Alan, you are the sexiest person on this planet! Your gamingskills drive me wild, and my heart pounds every time I look at your long,sensual column. My bosom heaves in anticipation every day as I wait withbated breath for your column to appear on my screen. It gives me a warm,tingly feeling all over. Will you father my child?

- CandyXXX

I don't think that AV gave Desmond Gaban's arguments nearly enoughconsideration, it seemed that he categorized things as "whining" withouttrying to explore the dichotomy Desmond observing between a personhating battles and loving RPGs. His use of statistics was basically aeuphemism for "most" or "more", and to single that out for a subjectline and response is to totally and completely ignore the discussedpoint.

AV's other central point revolved around battles becoming an arbitrarynuisance in a game, but he doesn't allow for one basic fundamental: whatif the battles are fun? My best friend and I have spent many an hourplaying FF1 on two TVs, each killing numerous Zombulls on that tinypeninsula NE of Provoka, far before we should be allowed to fight them.Dammit if those battles weren't good ol' FUN. It seems the philosophyof immersion no longer is allowed to include the questing and fightingaspect of RPGs, just the story.

Desmond was trying to say that today's RPG "fans" are more shallow intheir tastes, and I find little to prove otherwise. Remember the pollthat Square conducted about what facet of a game is most important?Remember the shocking victories of graphics, nearly across the board?The pool of RPG playing gamers has expanded, so those who cared aboutold school gameplay are inherently a smaller portion thereof.

AV stated that he was "a busy person". Well, no one is forcing him toplay games, especially time consuming RPGs. It took me weeks to finishXenogears because of classes and a speech writing job, but I didn'tblame the game for taking so long, even if it was 90% story (oh no, astat...). Xenogears may have had the greatest story I've ever seen in agame, but I could go over it and slice into any number of clichÚs if Ichose. However, categorizing things so broadly would be to skew thefundamental idea. Well executed clichÚs can be as fulfilling as anyoriginal idea, assuming any truly original ideas still exist.

Desmond was essentially arguing for balance, challenges that would meritlevel building and challenges to be had by not doing so. Battles are anintegral part of most RPGs, and if they become tedious, it isn't becausethere are too many so much as they aren't varied or fun enough tosupport their numbers. It isn't the concept, but the executionthereof. If I were to find reading a certain novel tedious, then Ishouldn't swear off novels completely.

Instead of making challenge enjoyable and secrets plentiful, i.e. FFTor Tactics Ogre, games are increasingly eliminating challengecompletely. That is the change that I (and I believe Desmond as well)find so alarming.

- Ed McGlothlin

Here's something that's rather strange, but true just the same. I *liked*leveling up back in Dragon Warrior I. I mean, I really loved it. I could goand sit there the whole day (not like I did, I beat the game on level 19) andfight Armored Scorpians and Wyverns and not get bored in the slightest. Eventoday, when I go back and play DW1, I still like leveling up.

That's not the strange part. The thing is, I simply can't stand leveling up inmost RPGs. Of recent RPGs, the only game where I didn't mind fighting forexperience was Breath of Fire III. In just about every other game (includingthe not-so-recent DW2 and DW3), I liked to rush through dungeons, gettingthrough the game quickly. Why is that? Is it just that DW1 and BoF3 are greatRPGs and nothing else is? No, since I absolutely adore Chrono Trigger (exceptfor the episodes in the future). Then again, CT doesn't have random battles. You needn't really level-up in the new FF games, but I couldn't care less forFFVII and FFVIII and FFIX and whatever comes next (they'll never match FFV,which I also avoided leveling up in). [Why the hell am I writing this?] Itjust seems that there are some games leveling-up in works well in, and otherswhere it doesn't. You can't simply say "Leveling-up is a technique developersuse to cover up flaws in the game." When I level up, it's not to beat thesystem, it's because the game is fun.

