'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the web
visions of Role Playing floated through gamers heads.
Up on the roof, a noise could be heard,
eager children awoke, rose up to these words
"Tales of Destiny Fencer Musashi, these are games I'd pick
And let's not forget something just for Brian Glick!
If it comes out on time, think C&C 2.
If it misses December, then Rayearth will do.
These game I do choose, for Christmas I think,
Please give me these three, but don't make me pick!"

-Ben Helmer

Hi there Brian, you great guy, you!

I just wanted to comment on Primera and Midori in Xenogears, as well as some other characters. I really think that Square should use more sentences that are purely punctuation. I mean, who needs words? Well, okay, sometimes words are necessary, but I really liked seeing people say "!!", "??", and "...". Primera and Midori, for instance, say almost nothing except "..." the entire game, and they're two of my favorite characters! If Bart had tried using "..." and thinking or simply using "??" to express his curiosity instead of rambling on about something, maybe I would have liked him better!

Jasconius

This is in response to Brian Glick's interest in Fire Emblem. ^_^

To be honest, I never played either Famicom versions of the game. However,Fire Emblem: Monshou no nazo (Mystery of the Emblem), the 1st SFC FE game,did incorporate FE1 into its story (it's the 1st chapter in FE3). Irecently finished that part of the game and must say that I loved itimmensely. The strategic aspect of it can be frustrating seeing that onewrong move would mean that one will have to reload the entire scenerio againsince one can't save during a mission. FE4, however, got rid of thatinconvenient characterstic.

The whole fact that the player has a lot of freedom in choice in how tofinish each scenerio makes the game, at least in my opinion, incredibly funand intellectually challenging. For example, you can choose to eitherpersuade an enemy unit to defect or simply do away with the person whereconsequences of such a decision could be severe. But sometimes, it's ratherinevitable that you must kill the would-be ally given the currentcircumstances. To illustrate: In one of the earlier scenerios of chapter1, one enemy unit was persistently attacking one of mine and it just sohappened that the unit he was attacking moved the exact same number ofspaces (9) as he could. So needless to say, everywhere I ran, he followed*right* behind. The problem was that it came to a point where I just stayedon a fort -- which acts as a HP replenishing structure. (I didn't want tosacrifice my unit for the sake of gaining him. ^^) So while my HP werealways regenerated, the enemy kept losing his with each round. And it justso happened that the character needed to persuade this individual moved awhopping *5* spaces at a time. In other words, she just couldn't get therein time BEFORE the potential party member died. -_- Well, in compensationfor that silly incident, I DID manage to gain that particular player in the2nd chapter. =P This might have occurred because I was such a novice atthis game then and with FE3 being my very first SRPG ... ^^

I found that every decision in this game is costly. I actually, out of purestupidity, let an enemy thief destroy a village (or very big house as theyare represented with) only to discover, later on, that it housed a verystrong (if given the chance to max out all stats =P) Archer. Indeed, who tobring for each scenerio as it is also a crucial factor in determiningsuccess. I sometimes find myself cursing for leaving out a particular unitor bringing one that later turns out to be extra baggage. However, attimes, the computer will cause a unit to be "useless" since it will ignoreit -- meaning that all the kills that could have been say, for example, theArmor Knight's, is now the Mercenary's.

Ah, the units. The is a variety of classes and all of them are pretty wellbalanced in advantages & disadvantages such as the Armor Knight which hashigh physical defense and strength but generally slow to evade andunfortunately, lacks magic defense altogether. But there is compensationfor an A. Knight as he can gain a class change at level 10 or above tobecome a General. Stats increase and Magic Defense/Evade is gained. Allunits subjected to the class change, which can also be seen as a unitupgrade, drop back down to level 1 in their new class.

I think I should end this soon. Actually, I want to add a little bit on howPrince Mars, the main character of the game, seems to literally carry andaccess the ENTIRE inventory of items currently not in use by anyone with himaround the battlefield. I find that quite amazing. =P And that special,uncanny trait of his is very much an advantage when it comes to shopping atarmorers/blacksmiths and item shops since weapon and item slots in anindividual chara's inventory is limited to 4 weapons/items each. So withMars, I can just get him to stock up for future scenerios. ^_^;

*sigh* I actually didn't quite know what to write about since it's hard forme to analyze WHY I like Fire Emblem. I don't even think I gave anyplausible reasons as to why I love it so here. Instead, I seem to havewritten a mini review. ^^ To me, FE3 is just an addiction. I love it, Iget incredibly involved to the point that I lose track of time and DON'Twant to quit the game until I finish that next scenerio. ^^;

I have no idea how many other strategic RPGs out there carry similargameplay and units but rest assured, they got them from Fire Emblem. ^_~

If you're interested, here are some resources on Fire Emblem: Monshou nonazo and the 4th game which I only know as Geneaology of the Holy War --perhaps the most popular game in the series -- which introduced (I believe)the whole concept of the need for a 2nd generation of characters to completethe game:

A comprehensive help page for FE3 and FE4<<< http://members.aol.com/rukesriese/fe/ >>>

FE3 intro, script translations and FE4 help<<< http://www.cyberway.com.sg/~xcaliber/frame.htm >>>

FE4 chara info, help, and coupling advice (^^)<<< http://www.imag.net/~raychien/feholy/feindex.html >>>

Well, thanks for reading this. ^^ I'm actually creating a fan site for FireEmblem 3 and hopefully by then, I would have thought of what exactly makesme so obsessive of the game -- and it's not simply for Nabarl and Oguma. ^^

Kouryuu

Yes!! I can fight as Sephiroth!! And now Vincent!! Will Ehrgeiz betranslated for we pathetic Americans?

Herandar Luciferage

Ah...I see that we're all just dying of curiosity about the Final Fantasymovie. I personally have been hungry for info for the past year or so.

Here's my problem. I'm an actress that is terribly terribly interested inknowing when/where/how Square will be casting the VAs for the movie. All mynormal leads have turned up no information whatsoever. Do you guys have*any* insight into when and where this may be taking place, or how I mightfind this information?

Ryuukishi Jaana

"In a recent RPGamer there was talk of someone importing Japanese games for the SNES and talking about buying a converter. A converter, eh? I would rent quite a few Japanese games from a local rental store in the area and I never once had to use any converter. One of my friends also let me borrow the Japanese Dracula X, and it worked flawlessly on my American SNES with no problems. What is all this silly converter talk?"

I was so taken aback by this statement that Ifelt it necessary to let you know of the averagePAL gamer's plight regarding playing importedgames.

Japanese Super Famicom carts should run on an American SNES fine if, as you mentioned, youremove the plastic tabs that prevent the useof Japanese carts. You can also play AmericanSNES games fine on a Japanese Super Famicomif you file the cart slot so the American cartscan actually fit into it.

However, we PAL sufferers *must* use a converterto override the lockout that we suffer if we attempt to play SCART games on our PAL systems.Through a variety of methods converters fooledPAL systems into thinking they were playing PALgames (I'm not sure how the converters workedexactly, but you almost always had to plug twocarts into them - a PAL as well as a SCART cart -before plugging them into the system). They were - and still are - absolutely necessary."Converter talk" is, therefore, anythingbut "silly." ;)

Andrew Taumoefolau