Who in the hell let those monkeys in? Chittering, ooking and squatting all over the furniture, the little bastards. I should kill them all. Send them scuttling back to the black monolith. They may know how to use bones as clubs, but I've got a Magnum, and a chunk of what was once a cow won't do much against ten rounds of hot lead, I assure you. Die, you monkeys. Die like the animals you are. | Holy sheet and Thor | Greetings Allan, I was just wondering if you or any other RPG fan out there knows thelocation of the sheet music for some RPGs (FF7, CT, ff3, and CT cometo mind), because I've been looking for some for a while. I'm good atplaying piano and addicted to RPGs (Even though I only own FF7,Xenogears, and Chrono Trigger), and I want to be able to mix the two(No, playing the piano at Tifa's house in FF7 does NOT count). Also,where in the Maritimes did you go Allan? American or Canadianmaritimes? Just wondering because i live on Prince Edward Island andit is a terribly horribly BAD place to live (Xenogears cost me over$80). Anyways, tell me next time before you come n a maritime vacationso i can stalk.... er, visit you. =D Sincerely and oddly, Andrew "I'm addicted to (Brackets)" Ferguson PS. Are you and Thor Antrim (Q&A thundergod of RPGamer) friends orsomething? sometimes your sense of humor seems very similar to theothers. Except for Thor's obsession with Teri Hatcher, but thatsanother story. |
There's sheet music available for some of the Final Fantasy games in the Final Fantasy Piano Collections series, if you can find a copy. Beyond that, I'll leave it up to other readers to inform us all. As for Thor and I, well, we never actually talk to one another, so I guess calling us friends is kinda stretching things. No antagonism, but we're not buds either. Any similarity in senses of humor is purely coincidental, on my part at least. | Our cheerleader squad | Me: I THINK GIA'S THE BEST SITE ON THE NET. ANYONE AGREE WITH ME??!! Crowd: YEYEEAAAAAAAHHH!!!! Me: ...KICK ASS SPECIALS... Crowd: YEAAAH! Me: ...AWESOME DOWNLOADS... Crowd: YEAHHAHA! Me: ...anyone like.......ANDREW KAUFMAN?!! Crowd: YEEEEAAAAAAAHHHH!! Me: How about.......DOUBLE AGENT?!!? Crowd: YEA.er.....ummmmm..ahhhhh..............well.. ...... LOOK OUT! DOUBLE AGENT'S GOT A FLAMETHROWER! EGAAAAHAA!!!! Or should I say, flamethrowing tongue? -still haven't thought of an original name |
I offer all my readers a very simple choice: be a fan or be well-done. Works out well, no? :) | A second look at Xenogears | Hiya boss! First off, an apology for this damn late report... I can only say that my education doesn't go so fluidly as yours.... Secondly, an apology that this letter is about a game that's been out for ages, but the import scene in Europe (and especially over here in Holland) is a bit slow... Right, onto the actual report then... .... Xenogears. I had finally managed to secure a copy (after having to go across the country -grumble-) and land it in my mod-chipped PSX. I sincerely loved the game with its interesting battle systems for both on foot and in the Gears. The story was very intriguing too, with an exceptionally dark and depressing beginning... But after about fifteen hours of play the game's downfall commenced : every half hour or so there would be a cut scene where some of the bad guys would spew a few unknown terms and generally act mysteriously to set the scene. But this got to be very boring very quickly, and after about the twentieth mention of Animus, Gaetia, Gazel, Contact and whatnot, I was getting ready to switch the game off and read some American literature (which shows how desperate I was for some entertainment...) This really spoiled the middle forty hours of an otherwise brilliant game for me. Square (and other RPG developers) have got to learn that "boring terms do not an intriguing story make!". Of(f) course a little mysteriousness in a story is very well to make it exciting and keep you playing, but when only questions are being raised and the previous ones never answered, it gets very boring very quickly. But! I almost finished the game once (the final dungeon, and then there was a suicide note where my memory card used to be), and have recently restarted it. I'm now twenty hours into the game (using Fritz's brilliant FAQ, thanks again man!) and I'm pleasantly surprised with how much I love the game now that I understand what the hell is going on! It's reaaaally enjoyable now and well worth the $150 I spent on it (oh, the burden of being a European student and RPG import fan..). So, in closing I must say : Xenogears is an enjoyable game and well worth buying IF you have the time and patience to play it through twice. Its problem is mostly that by the time you know what all the words mean, you won't be able to remember the scenes you couldn't understand when you first saw them. By the way, since it's only courteous, I'll state now that the above is my opinion and you may feel free to disagree. After all, I'm only human! Right, signing off, Sir "DK" Farren (Deviating from the Kommonly held opinion) |
Wow... courtesy. Something heretofore unseen in these parts. I've got to say, I'm very, very glad that you enjoyed Xenogears, given how much trouble you went to get your hands on it. I do sympathize with playing through it the first time and going "what the HELL is this about?" for long periods of time. I honestly think it would have been nice if the number, and length, of Mysterious Subplot cutscenes were lower for the first half the game. It took away from the drama, and I agree, littered my head with far too many strange, capitalized words. | Woman of Steel | Dear Double Agent, Is Lois Lane really the ideal companion for Superman? - Max |
