Update time! This column was originally written on April 2nd, and was going to be posted that night, as usual. However, the server that GIA is stored on went kaput for just short of 24 hours, so the April 2nd column has become the April 3rd col. Hokay? Cool beans.
And the first day of April has come and gone. Most of you, thankfully, reacted to the GIA's three-pronged April Fool's Day blast in the way we hoped. You laughed at the FF7 for Atari 2600 feature, you recognized that a letters column entitled Ask Fucko and begun with my declaring myself Lord of the Dance was probably none too serious. And just about everyone was, if not fooled, then at least really impressed by FF Gaiden (Gaiden, by the by, roughly translated to "side story" in Japanese). As the news story today explains, it was the product of some long-term planning, and some shocking good image manipulation by Nick Des Barres. I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to disclose how the movie was pulled off, though. Sorry, everyone, but we've gotta keep some of the magic hidden from view, or the trick loses its charm. The whole exercise was a rousing success, by and large. About two people are angry with us for pulling such a convincing prank. But mostly, people really appreciated it, which pleases everyone involved down to their socks. Glad you liked it. Oh, and yes, the letter from GOLDFI|\|GER in yesterday's col was indeed a joke. All flames regarding it have been duly tossed. Frankly, I'm not sure whether to be annoyed or amused by the four people who got so worked up about it. I mean, Christ, look at the context. Look at the date of the column. This didn't clue you in? Why would I post a serious letter on THAT day in the midst of THAT batch of obviously silly letters? Anyone? Bueller? In fact, there's only one "didn't get the joke" letter I couldn't resist printing... | Katy Kat is a hottie | Hey Lord of the Dance, I've gotta say WOW! Katy Kat topless! Lammy doing a lap dance? Too kewl! I tried this on my import copy (betcha wish you had one too, huh Fritz?) and it kicks ASS, man! I wish all porn was this much fun! I mean, it's interactivity, man! It's the wave of the future! Katy Kat is a sexy little vixen! And Lammy, man, I'd love to shear her where it matters! YEAH - Dragon SEED |
I'm pretty sure this isn't serious. But lord, just for the novelty value of seeing Katy Kat referred to as a "sexy little vixen", it was worth printing. I'm glad you're enjoying the code, D-SEED. Never let the Man tell you there's someplace you can't stick a Dual Shock controller. Just do what feels right. | Why we don't have FF4 Hard Type | Okay, this has been bothering me for awhile. I would like to know why we have been cheated out of the full version of Final Fantasy 4 so many times?? I understand that we only got the easy version for SNES back in the olden days of gaming Japan was nervous about the small market there would be for RPGs, but they should know by now that there is nothing to worry about anymore. As Square has seen, everyone loves the Final Fantasy series. And I believe that FF2 (FF4j) was the most special game for me because it was the first RPG I had ever played when my brother bought a SNES. It, in my opinion, is an RPG classic. I remember first reading in PSM last year that Square was porting the hard version of FF4 (the one we've never had the joy of playing), I was so excited and hopeful that Square would have it translated and shipped to the U.S. within the year. But much to my disappointment, it never happened. And then, when I first read about the Final Fantasy Collections I saw that FF4 would be included in the package. Once again my hopes were raised, till I found out that even if it's highly likely we will get FF Collections, we won't be getting FF4 in the package. I think that is a total rip off! That makes the third time they have denied us the same game within a span of 8 years. If I were like anyone else I would have my PSX modded so I could import games too, but I like the suspense and anxiety of waiting for a good RPG. It adds to the wonderment of the game. And I have been waiting for the "hard" version of FF4 for a very long time. And if Square tries to say that there is no need to remake a game we already have, waste time with retranslations, or that marketing will be poor they are simply WRONG. They are probably trying to lie to us because they are to lazy to retranslate a great game. Which brings another question, why bother remaking it for PSX?? Because the game was well-liked and thought of as a classic. I think Square should know by now that we in the U.S. feel the same about it too! I think it's high-time that Square takes a long hard look at their American market for these games and realize how much we love them and how we love old friends like FF4. And I thought, maybe if everyone who agrees with me should e-mail Square and tell them. Just maybe enough of us can get through to them and show them their mistakes. Well I've said my piece ~_~ Thanks alot for taking the time to listen. Lady Marle |
