Agent Allen, Allan, whatever:

FF8 got high praises from the Japanese magazine known for being tough,eh? Damn, I feel REAL sorry for Sega right now. Where does Sega come in? youask. Well, here in America, the guy just trying to make a living and isREALLY REALLY good at what he does, Sega, is trying to win back its onceloyal fan base. He's releasing Dreamcast later in the US than in Japanspecifically so there are enough games for launch. They're getting allprepped up, probably making commercials and ads right now, getting theirmarketing strategies ready, getting third-party developers. Now, big popularguy Square has one game on a really really popular series and is releasingit on big (rich) bully Sony's system. Sony will back it up with a trilliondollar marketing plan. The guy who is really good at what he does but isn'tthe most popular is trying to get his fans back when some other guy puncheshim in the face. And with FF8 AND Dreamcast both coming out in Fall 1999,it's like Square beat poor old Sega with a bat and then kicked him in thenuts. Ouch.

-Clyde Hudman

Now, here's the letter I was planning to send you even before I readyour suggestions and rambling about your column. It's about FF8.

Ok, good reviews in Japan, huh? 10,9,9 from one magazine. Great! Ithink I will like it. But I am quite certain that the game will be thebane of your existance for about 2-3 years after it is released. Didyou notice the comment about how the battles aren't balanced? REturn ofdifficulty and gameplay complaints!!! Until the "hard core" gamers getoff their high horses and let us enjoy the frickin game, I'm gonna justforget about visiting any letters column at all for a few months afterthe release of FF8 just to avoid it! That's right, the crap that the"hard core" people are going to pull is going to make me not visit your,or anyone else's, letter column. Yes, I know its childish and drastic,but I'm making a point here.

And one mag reviewer gave it a 7? Oh, crap. Yup, FF7 wining all overagain! Can we make a bit of a rule? No printing of letters that saysFF8 sucks. Or any other game for that matter. And while we are at it,no letters saying that it is awesome or the game of the century, either,because that can get just as annoying. Have one poll about 6 monthsafter the release asking what you think of the game and why you thinkthat way, compile the poll, post it, and let the topic die! Askquestions about the frickin game! Don't try to convince me that it isgood or bad, because I will have already decided by playing the frickinthing myself. NO ONE REALLY CARES! And I am certain you would like toget your column back to questions, not color commentary.

And now for an actual question from me. Compared to the FF8 reviews,what kind of reviews did the same mags give for Zelda: TOOT? ("tootsweets, toot sweets. . . memories of Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang) I'm justcurious as to how they think the games compare, even though they are twocompletely different genres of gaming.

There, you have a question. ARe you happy now. . . step away from theLlama feces, sir! We don't want this to get ugly!

I_Am

Lufia 3 is back in development. Which of the best traits should be kept?

- Best features of Lufia? I didn't have to keep it. Thank God forrentals.

Bryan "PSXLord" Carr

Hey! I've played Lufia 1 and 2, and while I dont think they are the some of the *best* RPG's out there, I love them. For their hours of playtime? No. For their simple yet fun battle system? No. For the mind numbing, brain twisting puzzles?? Hell no. Its simple: Personality. When I first played Lufia 1, something happened that never happened to me in an RPG before: I felt giddy. Words can't even begin to describe the warm, the ecstatic, the saccralicious music track that plays when you talk to a shop keeper. First I was shocked, then a big grin spread slowly spread across my face. This game has got personality. And the rest of Lufia 1 never lost that personality.

Then came Lufia 2. While it didnt have the shop music of Lufia 1, and didnt *quite* have as much personality, it had a GREAT soundtrack (not AWESOME, mind you, but pretty damn good), and it still had that slow machine gun like sound whenever you talked to someone (which changed with the people you talked to!)! And Lufia 2 was, on a technical and story scale, much more complex than Lufia 1. But all of that paled in comparison to what the Lufia series had, and that was personality. Chrono Trigger had style, FF series had emotion and "epicness", but Lufia had personality. And that personality, that "spunk" that Lufia has, is what I feel is the best feature of the previous Lufia games that should be preserved, above all else.

Ice_Man_Ash

I'll make this one short and sweet. What features should they keepfor Lufia 3?

1. Dungeon Design - The deungeons were what hooked me. Tons of funlittle puzzles to keep your noggin buzzin.

2. Limited random encounters - Let it be known that I'm one of those RPGgamers who DESPISE excessive random encounters. Lufia 2 limited randomencounters to the overworld. Dungeons monsters were plainly visible andcould be avoided when you didn't feel like fighting. And even if you didget into a fight, there was always a 100% chance of running away. WhenI'm feeling wimpy, I wanna run quick, not spend 3 turns trying to do itwhile the monsters get free hits, I'll fight them when I feel like it,and not a second before.

Features they should change or drop

1. Similar plots - Lufia 2's plot mirrored the first one so closely theonly difference I saw were the character's names. Hero has childhoodgirlfriend, she joins him on his quest, childhood girlfriend getsjealous of another girl (Lufia 2 differed slighty when you ditched yourchildhood sweetheart), Hero's girlfriend/wife meets tragic fate (turnsout to be the bad guy, amnesia, or dead), Gades is the first Sinistralyou fight and is an unbeatable boss, the sinistral Erim having an alterego that aids you, finding the hidden elf village, and enlisting thehelp of a genius to build you an airship. A difference in plot for Lufia3 would REALLY help.