Good question, Max. And quite frankly, I think the answer is no. Why? Because Superman is the perfect speciment of a humanoid. Super-strong, super-fast, super-intelligent, and so forth. While it's not necessary for him to marry his equal, I think he deserves someone who can at least appreciate and be worthy of his affections. Lois Lane is not. Lois Lane is the stupidest woman alive. How can Superman enter into a supposedly equal, loving relationship with a woman who demonstrates the logic and observation skills of a one-eyed salamander? Her closest coworker and sometimes lover looks exactly like her superhuman paramour and she doesn't notice for untold decades? She's the dimmest bulb in the footlights, and can't even begin to approximate the shining of a star like Kal-El. | Showing that you use protection | When that guy Random 999 started his FF8 rant, he didn't really haveany good or bad points. However, he got me to thinking. Only a smallhandful of RPG's incorporate armor into the character's visuals. Forexample, even in FF1, you could visually see difference between weapons,in color, shape, or whatever. However, your fighter still looked thesame. Never saw him hold that shield, wear that armor, put on thathelmet, or equip that gauntlet, but he got defense out of them. Gofigure. And what's worse is Chrono Trigger. Crono has wicked-cool hair.No way in hell he'd actually wear a helmet. This stuff ever botheranyone else? -Mark |
The Ultima games are quite good at having characters actually change, visually, when they put on armor and change weapons. In the console arena, you sometimes see weapon changes, but in the end, most of the equipment you get is a name and a number, not a physical item, and while it's illogical, that's the way it goes. They're a tool for making your character more powerful, and that's about it. Sigh. | Lies and damned lies | Hey Double Agent, I was wondering, why do you lie to us so often? Why do you give us deliberately false and misleading information, then laugh at us for our ignorance? |
Because I hate you. Every one of you. I want to tear off your limbs and pour salt over the open, gaping wounds, just because I can. I'm bad to the bone. Back in the real world, I never actively lie to my readers, and never give false information knowingly. I screw up and give bad info more regularly than I like, I freely admit (oops), but I never *strive* to do so. It's just kinda hard to be omniscient, y'know? | Censorship response | Howdy. I thought long and hard about the censorship issues raised in yesterday's column, and here is my honest opiniom. It is only an opinion, so please don't eat me alive if you disagree, especially since I've covered myself in skunk scented cologne just in case of such an occurrance. First of all, I wonldn't say that Sony deciding not to release a game or not to translate it is really censorship. Censorship is when the government staight out denies the right of a certain thing to be seen, read, or watched. Sony, however, has made a product, and has every right to deny developers the right to release games for it (I'm assuming this is what happened to Thrill Kill). [Actually, it was Thrill Kill's developer, EA, that eventually made the decision to not release the game, not Sony. - Allan] Second is the question of whether or not Sony should participate in content screening, even if they have every right to do so. If that decision would come out of some convition held by Sony about sex or violence, and it was a moral decision, I say yeah. But if it isn't I don't really see a point. The way I see it, if a kid want's to look at porn, he will. Period. If they want to watch violence they will. Period. Parents can't stop them. It is impossible to supervise children all the time. It is, however, the parents's job to teach their kids in such a way that they don't _want_ to look at porn or violence. It is also important though, that the people who personally do not want to be exposed to porn, sex, violence, or anything else are given a way to avoid it. No kid or parent should be misled into buying a game that doesn't contain the content they thought it would. For this reason the ESRB needs to shape up and offer more descriptive ratings than the ones they have now. Games containing porn should also be under the same restrictions as any other type of porn, and require ID to be purchased. The government should be willing to help parents enforce the standards that they wish for their children, at least until the children are of legal age. If watching an R-rated movie requires ID or an accompanying adult, then games with the same level of content should require the same. So basically, what I'm saying is that although it is pretty much pointless, and also dangerous to the freedom of speech to try and totally block certain material, if anyone doesn't want to see certain content it should be easilly possible, and parents should be assisted, not hindered by the gaming industry in their efforts to raise their children as they see fit. Thanks for hearing me out, regardless of your opinion. -Arpad Korossy |