While I appreciate a sentimental attachment to FF4, and hoping the hard type could be released in the US, I have to wonder if continuing to pine for it is a waste of time. I mean, it's been out for ages in Japan, translated (albeit in Easy Type form) for US release once, and passed up twice, the final decision on the FF Collection pending. After all this time, isn't it about time to move on? Proportionately, the number of players who have played FF4 in the US is pretty puny. Even smaller is the number of people who love it so much that they'd invest in a second, upgraded version. I've played FF4, in English, and Japanese Hard Type, and my experience with the latter wasn't so life-shattering as to convince me to buy the game again. There were some improvements, and I assume the dialogue's a hell of a lot better, but that's not enough for me to invest fifty bucks in a new copy of a game I already own. And I'm not alone in this feeling. So, Square is left with the proposition of releasing the PSX version of FF4, appealing to a damned small group of gamers who are willing to pay for it, and an unconfirmed number of newer FF fans who might buy it. Those aren't good odds, and bad odds are bad business. More power to you if you can convince Square to release FF4 in the US. But you're fighting an uphill battle here, against the power of the almight dollar, and I'd just as soon fight for a cause that'll net me something new. | The drug problem | There is one thing responsible for the corruption of American Youth. That's right. FF7. Did you know, since September 29, 1997, teen drug used has incresed 6000%? It's because of THIS game! Examples: Loco weed - your characters smoke pot then hit themselves. Tranquilizers - Valium in Midgar? Magic Pot - No explanation necessary. I am starting a petiton called " The Anti-Drug FF7 Petition ". I propose to steal all the current copies of FF7 and burn them, then rerelease FF7 with minor modifications - Loco Weed becomes Crazy Food Tranquilizer becomes Sad Picture Magic Pot becomes Evil Things Also, instead of smoking, Cid chews Dentyne, to promote good dental care among our children. Next on my list - Metal Gear Solid... -Legion007 "We sent Boville to be representative. He could have given us some reward." |
As someone who has repeatedly encouraged the use of hard drugs in this column, I hate a sinking feelings that Legion007 would have some significant... changes... if he edited this column. Heh. That'd be a nice schtick for a novelty col, actually. Hmmmm... | Xenogears' ending mysteries and Cid | Lord of the Dance? Sure, if you say so Al, er, Fucko? (do tell me this isan April Fool's joke) so uh, i promised to write a letter and here Iam...with nothing to say besides the usual, "great job, keep it up!" So hmm...oh yes, I just finished Xenogears! (FANFARE) Yay me! A profound,awesome game, If I do say so myself. One think I never was satisfied with,however, is: whatever happened to Ramsus? Any readers out there know? Canhe secretly join you or does he just run off to the bathroom of theOrphanage with Dominia and the gang and do whatever it is test tube people do? Uhm...more questions...Oh right! What's Cid of FF4's last name? hm....I turned out more fanart(http://media.berkeley.edu/~weiling/lore_stuff) wanna see wanna see?er, was that a shameless ad? sorry, you can take that out if you need to.^_^ when will GIA be renewing their venerable fanart section? Lorelai . o O (lorelai@rpgamer.com) |
Ramsus, upon his final and humilating defeat at your hands, decided to take advantage of the fact that four extremely gorgeous, and mostly underage women were doting on him, and burrowed himself away with the Elementals in an underground love nest, where the five of them shagged like ice weasels in heat whilst your party battled for the survival of the species. Cid's last name is Pollendina. And yes, Fan Art will be getting an update. Patience, grasshopper. Though not from the quarter many of you may expect it from... | Nothing to add | This is just a bunch of random thoughts. Enjoy. I have a possible theory about why some final bosses may be easy. Usually there's a big scene between your last save point and actually fighting the final boss. In Parasite Eve, whose hardest non-optional boss was the last boss, had a big scene before the final battle. Watching the same scene over and over got really annoying. If Sephiroth was tough, you would have to fight all the enemies on the way down to Jenova, fight Jenova, watch the scene before fighting Sephiroth, fight Bizarro Sephiroth, and then fight 'Safer' Sephiroth over and over. That would suck hardcore. An interesting note is that in FF5, there was a big scene leading up to the battle with Exdeath, but just before fighting him, you have to walk up to him. At this time, you can turn around, save, come back and fight him without having to watch a long scene every time. It was a nice feature, since it took me a bunch of times to beat Exdeath. Also with last bosses and ways to make them