People are idiots. To celebrate this joyous fact, which I've been grimly reminded of today, I'll be posting a special Double Agent column tomorrow. It will put all the lamest, stupidest, most thick-headed and generally terrible letters I've received since I started this column. Indignant accusations that I'm not "hardcore" enough, flames, letters that tell me off for being the root cause of everything from Lunar delays to FFV nonreleases to Apartheid. The dregs of Double Agent will be put on display for one and all for one glorious day. Think of it as an ego-boosting opportunity. You can look at these letters and say "Wow. I'm not god, but at least I'm not THAT lame!" Doesn't that sound cozy? Thought it did. Watch for it. | I missed a meeting, didn't I? | Dear Double Agent, We all know that Square is going to make Seiken Densetsu 4, becayse they said they had an announcement that would rock the industry, and since Secret of Mana was such a huge hit, it's gotta be a sequel to that, right? Okay, so here's some Qs. 1) How many players will it have? 2) Why did Square go with Dreamcast for SD4? 3) Will the Sprite show up? By the time of SD4, wouldn't be be dead? 4) I really think the graphics should be in 2D. Sprites rool. Don't you agree? Can you tell Square to make them sprites? Thanx. - That Toaster Dude |
Just filling in the drug-induced letter quota for this month... | Scheduling difficulties | Ok, before I even begin to attempt to consider the contemplation of therandom spewing of my divine opinions, I have to inquire of a simple task ofyours. Namely, when do you read your mail? And when do you post the new day'scolumn? These letters seem entirely time-dependant and there seems muchcompetition (for unfathomable reasons) for your very own response. Being acollege student, I must roam the net only under the guise of night, barredfrom from the view of normal humans. Thus, I commonly only happen upon thisglorious little site at about 2 in the morning. Is it even worth it for me torespond to the prior day's mail, or should I be better advised to seek onlyoriginal notions? In any case, I find that I enjoy the entire site quite a bit, despite theoccasional over-whelming maleness. & Still, somehow it is quite humourous,informative and well designed. Thanx for making me loose sleep. ~ Alone in the videogame void of Milwaukee |
Overwhelming maleness? And to think we haven't even posted up the special crushing beer cans against our foreheads feature... Anyhow, I tend to read my email first thing in the morning, again at roughly 4 PM, and periodically throughout the evening thereafter, until I've posted that night's column, which often ends up being close to midnight. As an aside, I actually posted the column at a decent hour last night, contrary to appearances, but an older version the index page was accidentally uploaded and updated last night, so it looked as if the new col wasn't up until this morning. Terribly sorry. Anyhow, I read mail semi-constantly, and update close to midnight most of the time. | Butane? | hey, I wanna send you a butane lamp and it's 4.98 X 10^32 Terabytes large,can I send it? Agent J |
A butane lamp. Well, that's a new one. Points for originality. Next! | Content returns with a vengeance | Dear Double Agent: I have some questions that I really need answering, and since I rely on GIAfor all of my video game news, and since you are such a gaming guru, I thoughtI'd ask you. First, the age old question, when the heck is Final Fantasy VIII coming out inthe U.S.? It's been out in Japan for over two weeks, and still no word fromSquare. Am I being a little impatient? I don't think so. Do they owe it tous to tell us immediately? Of course! They owe it to us fans if they wantto succeed. |
Sigh. Okay, FF8 is pencilled in as a September release, alternately confirmed on either th 2nd or the 9th. And yes, you're being really impatient. Second, when is the PocketStation coming out in the U.S.? It's been out sinceJan. 23 in Japan, and I'm just a little sick of waiting. |
The PocketStation will be released in the US later this year. When that is, exactly, we don't know. Probably just before the US release of Street Fighter Alpha 3, I would assume, since that's the big name game that makes use of it. Okay, just about a few days after I even heard of the game RPG Maker, I hearthat it's not going to be released in the U.S. at all! That sucks, cause thatwould be a GREAT "game". But I went to Playstation's website, and it is stilllisted for a March release...huh? Are all game sites wrong, or is thePlaystation website just at a lack of updates? Which brings me to my nextquestion... Why does the Playstation website have a lack of updates? They've had Crash:Warped and Spyro the Dragon as headlines for the past couple months. And it'salso really hard to navigate. |
