Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not neccessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Give all the idiots a brand-new religion! Don't say we didn't warn you.

Well, once again I'm in the position of having to come up with a decent introductory paragraph to kick things off with. Considering that I do technically have all week to come up with these things, you'd think I'd be prepared no problem. Unfortunately, during the week the bulk of my brain power is devoted to things like homework or the invention of ways to turn up some cash that doesn't involve selling drugs, having sex for money, or selling drugs while having sex for money. I'd like to say I've come up with a brilliant pyramid scheme, but the truth is that I just got a job like everybody else. There goes my vie for iconoclasm.

Normally when I can't think of a decent intro I just ramble on about supposed intros I was going to give you but decided against. These are usually a bunch of crap I made up on the spot by using mental association with the various pieces of junk lying on or around my desk, then peppering my writing with italics, which are inherently hilarious. But today I instead decided to go an entirely different route and just dissect my own usual attempts at humor. If there's one thing Toastyfrog's webcomix or that skit on Kids in the Hall about how to make a skit have shown me, it's that dissecting humor is humorous in and of itself. So by dissecting the dissection of humor, I've just made myself doubly funny; like some kind of humor Buddha who witnessed the actions of those around him and attained humor enlightenment.

Believe or not, there's actually a Harvest Moon: Back to Nature For Girls edition in Japan. Apparently a regular farmer RPG wasn't niche enough for VIS; they also needed to make a farming RPG for all 4 of the female gamers out there. At any rate, so as long as your girlfriend doesn't mind learning Japanese and importing, she can have her fun too.

If I were a PEZ dispenser, little pellets of useless information would come out of my neck instead of candy.

My general notion is that I'd like to see a text/speech hybrid where speech is saved for key moments, as with games like Persona 2. It can sometimes get frustrating having to hear character dialogue over and over again when you're having trouble defeating a boss and keep having to go through the same bit of plot to get back to said boss.

But hey, I'd even be happy just as long as the dialogue was able to be skipped by the press of a button. Barring this little reservation, I'm all for spoken dialogue. It can only make things all the more cinematic.

I don't think Chris was trying to say that RPGs are unpopular so much as he was just pointing out the fact that our tastes and the tastes of the average consumer (the people buying the bulk of the videogames) don't necessarily coincide. A lot of times we'll get readers writing in about how a console won't have this kind of game or won't have this many of those coming out each month or whatever, and feeling that most people will share their attitude, hence harming the overall sales of the machine. In other words, a lot of readers seem to forget that dorks like us are in the minority. I know, I know, it's sad, but it's true.

RPGs are certainly making money, or we wouldn't see so many of them being released over here. Just don't get it into your head that gamers like us truly dictate the failure or success of most consoles. It would be nice to think so, but that's certainly an egotistical and, well, wrong idea. Props for the Melvins mention, though.

It's a shame hearing the English language pronounced correctly would turn you off to a game; you'll just be missing out. You need to keep in mind that here in America we use the Grand Central Pronunciation, and any deviance from that pronunciation can only be tolerated because various local dialects add spice to the language. Other countries like Britain, New Zealand, and Mississippi are indeed the rose-colored squares on the otherwise plain tapestry of the English language.

Well, that was especially imflammatory, even for me.

As for text boxes, you have to keep in mind that games like Mario 64 and Jet Force Gemini were light on the text in comparison to the average RPG. As a result, text boxes only popped up at a few key places, so they could afford to stop the action and let the box fill up a better portion of the screen. With RPGs, the dialogue is almost non-stop, which means text needs to be displayed while other actions are going on. Hence, they can't take up as much room.

Honestly, as long as I can set the text speed up a few notches in a config menu, I have no problem. The only time text boxes ever became a problem for me was in Xenogears, where the text scrolled so slow it was practically going backwards and there was no way to make it any faster.

Unfortunately, I have no strong opinion on the matter. As you well know, I'm incapable of offering critical or insightful replies if I haven't in some way been stirred by my own deep-seated biases to do so. So, uhm, next letter.

I'd say that answers that. Thanks, Jeff! You're more than a friend, more than a coworker, more than a mouthful: Whatchamacallit. Chewy, chocolatey, crunchy Hershey's.

I don't know why I get such a kick out of making references 3 other people reading this column will understand. Probably because I'm an elitist.

Since I still haven't gotten around to finishing off that final disc, I again turned to fellow agent Fritz for his opinion on the matter. Here's what he had to say:

Yeah, I always sort of assumed he died, too. Sounds about right to me.

So there you have it.

I will say this: there eventually reaches the point where I'd rather have an extremely innovative title that doesn't work for everybody than a cliched, albeit well-executed, title. Think Shen Mue -- it wasn't up everybody's alley, but it tried to be different and fresh. It will undoubtedly be emulated to some extent by other games, which will remedy areas where Shen Mue failed, but it still took the initial title to get the ball rolling.

So I'm anxious to see what Square pulls out for this generational jump. As a matter of fact, there's even one area where I'd prefer to see a little more progressive thinking. Which leads nicely into tomorrow's topic.

Closing comments:

Okay, I'm going to introduce your topic for tomorrow, but I'm going to do it in a round-about fashion that centers around my own opinionated rant. Sound good?

I'm not as enthusiastic as I was about Final Fantasy X after reading that it will employ pre-scripted camera shots. Like Chris said earlier, why pay for an extra dimension of you're not going to use it? The level of immersion afforded by the over-the shoulder camera angle is of greater effect than looking down on the action from some predetermined spot which may happen to swivel or rotate ever so slightly as you move about the screen. As evidence, I would contrast Zelda: OoT with Resident Evil: Code Veronica. While both were 3D in the literal sense of the word, Zelda felt more as though you were seeing the world from the same level that any virtual inhabitant would. Conversely, Code Veronica looked and played basically like a prettier version of the PSX Resident Evils before it, excepting the occasional pan or zoom.

Of course, that's not to say that the occasional cinematic camera work is entirely out of the question. Again using Zelda as an example, the way the camera swung around to introduce new areas or bosses worked to excellent effect. However, I feel that by employing pre-scripted camera angles at all times with FFX the game will be both less immersive and less innovative; it will go the Code Veronica route in being essentially a prettier version of the PSX Final Fantasies with the occasional pan and zoom. Square seems willing to tread so much new ground with this latest sequel that their reluctance to step all the way into the third dimension surprises me.

So there you have it. Let me know what you think, won't you?

-Drew Cosner, whose mom got him at Sears