Evil Genius - June 19th, 1999 - Drew Cosner
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not neccessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. I'm high as a kite, and I just might stop to check you out. Don't say I didn't warn you. :)
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that people love to argue. And I'm not just talking about my experiences as host of a letters column, I'm talking about people in general. That in itself is all fine and good, but the lengths people will go to just to start an argument continue to amuse me on a daily basis. The other day I saw some guy that looked like he was on the same diet program as Fat Bastard bellowing in the face of a nearby foreign man. Being the tasteless rubbernecker that I am, I was amused by his outbursts and the little pieces of food flying from his mouth and striking the foreign man in the face. I decided to wandered a little closer to listen in so I could find out what was exciting the overweight man so much. Arms flailing wildly, he was pointing out to the foreign man that you can be evil and still be a genius. Unfortunately, the foreign man could hardly speak english, which makes this so amazingly lame. With a worried expression on his face, he merely mumbled "yes, they should be good people", to which the overweight man grew further enraged and continued to shout examples of the genius people like Stalin possessed.
Warning: Arguing with people who don't speak English waives your legal right to not be referred to as a moron.
Now read the column before it gets bored and walks away.
| In amazing Technocolor |
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Is the Star Ocean 2 instruction book in color? I want to get the game, but
it would not be worth it if the instruction book is not in color
-Turbolift
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Yes, the instruction booklet is in color. I know that's a major selling point for a game and all. Oh, it also comes in a sturdy jewel case that was tenderly kissed by Judas Iscariot when he mistook it for Jesus.
That reply made very little sense, and I apologize. It's the direct result of all the catnip I smoked in junior high school. Don't laugh. The girl I was dating at the time was complaining that I wasn't affectionate enough, so it seemed like a good idea. Instead I ended up rubbing against a scratching post for 2 hours, but it seemed foolproof.
| Sharing is caring |
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Okay, so I've always -heard- that translations sometimes filtered
things
out for the American audience, things either too racy or too sexually
suggestive for our oh-so-repressed society. But to be honest, I'd never
believed it.
Until now.
Like probably everyone else reading this webpage, I'm currently
playing
Star Ocean 2. And, having encountered a problem, I went to Big Brother
Internet and got a FAQ for the game. In the FAQ, one of the PA's is
described, where Claud and Ashton go into a cafe and order drinks and,
not
knowing what it is, Claud unknowingly orders one of those drinks with two
straws. Then the waitress sees them with the drink and says, "Say, are
those
two dating...?"
Little did I know that the FAQ I'd downloaded was for the Japanese
version. When I got to that part in the game, the waitress turns around
and
says, "Say, are those dragons on that guy's back?"
I had to shake my head. I'm not a member of the gay community myself,
but
God, are we really so paranoid and intolerant that even a -reference- to
homosexuality has to be removed? Geez, that Private Action is even used
to
open another really nifty one with Rena, which makes so less sense with
the
first one altered.
-Lord Pendragon
P.S. Yeah, the voice acting is pretty bad. Except for Precis. I don't
know
why, but every time she says, "I'm gooood!!" at the end of a battle, I
crack
up.
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Everybody knows that seeing a reference to homosexuality in a game may cause you to have a sudden change in your sexual orientation. Videogames can make you say and do things you otherwise wouldn't. After seeing Billy use a gun in Xenogears, I felt a sudden, carnal urge to have a night on the town. The last thing I remember was a rather manly looking waitress hitting on me because of my choice in beer, and the next thing I know I wake up in bed with terrible hangover and an NRA membership card hanging out of my pocket.
Okay, to be serious, I don't understand it either. There are nationally televised shows with the only selling point being homosexual characters. Everytime somebody wants to boost ratings they throw in a flamboyantly gay character. Infact, due to a slump in ratings, Frasier's "Eddy" is revealed to be gay next season. And yet, two straws in a drinking glass is a taboo.
Surgeon General's warning: Due to the mention of homosexuality, this reply may cause you to become gay, or in the case of pre-existing homosexuality, to become even gayer.
| SNES on the go |
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While I was in the bathroom this morning, I felt a terrible compulsion to
write
in. I can't exactly explain why.
Anyway, the topic I'll be discussing today is naught other than Nintendo's
rumored new portable gaming system. Now, I know that the Nomad was a total
failure, but what if the Big N came out with what is essentially a
portable SNES
(in the way that the Gameboy is quite closely related to the NES)? Maybe
with a
couple extra built-in chipsets (super FX2, etc.)? Imagine that... Chrono
Trigger
on the go. Mario RPG for a whole new generation of gamers. Super Metroid.
Even
Star Fox 2 and a host of other games that were canned for no good reason
except
that they would be released too late. With a strong launch base,
companies like
Namco and Square could very well be motivated to actually translate and
release
games like Tales of Phantasia, Secret of Mana 3, Treasure Hunter G and
countless
others. For other companies that don't quite have the man(or woman)power
to
create huge, rendered games for the PS2 or DC, a portable SNES could be a
great
system to develop for. Sprite-based games would live again... we'd have
Konami's
Castlevania series return to its roots, perhaps even with a good port of
the
TG16's Dracula X. Capcom could do as it wanted with its 2D classics --
MegaMan,
anyone? Heck, since it would be relatively easy for Nintendo to make a
SuperGameBoy-type device for the system, you wouldn't even have to throw
out
your old Pokemon or Final Fantasy Legend games. And since Nintendo has no
real
competitors in the hand-held arena, most companies *WOULD* support the
system.
