Double Agent

And lo, my bad luck streak was broken into little bitty pieces.

Not only do I finally have a working-properly computer and a full batch of letters to answer, today is also set apart by being the day, drum roll, that I finally sent in my university acceptance form. Yes, friends, I finally know what I'm doing in September, besides the exotic dancing of course. And the winnah is... the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I'll be earning my Bachelor of Journalism (Honours), and plan to do a double major so I can get a BA in something else. Heaven forfend, attending Journalism school might teach me to start acting like a... a... y'know, the P-word.

Despite looking at the tuition costs with a mix of blind panic and deep-seated depression, I am extremely happy about this. Hoo-ah! Semper Fi!

Ahem.

All that said, DA is finally on track again, so without further ado, let's get going on this bad boy...



Video game ages

I'm doing a project for school on video games. Yeah, I know it is a joke, but I'm taking 3 maths and 2 sciences, I had to have one easy class. I was just wondering if I have this right.

1st generation: NES and the Sega Master System

2nd generation: SNES, Sega Genesis, Turbo Grafix 16, and 3DO

3rd generation: N64, PS-X, Sega Saturn, and Jaguar

4th generation will be: Dreamcast, N2000, and PS-X2

Is this all correct? Did I leave out or put any systems in the wrong category? Also, what about the Atari 2600, where does that go?

BTW, great April fools joke. =)


Interesting question, which delves into an area I'm weaker on than I'd like to be. So, in preface to all my comments, please keep tuned for the corrections/additions that are printed tomorrow.

First and foremost, visit the The History of Home Video Games, an indispensable resource for anyone researching the history of console gaming. Still, I'll give this a stab. Note that I don't mention all the systems out during this period, but just the ones that, to me, were the most significant.

As it stands, you're completely ignoring the genesis, the true 1st generation game systems. There were some precursors, like the Fairchild, but I'd label the real first generation as the Atari 2600, released waaaaaay back in 1977. Along with it, in first generation systems, I'll toss in the Magnavox Odyssey 2, and especially in the Intellivison.

Generation two, I'll tie to the release of the successor to the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200. Along with it (this is early 80s, BTW), there's the Colecovision, the Miltron Bradley Vectrex, and the Intellivision II. At this point, 1984, the home gaming market crashed. The NES premiered and took the industry by storm the next year, but I'd mark it as the dominant figure in the third console generation, not the first. Along with it were the SMS (big in Europe, disaster here), and the Atari 7800, a total disaster. Thus, the Turbografx-16, Genesis, and SNES are fourth-gen systems. In between 4 and 5, I'd slot in the 3DO and the Neo-Geo, both very expensive and not very successful systems (in the home market) that sort of bridged the gap between 16- and 32-bit. 5th gen is the PSX, Saturn, N64, Jaguar I guess, and if you really want to be complete, mention the NEC PC-FX, which didn't see US release, but was, at least in theory, NEC's next-generation platform of choice. Which would push the DC, PS2, and whatever Nintendo comes up with as 6th generation.

I'm not sure if there's an accepted standard of gaming generations, so I'll happily accept corrections here. But, in my mind, I distinguish the generations via the dominant company: Atari, then Nintendo.

Contrary to what I once believed, I'm now told that FF6 will receive a new translation for the FF Anthology release. Given Square EA's track record, I expect it to be a pretty faithful translation. Whether it'll be comprehensible or not is another matter, but it should stay true to the original.

Five questions, I can handle

Dear Agent,

I read the 100 rpg questions and some of your answers made me laugh. Seeing how you answered 100 of someones questions I was hoping you would answer 5.

1) Due to the space limits of snes's cartriges i know some of the diologe from ff6 was cut out of the U.S. version. Will the FF antholigy have the original diologe Since it is on a CD?

2) Is FF6's Cid an esper? Its been bothering me for a long time.After the world gets destroyed you wake up on that island with Cid, then he die's in the bed. If you come back later in the game you find a magicite on the shore and Cid is gone. You probebly think no cuz he worked for the empire but he didnt know what he was doing was bad.

