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. The title so fitting, I had to use it twice. Don't say we didn't warn you.

I'm working with philistines.

I just found this out today when not one, but two of my fellow TAs mentioned that they'd never played Combat on the Atari 2600. Now that I think about it, I'm sure that many of you haven't played the game - even I'm on the low end of the scale as far as being old enough to remember it. But it was still one hell of a shock, on par with figuring out that there are people out there who don't remember the 80's, or something. It's just... wrong. I don't know about you, but the clear lesson I've learned from this experience has been: don't trust anyone under 22.

Onward.

Nothing I've seen about the game makes me want to rush out and buy it, but I'm way behind on my games anyway, since I haven't even touched Ogre Battle 64 in nearly two weeks. At the same time, it's clear that the game has a somewhat old school feel that a lot of people like, an interesting combat system and a decent story. Just about all the letters I've gotten about the game have been positive, so if you're still on the fence about this one, you might want to go ahead and get it.

Once more, another satisfied VP customer. As to the OTHER Enix topic, this got put up yesterday just as I was finishing my column, so it may not even be an issue. Many DQ fans were eager to write in assuming we were simply ignoring the news, but I think it's a little hard to make a news story out of what's essentially a "no comment".

My best guess is that Enix of America is simply exercising spin control - they may indeed not cut it, now, but I suspect that EoJ has made the decision to port it and naturally assumed they'd want to cut some bits out for the US release, whereas EoA is trying to save face by objecting to cuts in general, at least to the public. Heck, at this point, EoJ and EoA may not even have sat down together to analyze what needs to be cut and what not. At this point all I can tell you without spoilers is that the game does have some strong religions themes, and bears some resemblance to recent Square games when it comes to the final boss.

I'm always pleased to clue people in on fundamentally pointless pop culture references, and thanks for the correction.

I hate to break it to you, but Square is not in the best of financial shapes right now. They've recently tried to expand in all sorts of ways, many of which I've applauded (the movie's subtitle aside) but these expansions have left them fairly strapped for cash, hence the recent rumblings about making their American branch public to raise some money. Most people I've talked to seem to agree that Square needs all of their big projects to do well for the company to stay financially viable, meaning if PlayOnline fails, the company could be hurt very badly, if not outright killed.

Besides, I doubt Square would ever give up on single player FFs entirely. FF 11 may be a massively multiplayer game, but insofar as we can speculate on FF 12, I'd guess that it would go back to being single player with some online capabilities. From then on they might alternate between single player games and improving their online offerings... assuming that they don't do the smart thing and spin off FF XI as its own subseries to begin with.

Always nice to see a flat out rave about a game. I'll admit the game does look great, but I personally prefer the cartoon styles of Saga Frontier 2 and Legend of Mana as far as 2D goes. However, that's probably just personal taste - it's definitely a debatable issue.

Suffice it to say, there was no mistranslation: Famitsu.com most definitely reported that DQ7 is getting a US release, and that it would be altered due to the content. Of course, they got this info from Enix of Japan, which may not be in touch with US tastes and values to the extent that Enix of America is. If EoJ is smart it'll listen to its child company and leave things alone. Regardless of what comes to pass, the story was completely legit at the time we posted it, and still may be, since EoA doesn't even have the authority to confirm its biggest title of the year.

As to the rest of your rantings: the alt tag line was a (say it with me now) joke. Our alt tags are never written or intended to be taken very seriously - to use an analogy, they are The Onion to our main news' CNN. And as to your pitifully transparent and inaccurate FF bashing... well, it's beneath me to argue about such things with an obvious flamer.

Gosh, where to begin... I guess a good starting point would be the idea that one way or another, rumblings about Enix cutting the game to ease US release are excusable. Putting aside my past comments about the apparent quality of DQ7, this is, frankly, nonsense.

Look, the issue of games as art aside, video games very clearly are an important medium of expression, as can be seen from gross sales figures that surpass those of movies. Judge Lewis Kaplan may argue that computer code isn't protected under the First Amendment, but I think most of this column's readers would argue that he is gravely mistaken. That being the case, Enix should have a responsibility to bring this game over intact. Nobody should be able to seriously criticize them as long as they stay within the ratings system, and as far as cutting the game to make it more accessible to the general public - well, one has to wonder at how dedicated they really are to their work if they're willing to cut their own plot to make a few extra bucks. To be sure, this is a choice that every artist has to make at some point, and it's their right to make it any way they please, but this kind of thing is not what we'd expect from the mighty DQ series, avatar of all that is good and hardcore in gaming.

But if I'm not supposed to use Square as an example, fine. Let's look at Konami, with Silent Hill, or Capcom, with Resident Evil, or even Rare with JFG and Conker, all of whom are willing to bring out games for adults (even in the "post-Columbine era"), government interference be damned.

What's more, any US cuts tend to reinforce a stigmata that we've only now gotten free of - that the US market is 2nd class in comparison to Japan, and that US fans are, by association, second class themselves. As a long time game player, I demand to be treated equally with Japanese gamers. I don't give a flying leap about "target audiences" - my money is every bit is valuable as anybody else's, and I expect good value for it. Attacks on Chrono Cross and Xenogears merely take us away from the main issue: that any translation changes are doubleplusungood. If the game is as wonderful and intelligent as you say it is, that's all the more reason for things to be brought over uncut.

It may well have been a publicity stunt - certainly Enix of America is currently making very different noises about the situation. On the other hand, even after the Japanese edition has sold 3 million+ copies, EoA still hasn't talked about releasing DQ7, which makes me wonder if the game will be published at all in the States. Which would be the cruelest cut of all, because after all this I think we deserve to take a look for ourselves and see what all the fuss was about.

You know, until you mentioned it, I wasn't even aware of this myself, but... I'm not all that hyped up about FF9, for some reason. I'm sure it'll be great, and the early reviews have been at least as strong as FF8's, but there's just something about it that hasn't set me on fire. It may just be game burnout in general, or the fact that I haven't had as long to wait since the last FF, but I just don't have the breathless anticipation I did 13-odd months ago for the last FF. Don't get me wrong, I've still got my preorder money down, but... it just doesn't feel the same. Still, maybe that's for the best - hopefully my lowered expectations will make it possible for the game to completely blow me away. We shall see.

Makes sense - like I've been saying, it's unlikely that any developer's ever going to fully exploit something like the PS2 before the system goes obsolete, so why not make a generic API for all Capcom games, and sell them on every possible platform? The only thing that's even vaguely troubling about this is the prospect that it might be a 3D-only wrapper (since that's about as far as the systems' similarity extends) but knowing Capcom's great legacy of 2D games, I'm sure they'll be able to cross-implement stuff like Mega Man X6 in 2D as well.

Closing Comments:

Slight change in plans - I've got a test Tuesday night, and won't be able to put up the column. However, AK graciously agreed to step in and guest host that night if I'd take over one of his weekend slots, so I'll be hosting tomorrow as well. Which means you get your end of the week free topic day anyway. Send me whatever you got, from ramblings about game music to follow-ups on any of this week's topics, and I'll see you tomorrow. Later.

-Chris Jones, thinks Valhalla's a nice place to visit, but he wouldn't want to live there