The official Playstation website is updated very, very erratically. Why? Why is it hard to navigate? Why does the layout suck? Damned if I know. I don't maintain the damned thing. Is the Final Fantasy Collection REALLY coming to the U.S.? Sounds too good tobe true, and with my luck, it is (too good to be true). |
It is. You'll see. You were saying, in response to people's question on why FF IV won't bereleased with the U.S.'s version of the FFC, that the PSX version is crap.Loading time, graphical glitching, crappy sound, etc. For this, I haveseveral sub-questions: Why would the PSX version, on a way more technologically advanced scale than the Super Nintendo, have so many problems? |
Lazy programming. It doesn't matter how advanced the system is, if the programming for a game (or program) is crap, the result will be crap. Loading time? OF COURSE there is going to be a loading time. It's afriggin' CD! ALL PSX games have loading times. How would you know that the PSX version is crap with all these bugs, having never played the games yourself, seeing as how it's not out yet, if at all,in the U.S.? |
Because there's been a solo release of FFIV for the PSX available in Japan for several months now, which I have played on my modded system, and I can say with absolute certainty that it's crap. I really hope that the Playstation 2, or whatever the hell it's gonna becalled, will be backwards compatible with the current Playstation games. Whatdo you think the chances of that are? Cause that would, I believe, be a firstin the gaming industry, definitely giving Sony an edge (like they really needit). Thank you for your time. ZER016, rabid hater of Wild Arms |
| More stuff | Hey Allan, I have some questions and a rant for you to consider in your letter column 1. Have you ever played FF2j and FF3j? I realize they're in Japanese, but there is of course the ever-so-slightly less legal way of playing them, but very accessible nonetheless, and shall remain nameless. (Not that I would ever condone that kind of illegal activity, heh heh) What did you think of them if you have played them? |
Yes, I've played and completed both games. FF2 is an odd one, and since I was playing it without understanding the language at hand, I had a rather stiff time with it for a long while, especially since I didn't understand how the power and HP increasing system there worked. Still, having now played through it untranslated and translated (thank god for ROM translators), I consider it one of my favourite FF games. The music, graphics, etc. aren't terribly inspired, but the plot is far about what I expect from a game that old, and the system of play, while potentially unbalancing, is probably my favourite of the FF series. FF3 impressed me less. FF2 surprised me by being a lot more innovative than I expected, whereas FF3 was pretty much what I expected. It's sort of a proto-FF5 with a silly name for the base class and less sophistication and detail. Also, being a story and characterization fan in my RPGs, the interchangeable party of drones doesn't play very well into my preferences. It's not a bad game, but nothing I feel compelled to replay time and again. 2. Say you are in the middle of the ending of FF8, and you couldn't pause it, and you had barely beaten the last boss by a freak stroke of luck, and theres no way you could ever beat them again without leveling up for hours. Then your friend comes up and starts choking on a chicken bone in the other room. What would you do? |
I'll send a nice floral arrangement to his wake. 3. Do you think the Castlevania series should be considered RPGS? (and what did you think of them too? SOTN on PSX rocks, in my opinion.) I was surprised that the history of RPGS feature on videogames.com did not include them. I think if Zelda 2, can pass as an RPG, then Castlevania certainly can. And Castlevania 1-3 were certainly a lot better than Zelda 2. I personally, have always considered them RPGS, and Symphony of the Night (which rules) for PSX is more so of an RPG than a lot of other game that have always been considered RPGS. I mean SOTN has items, it has equipment slots for all the body parts, it has numbers popping up when you get hit, it has a shop and gold pieces. What more does it need? |
If Castlevania 1 and 3 are RPGs, then I'll chew off my own arm. They're action games, pure and simple, having more in common with Gradius than Suikoden. Simon's Quest is a more arguable case, and I certainly consider Symphony of the Night to be an Action/RPG, and a damned good one at that. Castlevania 1? 