harder - I think you're right. They shouldn't just hack at you, but they should do weird status change spells and speed altering spells. Also, I think that a final boss with multiple parts is good - attackers, healers and revivers. But the main thing for a tough boss - its order of attacks should be somewhat random, so you can't get into a mindless pattern. About Legend of Mana - the battle engine needs to be more like SD2. In SD2, you could power up (the feature which made the game), use different weapons, and could always get into your ring menus. In SD3, you couldn't power up, only had one weapon, and sometimes the ring menus refused to appear, which made for some frustrating boss battles. Consequently, SD2's battle engine ruled, and SD3's engine blew. Also, it looks like some of the attacks in LOM are a bit to extravagant - SD, being action oriented, needs shorter attacks as not to disrupt the flow. One thing about FFC - if Square hasn't officially announced a North American release, how do we know that FF4 is getting canned? I like to think that it won't be - and that Square will also release an 'old favourites' collection with SOM and CT. With the PS2, companies will be able to dig out the codes for early PSX games, tweak them a little and rerelease them. This is doubly good, since companies will be able to make some fast cash, thus giving them more money to make better games, and PS2 owners who didn't have a PSX will be able to play the old games. And lastly, a piece of advice to the PS2 developers - put in internal memory. All it needs is a few megs of memory, and then we can say goodbye to memory cards, thus resolving the issues of disappearing saves and annoying memory card load times. -CS- |
When the original, leaked information about the US release of the FF Collection came to light, the omission of FF4 from the pack was part of the story. Ergo, FF4's omission is as reliable as the original story. Beyond that, I agree with you on all counts, and have nothing important to add. | Not everyone hates Shadow Madness | Heya, Seb! In response to the letter of a few days ago, here are my thoughts onShadow Madness. I reserved a copy at the local Babbage's and got the demo,thinking it was kind of a no-lose prospect: if I hated it, I could returnit and get my money back, if I liked it, then I'm guaranteed a copy withall the good stuff included. (Jade Cocoon looks truly awesome, but that'sanother matter entirely.) At first I really didn't like it. Battles were confusing as heck, theframerate was slow, and the characters seemed so bizarre as to bedifficult to relate to. (A wooden robot? A floating head?) After abattle where I gave up and let my characters get killed, I was tempted toswitch the PSX off and give up on the whole thing. However, I decided togive it one more try. This time, I actually enjoyed it. True, I still have a few qualms aboutthe battle system. The party's hit rate was terrible (Aggressive attacksmissed so often that there was really no point in doing them), the enemiesattacked frequently, even during menu selection (hopefully there'll be anoption in the finished game ala CT where you can turn it off), and theanimation was just kind of lame at times (guy with nightstick swings atthe air and somehow you miraculously take damage). However, this time Itried adapting to it and managed to make my way through fairly well. SM seems like it's going to have quite its share of good points. Thegraphics are nice, though extremely FF7-esque. The dialogue iswell-written and quite funny - I had a grin on my face the entire time,and that hasn't happened to me in a while. (Last time I got such a bigkick out of events in a game was the "Phoenix Down! Where's the PhoenixDown?!" scene from FFT.) The characters' quirkiness actually became anasset, not a hindrance, as the game went on. And it had a veryinteresting level-building system. The characters appear to have classes,and levels within those classes. When Xero gained a level, he actuallyupgraded to a whole new class, and got an entirely new style of attack.I'm really interested in seeing how this works in to the real game. So, SM's demo intrigued me enough to want to find out what happens next -and what came before, actually, being as it took place during an event inthe middle of the game. I'm actually looking forward to playing it. But, hey, I kinda liked Quest 64 and Seventh Saga, too, so what do I know?;-) Take care, MasaMune |