--magius

What the hell was up with Andrew Vestal? Did he figure he could get away with subliminially calling Japan's hottest video game a piece of crap/insulting the intelligence of 12 million Japanese gamers? Games don't sell in that quantity because they're bad. Sure Crus'n USA was a platinum seller, but it only sold a mere 1 million copies (and there were market situations that are responsible for that) but Pokemon's sold a friggin 12 million copies worldwide. Pokemon's the hottest thing in Japan period. It's extremely popular in China, Malaysia, Korea, and other Asian countries, and they only have the Japanese version there! Before you accuse me of using sales data as the only indication of a game's quality, need I only point out that the majority of video game journalists have given Pokemon critical acclaim.

Stating his own opinion of the game is one thing, but to mock the game's quality as if his judgement of the game is the only judgement there can be, is pure arrogance.

Okay, I asked these entirely senseful Questions of Andrew durring his short stay of double agent in your place, but he seemed to not want to answer them. I am the Sultan of Strange, and I will not be denied answers. Unless, that is, if you decide not to answer them. but Okay here they are:

1) We all know that many games in japan do not come over here because they either did poorly over there, they didn't think we would get their concept (cultural thing), orthey didnt think we would want them. But what about the ones we nearly beg for, like RPG maker (yes I know about verge), or the great games like Front mission, Front mission II, Front mission alternative,FF2,3, and 5. Instead they give us kings knight (nes) and final fantasy: mystic quest. (Okay, so these are all square games, not that theres any thing wrong wiht that, of course.) but you get the point. Why is this? and dont tell me its because of cost, and it just wouldnt be smart to bring them over, because if it were then we wouldnt have games like those afore mentioned or saga frontier, or breath of fire 3, and so on.

2) do you have Nobuo Uematsu's E-mail? yes or no would suffice, but I would still like to know what it is.

3) why is it that all bad jokes start off with " so three guys walk in to a bar"?

4)why is it that america cant dish out one good RPG? I mean other than the work that was done here on parasite eve, and the work that is being done on the movie (FF), and FFIX, but in whole I mean an american company?

5) Is it true that the FF movie is being origionally made in english, and so their lips move to the english language, seeing as how its going to be such a detailed movie. And that it will have to be, (of course, he yaha ha ha haaah ha ha)dare I say it, subtitled and\or dubbed just so most japanese people can understand it? If so, and so, HA HAHAHAHAH HAA AHH HA, SWEET REVENGE!!!!!!!?

John, S.o.S.

Allan- Welcome back! Glad to see you again. (I'm assuming that you actuallywill be back, with no unforseen delays. If not, hi Andrew!)

Well, sadly, I'm one of those people who really hates being misquoted, like Iwas in Desmond Gaban's defense of level-building in yesterday's column. SinceI don't have his e-mail address, I'll have to try to set the record straighthere. The esteemed Mr. Gaban claims-

"What Toma Levine was implying, however, was that he didn't care about battlesat all, and that he just wants an RPG story."

That's a pretty loose definition of "implying." I trashed games that are onlybeatable with level-building. I never said anything about battles in general,and the word "story" never appeared in my letter. I have nothing againstbattles. They're the heart of the game, for Blarg's sake (to use a Thor-ism).But only if the player is actually going somewhere, not walking around incircles for the sole purpose of getting stronger. (I wholeheartedly agreewith AV's response to Desmond's letter, BTW. Couldn't have said it better.)I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, just as long as theydisagree with what I actually said.

Okay, enough about that. I've got something else I want to address. That's"hardcore" or "old-skewl" players, who think classic RPGs are much better thanthose of today. That's not the problem. The problem is that a small butvocal group of these gamers, rather than just stating what they have to say,feel the need to constantly try to uphold their superiority over fans of newerRPGs, who are (supposedly) all clueless new players who aren't interested inactually playing a game. I know that I, for one, would respect theseparticular "old-skewl" people's opinions much more if they'd remember thatthere are some perfectly intelligent people who have been playing for awhile,and enjoy the newer games. Not all of us enjoy being lumped into a broadstereotype.

-Toma Levine, KefkaB@aol.com [email address included by author's request]

Wow! I didn't know AK was so cool! I was wandering around when I found "Andy Kauffman", right up there with Santa Clause and Elvis, as a wanted propriater of The Warehouse (currently at unclebear.com). Andy Worhal and Jimmy Hoffa are also on the list. I must say that my respect for AK has never been this high.

- Mikmok

PS: Jimmy Hoffa! Wow!