Gwah.

I am cursed. Cursed like someone who just killed their mother and ate her flesh afterwards, then picked their teeth using a toothpick they stole from a priest. Every time I start doing this column, every time I tell myself (and you readers) that this time for sure, no excuses, there will be daily updates, something goes wrong. I'm also cursed when it comes to getting myself a copy of Magic Knights Rayearth (grumble grumble snark grumble), but that's another story entirely.

Anyhow, to make up for my lack of updates, I have been working on other things. Secret Things. And, amazingly, some of them are even genuinely informative. Impressive, neh? :) For now, though, I'll answer some letters that've backed up over the weekend...

I'd suggest taking the game to Wisdom Tree, and see if they'll publish it. Sure, it'll end up being called Nothing Can Help But Accept the Wisdom and Love of Jesus Christ Into Their Hearts, but the gameplay should remain intact, right?

Okay, two thoughts. First of all, if you've never seen complaints about WD's translations, you haven't been looking terribly hard. They are regularly crucified, through professional and fan feedback alike, for the changes that they make, and have been since they started. They've been lambasted for every translation they've ever done, from Exile to Cosmic Fantasy II to Lunar EB to (especially) MKR. There's no company out there that's blasted more for the changes they make. Which makes sense, since WD actively seeks to do that. Square's changes to games in translation, on the other hand, are more widely seen (due to better sales), but also the result of rushing the product to market. WD changes things because they want to, Square changes them as an accident. The rush problem tends to creature obvious, stupid mistakes that could and would be caught and dealt with during basic playtesting, which is what infuriates most people. There's no excuse for the job report dialogue in FFT. It really wasn't hard to spot that it was bad and forced and lame, and should have been fixed.

As for the Cloud summary, thanks, but the fact that you needed to send me one just illustrates a basic flaw in FF7: it's really, really unclear. Square's going for the cinematic approach, emphasizing storytelling in their games. Fine, okay, but storytelling is about *telling a story*, and a story that's told in such a way that many people don't understand key plot points is a badly told story. That's the first thing you learn as a writer: if your intended audience doesn't get what you're saying, you've done something wrong. You rewrite. It's your fault, not theirs. The same principle applies here. Central plotlines in RPGs should be understood by the end of the game, or the game hasn't been done right.

GIA will not put up a fanfic section unless we can have a solid way of maintaining quality control. Which, with fanfics, is really, really hard. 99% of everything is crap, and that's especially true with fanfiction, to be quite honest. And I speak from the perspective of someone that has read and written fanfic, so don't flame me for knocking what I haven't given a fair shake. The fact is that fanfic is a genre that, by definition, encourages unoriginality. You're taking someone else's creations and working with them, instead of going to the effort of creating a character and situation yourself, and this is something that encourages sloppy storytelling. You don't need to set characterization, mood, world or theme, because someone else already has done it for you. You're just moving around action figures, instead of building with Lego like normal writers do.

And, of course, with very popular fanfic subjects like Star Trek, Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, FF7, et al., the sheer mass of fan material guarantees that if you come up with a super secret, original storyline, about a hundred other people did too, and already did it. So fanfics are either really unoriginal, or else they go so far afield in order to be original that it begs the question "what the hell does this have to do with the original series/game/whatever"?

There are good fanfics out there. Lots of them. But there's even more crap out there, and GIA won't be stepping into that realm until we figure out a way to make sure what we post up will be the best there is. You guys deserve no less.

1. Sources for rumors of FF6 PSX being translated mostly come from thin air, basically. The standard stock of "inside sources" that also reported on Aeris being revived as a secret in FF7. Square has made no motions to translation FF6, or any other of the FF remakes for PSX, and even went so far as to post a question directly refuting it in their site FAQ. Don't hold your breath.

2. I liked it fine, actually. Did I say otherwise? Whoopsie...

3. It's in our FF8 media archives. Go to the Games section, then to FF8, Media, and it's the December 7th entry. There you go.

4. In my heart of hearts, I'm hoping Square will be using the extra time to make sure the translation is good on FF8. The first half of Xenogears showed much improvement in this area, and I hope FF8 gets the full treatment. When Namco's first RPG has a better translation than Square's tenth, something's not right. I also suspect that sales may have something to do with the new release date: most of the big gun releases are release in late fall, usually November: Xenogears and Zelda 64 this year, for example. This gives them some time to build up momentum, but keeps them fresh and exciting for the all-important holiday season.

5. MGS, to my mind, counts as a "brainy" game, and had we launched GIA earlier, we would've done coverage of it in a heartbeat. Great stuff. Still, my all-time favourite dumb game is Super Dodgeball. Glorious. I prefer Soul Edge/Blade to Tekken, and think Resident Evil 1 and 2 are highly overrated. But that's me. I'm weird.

Square are a bunch of Star Wars fanatics. There's the Biggs and Wedge thing. There's the "you're pretty small for a soldier" bit in FF3 US. There's a whole host of things. So they pay homage to their favourite movies by slipping in little references to it into their games. No biggie.

As for the story parallels, well, the rebellion vs. oppressive empire is a universal theme in stories (and history). Triumph of the right-minded minority over those that would stamp them down and all that. Read some Joseph Campbell - the Masks of God series and especially The Hero of a Thousand Faces to see how common and linked stories and mythology are throughout all human cultures.

Actually, I think reading The Hero of a Thousand Faces should be required reading for all North American children over the age of twelve, but that's one of my personal crusades. Brilliant book, and Joseph Campbell (the author) served as a consultant on the plotting of the Star Wars trilogy, which followed the Hero's Journey archetype set out in the book. So go read that book. Luke Skywalker would want you to.

I find it interesting that the Final Fantasy series, as of FF7 onwards, is lambasted for having movies "ruining" the gameplay, whereas respected series like Ys, Lunar, and Tengai Makyo have used anime cutscenes to enhance mood and storytelling for years. I also fail to see how watching a well-done CGI cutscene to put across a plot point is fundamentally worse than having an equally non-interactive cutscene using the game engine. I mean, play through FF6 again. You stop all the time for cutscenes where, heavens to Forbush, your control if limited to scrolling the dialogue forward. So, why are cutscenes in RPGs Good, regardless of quality or quantity (how many complaint letters and threads about an RPG having too many in-game dialogue scenes have YOU read recently), and FMV used for the same purpose Bad? And why aren't anime cutscenes reviled as much as the FF7 and Parasite Eve CGI ones are?

As for the futuristic bent part, well, different strokes for different folks. Here at GIA, Andrew K. is a big booster for medieval stylings for RPGs, whereas I actively prefer futuristic ones.

FF8 is concrete, as you say. Assuming it's released in a timely fashion, I believe that SaGa Frontier 2 is a shoo-in. I've heard rumblings that Ehrgeiz will likely a US release, depending on its performance in arcades. Beyond that, we just have a number, but no titles.

I'm knocking on wood and wishing you well as I tell you I'll see you all tomorrow. 'Til then, have a good one.

- Allan Milligan the Cursed