No. He wasn't an Esper. For one thing, he looks nothing like an Esper. For another, he can survive the island incident, and the magicite is still there. And lastly, why in the world would the Empire have been so fascinated with Espers, keeping them in tubes and studying their powers, if they had a perfectly docile one doing work for them all along?

3)Is it realy posible to resurect Leo and Aerith in the Japenese versions of the games? If so will we be able to do it in the FF antholigy?

No. Both deaths are part of the plot, and cannot be reversed in any version.

4)I dont know if it happened to anyone else but my FF3 is mesed up. Each time I turned it on I get new items. I have 99 Excalibers, Atma weopons, Econimizers, and 99 of all the rods. No, i did not use a game genie at all. Is this the first time you ever heard of it?

I know of two ways to accomplish that. First off, use a Game Genie. Barring that, the Relm Sketch bug often produces strange effects, which could presumably include the above results. (The bug works by using Sketch on certain creatures in certain circumstances - using it on a Vanished creature is a sure-fire way to get the glitch working.)

5) And last but not least why is FFIV being excluded fron the FF Antholigy? That game rocked and i wanted to see the new FMV's. I dont know Japenese so I'm not going to import it.


Man, I really need to write up a FAQ for this game. I'm really looking forward to the FF Anthology's release, just so I can stop having to guess at answers regarding it.

Anyhow, the FF4 FMVs are available all over the place - a quick web search should turn them up in short order. In reference to the FFIV exclusion... ah, hell, who knows? Maybe because they felt it was too old to appeal to US audiences. Maybe because the port of it to PSX was pretty mediocre. Maybe because the amount of time and money they'd spend localizing it didn't seem worthwhile. Maybe because they felt it already had a decent showing in the US. Maybe it's just to spite me. Square EA's not telling.

Latin lyrics and FF7 spoilers

Howdy Double Agent,

I listened to the opening movie song from FF8 again, and I wanted toknow if you knew where there was a translation for it. I think its inSpanish because I heard the chorus say something like "Vivos dulce"which translates to sometihng like "sweetly living".

Also, I've been replaying FF7 and I was curious about one thing. Whenyou revisit Midgar looking for Hojo on the Sister Ray, what is Hojotrying to accomplish? He wants to fire a shot at Sephiroth to give himmakou energy, right? Well, isn't that the same gun that took out hiswhole shield on the Northern Crater in the first place? Am I the onlyone who doesn't get how the same gun that took out a couple of WEAPONSand Sephiroth's shield will do Sephiroth any good?

TheBeaver


I'm really erratic about indicating spoilers. I ought to settle a policy on that pretty soon. Hoom.

The opening movie song from FF8 includes Latin lyrics. Spanish is a Romantic language, descended in part from Latin, hence the similarity. A full translation is available at this URL, courtesy of FF Extreme. Good going, guys. You rule the kasbah.

As for how Hojo shooting the Sister Ray at Sephiroth would be beneficial, er, let me think. From what I remember (I haven't played FF7 in months), Sephiroth had become a sort of living reactor of mako energy by this point. He was, in essence, sheer power. Consequently, shooting a massive blast from the mako-powere Sister Ray would be like giving him a massive boost of power. Like a steroid infusion. Whether it actually would've worked is academic, of course, but I assume that was Hojo's theory.

Indulgence

Hey Dubby-baybe;

I was looking at the staff page, and I have determined that you areeither Psycho Mantis, Gas-O, or BOTH. Hey that works. After a childhoodof dancing like a maniac, then growing up to join a commando unit andgetting your butt kicked by a controller-switching goon, you became anot-so-mild letter answerer - Hey, wait, why is my monitor beginning tofloat? Hey! OW! OW! STOP THAT -

VincentValintine


Actually, I'm neither Psycho Mantis nor Gas-O. I'm Wesley Dodds, you silly person. Now please, step away from the keyboard, relax, and I'm sure I can sing you a very poignant lullabye...

Grafting some informational content onto this, please note that some changes to my GIA staff portrait are afoot. What does this mean? Will I reveal my face at last? Would anyone survive if I did? (Hint: No.) More on this as the week wears on.

This letter writing is starting to become daily fun for yours truly. Anyways...