2. Easy Final Boss - Daos was such an easy boss, I thought there wasanother fight after him.

3. Limited number of characters - Lufia 2 only had seven characters thatjoined your party throughout the game. One of which ditched halfaythrough (Tia), another ditched 2/3's through (Dekar), and anotherjoining you for only one dungeon sequence (Alexis). MORE CHARACTER'SPLEASE!

4. A plot full of sub-quests - Here's how Lufia 2 went. Start in thekingdom of (blank), you must get to the other town/continent. The onlywas there is locked/blocked off/bridge out. Find the item/person who canremove the obstacle. Go through the cave to the next area.....wherethere happens to be another blocked off cave you must open through amini quest. I honestly can't remember a point in the game where thiswasn't going on. Sure it's ok to use once in a while, but the WHOLEgame?

FABIO

Seiken Densetsu 3 was sooooo cool! Although I'm not sure I preferred the screen by screen combat system it used (where you have a certain number of enemies in any given "area" and, when you eliminate them, get a little green box that says Win! and, sometimes, a treasure chest) over SOM's, overall I must say the game was of exceptional quality. The graphics, within the scope of the SNES, were very attractive, and the music was nice. Where the game truly excelled, however, was in the Triangle Storyline thingy [Yeah! -MikMok][Thank you MikMok -MikMok][Don't mention it- MikMok], where you choose three of six characters and go through the storyline with them. For most of the game, this produces no major plot changes (although you get different antagonists) but the last few sequences are different depending on who your "main" character was [Ours was Duran, we got to fight a Dragon thing. We also had Reisz and Charlotte- MikMok]. The game is also fairly easy to muddle through, since there are many similarities between it and SOM. There is also a partial translation, but it has been discontinued [Not that we care! We imported it!]. Anyhoo, good luck on getting real letters [Not that I think you'll need them; if you don't have a mailbox overflowing with chewy goodness, than we will be very surprised- MikMok].

-MikMok

Dragon Quest 6. The depth of this game is amazing and its could easily be the best RPG of all time. A wonderfully complex story involving 2 different worlds, awesome battle sequences where enemies are fully animated, and the one of the BEST music scores of any RPG I've played (you'll get hooked on the "Town" theme the moment you hear the first catchy note). Add to that a well designed job system (with hidden jobs too), inviting monsters to join your team (trying to catch a Metal Babble is one of the funnest parts of the game!), and difficulty (puzzles and battles both require a lot more strategy than most contemporary RPGs)... and you have an RPG of exceptionally high caliber.

- Meiou Setsuna

Hey Double A, how's it going? I'm writing in to find out if I'm going blindor if I'm just somehow out of touch with the newest in gaming. Did you saydating sim? What the hell is a dating sim? Or is it just a joke? I supposethere are stranger ideas for games out there(Harvest Moon anyone?)but adating sim sounds a little kooky. Anyhow I guess that's all I really have tosay, later.

You're friendly neighborhood Freakazoid

Hmmm... dating sims. This topic caught my eye. As soon as I first heardabout dating sims in Japan...I immediately thought of how they would bomb ifthey were ever brought to America. You ask me why? Well, here is a couple points.

1) Why play a dating sim when you could do the real thing?

2) They would not be realistic because senators and the ESRB would censor sex,etc. out of it.

Those are the two main reasons they would bomb, and this is probably whatpublishing companies are thinking also. I mean, who would want to play adating sim, when you could just go cruise for chicks, find one, ask her out,and go on a date!? Also, parents (in an outrage), senators, and the ESRBwould go censor crazy with games like this! Most aspects of dating would goout, including having sex, etc. The game would just be a pelithora (did I usethat word right? if not, replace it with big mess) of going out to movies,kissing on the cheek, and checking out chicks at the mall. And even thelatter might be taken out because of "lust." I mean, they don't want it to berealistic, where guys check out women's breasts, and women check out guy'sbulges! No, no one would want a realistic dating sim!

--Matt Elder

If there is an internet based RPG, the main concern would be the lag.Lag often frustrates people and being in competiion with other playerscan make it even more frustrating. It might do well for more mature andpatient gamers. It would have to have a way of communicating with otherplayers if they were to join groups or people's parties, but most of thetime,communicating can lead to insults and name calling. I would becautious...

Hi,

I'm divided on the issue as to whether dating sims should be released inNorth America. On one hand, most of the people I've talked to who'veplayed Tokimeki Memorial (or Tokimemo in it's shortened form, similar tothe way Pocket Monsters becomes Pokemon) loved Tokimeki Memorial, and it ispersonally one of my favourite games. The babes are cute (all right,they're 2d, but so what? they're still cute :)), there's alot of challengein getting different babes, and it's a great game to practise Japanese.It's a great game

However, I think it would be really really hard to adapt for the NorthAmerican market. Not only would it require voice acting (lotsa people hatenon-dubs, and it wouldn't be 'cost effective'), it'd require lots ofreprogramming, because the game is a pretty good (though occasionallyinaccurate) representation of the Japanese school system. School startsaround April and May, there's the school trips to various parts of Japan,the numerous clubs which are lacking in most North American schools, andsome unique Japanese phenomenona such as White Day (like a payback day forSt Valentine's Day), Golden Week (a holiday week because several nationalholidays fall on some, but not all, of the days in a certain week of theyear), highly competitive comparison of test marks and going to the templeto pray and buy fortunes at New Year's.

It would be easier to adapt some other dating sims, such as Sakura Taisenfor the Saturn or one of Sony's Yaru-Dora (Kind of achoose-your-own-drama-series game) games like Double Cast or Sampaguita,because these games require alot less explanation. While these games arenot strictly dating sims, they could open up the way for the recent newgenre of games that has for now been strictly Japanese.

- Caven