Hooray! Someone likes Shadow Madness! Having sifted through a few dozens letters from people that hated the demo, I can't say I have a good feeling about it, but getting a letter from someone who's intrigued by it is a wonderful change of pace. Thank you. | Real Tactics criticism! Gasp! | You wanna see FF Tactics bashing? Okay... Just bear in mind that I reallylike the game despite what I'm going to say about it. That does not, however,make what I'm saying false. The first and foremost problem with Final Fantasy Tactics is difficulty. Thegame is fairly challenging at first, since you don't know what you're doingexactly. You probably think Time Mages and Oracles are worthless at thatpoint (a sad mistake, indeed). and just don't know the game mechanics. Asthe game progresses, it gets much harder... or seems to. The fights at theend of chapter three punctuate just how hard the game can be if you don't puthours of thought into the skills you take. Now, this is a good thing. I likethat the game rewards you for making good use of classes and abilities. Infact, if you do things correctly, you can beat chapter 3 with an average partylevel of 25, or possibly lower! Once you get Orlandu, however, all gameplay balance is thrown right out thewindow. He's so utterly powerful that he can kill people with one shot fromNight Sword, if equipped properly. Multiple people with one lightning stabfall before him! This is just plain wrong! He takes no skill to build oruse! Not only this, but chapter four itself is the most poorly designed partof the game. Sure it has the nice sidequests, but at this point in the gameall you have to do really is level build. And the thing about it is that youreally don't need to level build at all once you're there! Another fault in the game is that it really isn't very tactical. True,that's not a bad thing in and of itself, but if the game is marketed on thefact that it involves 'tactics,' it should be more than a grandiose slugfestbetween small gropus of people. The battles are so small scale and on suchsmall area that there is no room for in battle 'tactics.' The only strategycomes from pre-battle preparations. After that, it's jsut an rpg fight in3-D. Hence, I put forth that a better title for the game would be FF 3-D. And one other thing that kind of bothers me is that a character's attack andmagic power change depending on their class. You get very little permenantstrength increases for being a knight or monk for 30+ levels, and likewise,you get very little magical bonus for being a dedicated mage for the sameperiod. It's like if I were to be a monk for 2 years straight, I'dautomatically lose all of my strength when I become a wizard... AND I'dmysteriously get magic power just for calling myself a wizard. But, if I everchanged back to a Monk, I'd suddenly become stupid again, and all my strenghtwould return. I don't really like that system. All in all, FFT is a flawed game on many levels. That doesn't stop me fromliking it, though. I just wish it had done more to address the above problems. --Tony Patino |
I can't argue with your complaints about Orlandu's horrible effect on game balance. I mean, okay, I had a blast kicking ass with him in my party, but I can't deny that it totally shot gameplay balance to hell. I think that the attribute changes that are linked with classes are an unavoidable evil. Otherwise, you could max out player attributes by achieving decent power in a few classes, and turn yourself into an ubermensch. This is not a good thing. I also point out that your "base" power, defense, and Speed attributes are gradually improved depending on what class you are at the time of the class change. Someone who gains levels as a Thief will be a faster Monk than someone who's been a Monk all along, but won't be as strong. I appreciate this. It keeps the gameplay balancing conceit of attributes being radically altered by a class change, but still allows for gradual diversity of strengths and weaknesses. They're small changes, though, which I'd like to see changed in a future installment of the series. I really don't agree with the tactics aspect, though. It's not a realistic approach to combat, of course, but FFT certainly requires a lot more planning and forethought than any traditional RPG battle system. The maps should be larger, and having more units available would add to it, but especially with the Action List option, I've been able to pull off fairly sophisticated strikes in the game, easily on par in terms of complexity and strategy with anything I've done in more traditional strategy games like Nectaris. It's a smaller scale kind of strategy, no question, but it can be as simply or complex as you want to play it.
Closing comments Long letters, short answers. After yesterday, a bit more serious thought seemed appropriate. I was especially gratified by Tony Patino's letter which managed to be critical of FF Tactics, yet never over the line or gratuitous. Well done, sir. After the flames the fake anti-FFT letter I posted yesterday received, I worry that diehard FFT fans are going to lambast him (and me), but I'm a firm believer that a game can be excellent, without being unassailable. Also, anyone who wrote a letter to Brian Glick recently, he kindly asks you to resend, since he had a major hard disk failure, which erased 3 years' worth of data. Ouchness. Also, a reminder that the second Double Agent chat will be held tonight (Saturday the 3rd) at 9 PM EST in #thegia, on the DalNet IRC network! I have no idea what the hell we're going to talk about, but it'll be cool, so be there or the monkey gets it. - Allan Milligan | | | |