I really don't think there has been a great epic yet for RPGs. Final Fantasy IV really was the first to incorprate different personalities on charaters and major plot twists in the story (people dying, Golbez is your bro, etc). All the other RPGs build off of what FFIV did by adding more plot twists, more characters, more FMV, and so on. While I think that many RPGs come close as far as story-lines are concerned, the major problem is that RPGs are just too damn slow. I mean you hear a cool part of the story and you are eager to go to the next part to see what happens, but first you have to go through an hours worth of meaningless dungeon, fighting monsters along the way. Xenogears really, really suffers from this. I mean I know you want to make the game long, but any dungeon that takes more than 10-15 minutes to get through takes away from "getting sucked into the story." Another problem with Xenogears, is that much of the dialogue is horrendous. Often times I have absolutely no clue what is goin on because the words the people are saying make little sense. I'm not saying that Xenogears is bad by any means, but it suffers like all of its predecessors because of bad dialogue and huge gaps between the story and the dungeon wandering.

A game I think should be modeled for its integration of story and gameplay is Metal Gear Solid. The story was simply superb and was integrated into the gameplay at all times. At least every minute or two someone was calling you up with a new tidbit of info that progressed the story along. Also, MGS had a ton of plot twists such that the user rarely knew exactly what was goin to happen next.

One last note, to the guy who saw Pleasantville. It is one incredibly good, thought provoking movie, eh? And to think I saw it with 600 other college students at Western Mich U. And y'all thought we drank and partied all day. :)

- Tim


Of course you don't drink and party all day. If that was true, where would you find time for the orgies?

As for your comments on epicness in RPGs, the point about games being too slow-paced to be properly epic is well-taken. On the other hand, consider that the whole purpose of a game is to be a game, first and foremost, and much as the long dungeons and so forth hamper plot pacing, if you hacked down that aspect of the game, you'd be left with a short, unsatisfying experience. Games like Suikoden have been trounced for being too short, and lacking in gameplay, for example. If things were changed to a pacing scheme that you propose, the result would probably be thrashed pretty soundly by critics and gamers.

There's no good excuse for bad dialogue, though. Goes without saying, really.

In the end, I suspect that cinematically-styled games and RPGs will essentially become two entirely distinct beasts. While the former is currently dominated by action/horror games, like Silent Hill, Parasite Eve shows the dip of a more RPG-like feel to the genre, which I suspect will be seen again. The epics can be done in the faster-paced cinematic games, who don't have nearly as high a standard for length, and RPGs will keep being RPGs, pacing and all.

With any luck, Aaron Littleton can resend his follow-up letter (I lost it in the meltdown), clarifying *his* definition of epic, and we can wrap this conversation thread up tomorrow.

Bleem! Pow! Sock! Zowie!

Have you heard about "Bleem!", the new Playstation Emulator - for the PC? Sony tried to file an injunction against Bleem! but failed. I mean, PSX games on the Mac, it's a long shot, but it's sort of understandable, since they have like five games on the Mac. But on the PC? That''s going ito invite all sorts of piracy. What do you think?

-Legion007


I've defended the existence of Virtual GameStation in the past because, in my experience, the piracy scene on the Mac is pretty damned subdued compared to the PC one. So yes, I think Bleem! is going to lead to massive, massive piracy of PSX games, and I have to wonder what sort of steps Sony is going to take to ensure that copying games for the PS2 will be impossible. But for now, given that Sony's lawsuit against Connectix hasn't been effective thus far, I'm unconvinced that they have a leg to stand on, legally, against the makers of Bleem! But yes, I don't think it'd disputable that this is going to crank up the PSX piracy scene even more.

Not sure if I'm offended or not

Hello Agent,

Your general lack of respect is refreshing and enjoyable because it'sgeniune. You aren't some 'shock jock' type, out there making stupidjokes to appeal to the 'kewl d00d' mentality. You aren't a publicrelations agent for your website. You are clearly human and relatable.Your humor never takes away or distracts from the column because it isGood humor.

"I'll post the really messy, controversial letters, and encouragefighting about it."

At first, I was going to make a joke about you being the Jerry Springerof the internet, but upon reflection, I realize you're more of ananti-Jerry Springer, because you always post the cream of the crop, theintelligent, the witty, the letters that appeal to the cultured side ofa person. That's what the Deep Thought section is about.

