You've just echoed nearly everybody I've heard talk Uematsu vs. Mitsuda, Mr. Cruz. And you're dead on - Uematsu seems stuck rocking out on a synthesizer when everybody else is shoveling down the full spectrum buffet of musical options available. Even Saga Frontier II and Dewprism had advantages over FF8, because while the music itself wasn't nearly as grand in scope it made better use of the available sound options, and felt more complete as a result. Word has it FF9 is not a huge departure from 8 in terms of the soundtrack, so I say we've got to give Uematsu one more chance. Let him score FFX, and if the OST doesn't meet or exceed the bar set by Chrono Cross, we put the old horse down and let Mitsuda take over.

Square's been a rumored X-Box developer for some time now, but until they say flat out they're going multi-platform, I'm still skeptical. That said, if I can get Final Fantasy and MGS2 on X-Box, I won't get a PS2, period. Not much more to say.

Ordinarily I wouldn't print something like this, but what's the point of running the column if I can't enjoy it from time to time?

Wow. This maybe the coolest damn thing I've ever gotten sent to me, surpassing even Imad's "Chris Jones DQ quotes" letter. There are numerous small quibbles - my English is far from perfect, I do in fact have a "real" job, and... well, I guess that's about it. Regardless, major props to you Efrate, I'll treasure this, seriously.

Of course, now the question is, does the story end in marriage (comedy) or death (tragedy)? Or both, since this is the post-modern era?

Closing Comments:

I noticed that during the site's vacation, an interesting milestone got passed over: the one year anniversary of FF8's US release. So in keeping with the nostalgia theme, I'd like you to let me know how you perceive the game, now that some of the unabashed praise and knee jerk criticism has quieted down. How was the story, what's your take on the gameplay, and where does the series fall in the FF canon rankings now that all's said and done? Drop me a line, and I'll catch you tomorrow.

-Chris Jones, "Et tu, AK?"