I actually agree with you, by and large. Despite my admittedly harsh anti-censorship stance, which I extend beyond actual censorship and into the realm of acceptability of extreme content, I think ratings systems are important. I believe that the ESRB is the best thing that's happened to the gaming industry in a long while, at least in theory. I agree that there is a very present and important need to keep extreme content out of the reach of those who shouldn't be seeing it. What annoys me is what a useless, ineffectual organization it is. If it shaped up, with more specific rules, and harsher implementation, two things would result. First of all, the bulk of games would retain a level of violence and sex that would be acceptable to the mainstream, and not offend anyone, since that would also give the game's manufacturer the opportunity to reach the widest possible audience. The flipside is that games that do push the boundaries will be available, restricted to the M rating, but available nonetheless. A truly effective and present ESRB would protect boundary-pushers in gaming just as the R and NC-17 ratings protect movies. As it stands, the paper tiger ESRB is a joke, and thus companies are forced to police themselves, without protection, and boundaries remain tight and constrained. I think we're on the same level here, Arpad. I do want freedom, but not at the expense of choice to avoid mature themes. I want the paper tiger to grow some fangs. | Strategy on PC and other stuff | Sup Allan, I hope you enjoyed your vacation, dude. Anyway, I have some questions and comments for the column now. 1. You seem like the type that would enjoy strategy games as well as RPG's. Well, if so, do you delve into the complex world that is PC strategy gaming? After all PC has a much larger strategy software base, then does consoles. And if you do not, then now is a good time to start, as the next game in the legendary Civilization series comes out this month. |
I'm a Mac user, I point out, which hinders my computer gaming capabilities. That being as it may, I do enjoy many of the computer-based strategy games I play at home, or when I hang out with PC-owning friends. I'm a bit Civilization nut, in particular. I'm not terribly good at it, and seem to be getting progressively worse as the series advances, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. We don't get to cover these things at GIA (it'd expand our focus waaaaaay too broadly), but I play them when I can. 2. Do you have mad skillz? |
But of course, master, sir! 3. Is it just me, or does Dragon Quest 5 blow? I just got the rom the other day, and I am not even going to take my time playing it for free on the emulator. |
Okay, well, this is not going to endear me to a lot of people, but here goes: I hated Dragon Quest V. I've been a DQ fan forever, and have played and completed every one of them short DQ Monsters, and DQV sticks out as the worst of the series, no question in my mind. Why? Let's see. The graphics are scarcely an improvement over DQIV, with very little animation or detail. I didn't find the music terrible impressive, though the Magic Carpet music is nice. The story was pretty uninspired, and while the choosing of a wife was pretty nifty (Bianca all the way), I never felt any connection to any of the characters besides the tiger. The thing that makes me hate DQV was the gameplay. Very simply, with the exception of the generational system, there is nothing new that DQV offers over DQIV. The combat system is identical, the travel and party managements only have cosmetic differences, and even the mini-games are the same. Gameplay-wise, it did improve or refine any aspect of the gameplay engine. Enix was going through the motions with DQV, confident that it'd sell on name recognition alone, and it shows. It's totally lacking in innovation or spark, and in a series that prides itself on top-flight gameplay, that is inexcusable. Sales data seems to bear out the idea that DQV is the least of the series, too. Dragon Quest V boasts the lowest sales of the modern DQ games. Moreover, 90% of its sales were made during the first two days of sales, which indicates a severe drop-off of interest in the game after the initial rush. There are also fewer DQV merchandise items than any other game in the series, including the remixes. Pound for pound, DQV was the least successful game in the series, and there's a reason for that. DQV has a lot of fans, of course. Every game does. I'll undoubtedly be flamed to char for trashing it here. But to me, it's the embodiment of every bad aspect of the Dragon Quest series, and judged against its contemporaries, or even its predecessor, I just don't think it does the Dragon Quest name justice. 4. Do you think it would be a good idea to have a speech heavy rpg (like FF) with actual voices? I think the voices are fine as long as the game is not really text dependent (MGS, Castlvania: SOTN, Brave Fencer Musashi) But I think that after having hours and hours of voices talking out of the TV to me in a FF game, it would get kind of tiring. And there is also the fact that if the voice acting was crappy [coughResidentEvil2cough] it could really throw off the feeling of some of the dramatic parts in the game. - Kalahari |
The latter part is, to my mind, the danger of having a game with all spoken dialogue. If the voice actors suck, it's going to be REALLY painful, and in order to know what's going on, you'll be forced to endure the awful voice acting. A bad situation to be in. The only RPG I can think of with spoken dialogue throughout is Panzer Dragoon Saga. It worked out very nicely there, but it did chew up a lot of memory, and at least for the present, I'd rather have a basis of text, with bits of spoken dialogue around to spice it up at the right moments.
Closing comments Whoops. I totally forgot the FF8 debate. I'll get back to that tomorrow, I promise. I'll have to weave it in, among the angry responses to my Dragon Quest V rant. Of which there will be many. And irate ones, too. Sigh. Can we say "sacred cow"? Sure. Knew you could. Oh well. We'll cross that bridge tomorrow... - The Double Agent | | | |