Rereading that little passage you quoted, I see that I was portraying myself as a Jerry Springer of sorts, which is a worrisome comparison at best. Still, yes, I generally go out of my way to have at least an interesting, if not outright intelligent crop of letters. Mostly. A few dumb ones once in a while never killed anyone, though.

Some 'quick' questions:

1) What are the most prominent reasons Tactics bashes the Catholicchurch? I'm not sure if I've ever heard, or if I have I've forgotten.

Okay, in short, FF Tactics portrays a very manipulative Church with corrupt priests, with one God and a prophet/messiah figure of sorts, namely St. Ajora. And St. Ajora ends up being a demon, essentially. Parallel Ajora with Jesus, and the corruption of the FFT Church and the accusations of such against the Vatican, and I think you're hitting the root of the parallels.

2) Ehrgiez is a...Good Game? I've heard nothing but bad things about it.Has, or is it being ported to US shores?

It's being ported for US release in May. As for its quality, or lack thereof, I honestly haven't read much about it. Still, I played the import, and had quite a lot of fun. Then again, I thought Guilty Gear was a blast, so hey, what do I know from fighting games?

3) We'd better get LoM...We're getting LoM right? Right? Playing SD3 inJapanese physically pains me.

We'll see.

4) Do you think Square will continue their trend of rereleasing oldgames on the PSX? A Mana Collection would certainly be neato. Though aGameboy game on the PSX would be one of the oddest things...

The FF Collection seems to have sold pretty well, but I'm not sure whether the sales of their other series would merit a compilation release. If there was one, I suspect they'd choose the Romancing SaGa trilogy next, since all three were Super Famicom titles, and thus don't look nearly as dated, and since RS1 and RS2 use adapted versions of the FF4 and FF5 engines, the recoding wouldn't be as complex.

5) What was the Industry Shattering game?

Another Mind. It shattered the industry's respect for Square.

More seriously, the "industry shattering" game ended up being a hoax, a mistranslation of a speech given. There is no such game.

6) How about a Poll section? Yes, every site has a poll section now, butI don't think it's an issue to get non-conformist about. Everyone likespolls.

~Ian P.


Polls may be something we put into the long-discussed Community section of GIA, but our main trepidation is that good topics for polls are tough to come by. You end up with a lot of "well, duh" questions and answers. If we did put up a poll section, we'd need a good, solid, long list of questions, lest we fall into the "Do you like puzzles in your RPGs? Yes/No/Only with Parmesan" syndrome - lame questions that don't entertain or interest anyone.

And yes, I admit to coming up with some stinker poll questions while at RPGamer. I don't remember which ones, but I bet anyone who was on-staff at the time does... to my chagrin.


Closing comments

It's good to be back on track. Still, there's a few things I'd like to deal with here, before I go for the day.

I was sent this following recon photo of my arch-nemesis, the Lord of the Dance, as he infiltrated his way into the upcoming Final Fantasy Anthology. The fiend.

I hereby pledge that the above is the last Flatley joke I publish for the next month. No more. No more beating jokes to death. No no no.

Next, some have suggested that the Lame Letter Day be a monthly event. It's tempting, but I think I'll save such events for when you least expect them. Sort of an over-the-top humor break, that I can slide in as a break from any major debates that break out, if they become to heated.

Speaking of heated debates, I'm making an executive decision to only print letters regarding the FF Tactics and Xenogears religion issue that are very specific in their critiques and comparisons. It may seem stringent, but religious beliefs are a highly sensitive topic, can lead to some very serious and volatile disputes, most of which are completely off-topic for this column. I'm more than willing to get into the nitty-gritty of links and differences between the FFT Church and the Catholic Church in history, but a debate over the existence of God or the utility of organized religion is way out of the purview of this column. I trust you all understand.

Next, as I asked a while ago, anyone that could point me to, or offer, information on the plots of Shining Force 3, scenarios 2 and 3. Okay, now I'm begging. PLEASE help. I will bake a cookie for you. Please.

Lastly, if Clyde Hudman could contact me ASAP, it would be much appreciated.

- Double Agent

 
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