3? Are you joking? There's virtually no dialogue, the plot can and is explained in two sentences flat, the characters have less depth than Mega Man boss characters, no choice of equipment or non-weapon items to accumulate, no statistics or non-monster, non-party member characters. Castlevania 3 has multiple characters to use, but hell, so does Super Mario Bros 2, and nobody is saying that it's an RPG. RANT>>> Well, I don't think there's any way I can deliver this gently, so I will so it up front. The North American RPG players need to shut up and stop whining. Of course, no opinion can be valid on it's own, so I will try my best to back it up. Let's start with the example of Final Fantasy 7. I hated it how people were saying stuff like, "they misspelled the phrase 'of course' DIE SQUARE DIE DIE DIE BURN IN HELL!" So what? Ooooo, scary, our gaming experience is ruined because of a letter in the text that shouldn't be there. I think that we should all be down on our knees thanking Square for actually bringing the game over without hacking the plot into little pieces for a change, like with FF4 and 6. I mean, at least you got the game at all! Look at FF5! If it does come to the US this year, it will have been a seven year wait! I would probably be right if I said that more people in North America have complained about the typos in FF7, FFT, and Xenogears than have complained about FF5's non-release. This sickens me, and it only lowers my already low opinion of the generally low intelligence of the North American populace (before you think I'm some dumb foreigner who hates Americans and stuff, I actually am American, but I have just realized, that the majority of the US and Canada's populace is, well, stupid.) Another example. How about Final Fantasy Tactics? Sure it had it's share of typos and phrases that didn't make much sense, but at least we were lucky enough to be graced by the game's presence at all! Do you think that Square would have ever released a game like that for SNES? No way! Even if they did, Nintendo probably would not have let them anyway! And even if they could have released a game like FFT for the SNES, Nintedo's censorship requirements would have required them to pretty much completely re-do the game, and Square would never go to that effort anyway. A much more serious thing is how the only legal release of FF4 in America was the chopped up piece of shit we call FF2. Why is it so many more people want to burn the employees of Square at the stake for FFT's typos, then people who want to do that for their crap FF4 and FF6 translations (and FF5's lack of any translation) Basically, I am trying to say that although we are not equal to Japan in our level of videogame freedom, and we will probably never be, the North American RPG players need to grow up and shut up. We are a lot better off then we were 5 years ago, and now there is even more bitching then there was then. Here's proof there's more bitching now. When FF4's chopped up Easytype was released as FF2 in America, I had no idea that it was different than the original. Hell, I didn't even know that there were more FF games than FF1A, FF2A, and FF3A until I heard about FF7, and then I did research on the name thing. Because no one talked about it! It seems that for some weird reason the American and Canadian RPGers seem to like it more when we only get 2 releases a year, and censored ones at that! I don't know why that is, but I am perfectly happy with today's RPG market, typos or not. Kalahari |
It should be pointed out that, like no medium before it, the Internet is the medium of choice for bitching and whining. It makes it easy to network with others who share your grievances about any number of topics, and with ease comes volume. Want proof? Look at the countless petitions set up to ask Game Company X to do such and such a thing. Have any of them worked? Ever? Here's a hint: no. I've commented in the past that writing email to companies is useless, petitions even less useful, and the reason is simple: email is too easy to be taken seriously. Anyone can take fifteen seconds to toss off an email. Anyone can rack up signatures on an internet petition. It takes no effort, no real interest, and no drive to get involved in a 'net-based crusade. All you need is a hotmail account and five minutes. Finding the address of a company, writing a letter by hand, sending it through the mail, getting real signatures on a petition, that takes more time, and companies will pay a whole lot more attention to a letter they hold in their hand than an email in all caps from joeblow@blowme.com. Whining over the internet is annoying as hell, extremely prevalent, and ultimately insignificant. For all thrashing online critics gave Parasite Eve, it sold quite well. A lot of people out there really liked it. The silent majority. God help us, but Nixon was right. The silent majority exists, and they're the ones who dictate the ebb and flow of the RPG industry with the only tool that matters. The dollar.
Closing comments I'll be getting hell for that last rant, though I've said much the same thing before. Ah well. It should liven things up, at the very least, no? Oh, and a message to the guy who write me every day, insisting that I apologize for the existence of apartheid: go to hell, you sad little person. - The Double Agent | | | |
