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. I'm not sure the Vagrant Story OST's the best thing to listen to when you're feeling depressed. Don't say we didn't warn you.

The real news of the moment is, of course, the new FFX scans that are up. And while there are plenty of letters below that discuss these few fragments of info in great detail, nobody discussed what I thought the most interesting thing was: the new logo.

This thing's noteworthy in a couple of ways. First off, of the modern style FF logos (that we've been getting since FF IV) this is easily the most complex. All the previous logos have been a single significant symbol done in one overriding color, all of which complemented the title without overwhelming it. Here we have two main objects in the logo, a fire god and a water goddess, done in two distinct colors and set up so the whole thing is much bigger than the title. In that respect, this game already feels like a bigger departure for the series than anything else we've seen so far... but let's see what you folks think about it.

Onward.

Fear not - it's already been confirmed that voice acting will only be used in a few key points of the game, rather than throughout. Of course, Metal Gear Solid already proved it was possible to have gobs of detail and voice acting throughout the whole game, so I've got no fear of "talkies" anyway.

Incidentally, I think it's about time to let up on old schoolers - this FF is the one to give up on any vestiges of 2D, and the whole thing looks like a giant FMV to boot, so it's basically their worst nightmare come to life. They've got enough worries without us on their case as well.

Hamlet did star in a video game, my friend... except they ditched his Shakespearian name at the last minute and called him "Ashley Riot" instead. And this time around he mostly just kicked ass, with only a few short periods of existential angst, but I'm pretty sure it was him.

Seriously, where are you getting this from? You're 100% judging a book by it's cover, without any idea what Square's gonna do with these characters. I don't think FFX's characters look any more or less vacant than FF8's characters did, and I still point to 8's characters as the most fully developed, most human characters in the series so far.

You're right, dammit - I should have remembered that. I very much doubt it is any kind of targeted reference towards Knowles, but it's a cool coincidence nonetheless. They both probably just picked the name because it sounds kinda cool..

Good point. Moving on.

That's completely unfair - Nintendo ripped off Sony far more than Microsoft did. Aside from being overly large (I don't expect to have any problems with it, but if you can't palm a basketball you might be out of luck) the controller's so generic it might have been created by anyone sometime in the past 10 years.

You gotta keep in mind that since both character renders were done by the same guy they're gonna have some similarity... and since they were both done by Tetsuya Nomura, they're actually gonna have a lot of similarity. People have already pointed out how much his character designs for The Bouncer resemble those for FF8, and I'll admit that there does seem to be a strong resemblence between Tida and Squall in at least one shot.

Beyond that, tho, I think the designs are pretty good and stand on their own. For one thing, they look exactly like what they're supposed to be - Tida looks like some sort of surfside athelete, while Yuna looks like a shrine maiden should. At this point I'm willing to give the game the benefit of the doubt, but I'm watching out for any blatantly Zell-like tattoos.

Ah, trying to go the economy route, eh? A lot of that will depend on what kind of environment you're in, and what your retail options are. A large city with a few decend new/used game stores will probably have all those games available for at least a year. On the other hand, if you're in a more remote area with only a few chain stores, you might want to act soon, since they'll likely sell out in a month or two and not be restocked. You might also have to act a bit faster for a mint copy of Lunar than for the rest, but I'm sure Working Designs will once more announce the cutoff date for making any new copies.

Closing Comments:

The weekend is here, and it's time for me to salvage a lot of RPG time out of what should have been an unbroken week of RPG mania. Meantime, you get to toy with Drew's tiny mind. Just remember to be gentle, since I need him in good working order for next weekend.

For a topic, how's this: FFX is here, and with it, FF has fully embrased the 3D realm. There's nothing even vaguely SNES like about this game.. so are you still hyped about the 3D revolution, or are you starting to have second thoughts and yearnings for the good old days? See you Monday.

-Chris Jones, wants to go to Chicago, emotional blackmail be damned