Perhaps we'd even see a Final Fantasy Gaiden or translations of Capcom's
hottest
fighters. But I'll wager Nintendo will make a enormous mistake and not
follow my
Plan to World Conquest (TM). Oh well, I tried!
-magius_eternal
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A portable SNES would rock so mightily it would measure on the damn richter scale. Since the coming generation of übersystems are going to be focused on 3D gaming, good ol' 2D would have a home in the handheld SNES. Besides, if anybody knows how to make a great little product (not to mention some major dough) out of 3 bucks worth of plastic and silicon, it's Nintendo.
| 0.1 percenters, your letter has arrived |
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Hello, Allan.
I've been thinking about Square's decision to not release FF4 in the
Final Fantasy Anthology, and about their subsequent "excuse" for that. I
thought to myself, "Now, it's logical to think that quite a few gamers
who claim that FF4 was the best game in the series have played that game
at one point or another." Pretty logical, no? I thought so too.
And then I thought to myself once again, "These people, who love FF4 so
much, and who have played it before, most likely own a copy." Pretty
sound logic, if I do say so myself (and as a matter of fact, I do say so
myself).
So we've got ourselves a group of people who own FF4. I'd like to think
that's the large majority of people who claim to be hardcore RPG players
back when FF4 was initially released. I may be wrong, but then again, I
may not be. Now, I think to myself, this is where the chain of logic
breaks down. We have people who OWN FF4, and yet they are bitching about
the noninclusion of the game from the upcoming FF Anthology. Why is
this?
Let's face facts. The game is buggy, because of the slipshod job done in
porting it from SNES to PSX (this is no way meant to be a statement for
or against Square, since the bugginess of the game is at this moment a
moot point). Also because of the programming, the game has considerably
bad loading times. So we've got two marks against the game so far.
When Square announced that FF4 would not be included, a goodly portion
of people went slightly berzerk. "Oh, Square is EEEEEVIL!" one person
reportedly announced before collapsing into a writing convlusion of
disbelief and hatred. When Square announced their reasons for not
including FF4, people got even angrier, asserting that Square could
include the FF2a translation that we saw so many years ago. "We want
FF4, even if it means having an exact duplicate of the game we have in
cartridge format for the SNES!" they say. And that, I find, is rather
shoddy logic.
I believe that people are angry with Square not because FF4 was not
included. Rather, I believe these people are angry because they felt
miffed, because with Square's removal of the game, they were suddenly
not as important in Square's eyes. While Japanese gamers were merrily
playing FF4 on their Playstations with buggy gameplay and bad loading
times, we over here in the USA have to contend ourselves with a
smoother-running, quick-loading version. Are people SO angry at Square
for feeling miffed that they will ignore that fact? After Square's
apology, we demanded that at least the original translation be ported,
somehow not realizing that the game would be an exact replica of the one
we have at home, only with bugs and loading times. Does it really matter
that much that the Japanese have something we don't, even if what we
have is better?
Feel free to refute any or all of my claims. After all, it's late, and I
could have said a hundred things in the above letter that could be
stupid or nonsense. As for my personal feelings that FF4 was not
included in the FF Anthology.. I couldn't care less. I have the game
already.
-Matt Blackie
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I figured I'd post this letter since it's a great representation of the opinion shared by the 0.1% of the population that isn't pissed about the whole Anthology deal. I'm just glad they didn't have the nerve to keep calling it the Final Fantasy Collection. Qualifying 2 of something as a collection would pretty much be a redefinition of the word. Hey, I have a collection of legs! My bicycle has a tire collection on it! Lame.
| Bartz. |
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I was looking at squaresoft.com today, and saw their new section on FFV.
I'm already dubious about the translation, as they listed the characters
as 'Bartz, Galuf, Reina and Faris.'
I think Edward is a better name than Gilbert, Sabin than Mash, and Terra
over Tina. Hell, I think Reina sounds better than Lenna. But BARTZ?
That's ... ludicrous. It sounds so damn stupid.
- R. Emes
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Square was originally going to go with "Assez" or "Buttockz", but neither did well with the test groups. Oddly enough, the test groups were all for "Mister Sexyman".
| Bloodlines |
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Drew, are you related to Kevin Cosner? He's dreamy.
-Eldon Nelson
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My name is Drew Cosner. His name is Kevin Costner. When people want to make lame cracks about my name, the Kevin Costner joke is second only to the incredibly witty and and intelligent observation that I share the same first name with Drew Barrymore. Thanks for informing me, I never would have noticed. Not saying that you meant that as a lame joke, since you undoubtedly assumed that since I'm so sexy, I must be related to a guy like him. I just like to bitch about that. Luckily nobody knows that my middle name is "Isabelle".
Besides, if I was related to Kevin Costner, I'd be thinking of ways to leech money off of him instead of peddling books that I stole from Hare Krishnas. AV is the best, he's too nice to say no. I've already sold him 5 copies of "Foods that heal".
| Im going to, kil you |
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"I admit the tutorial and character bios were damn near unreadable, but
the
don't forget the story. It's very easy to ignore or just overlook
mistakes
in RPGs, I do it all the time, but if you pay close attention to the main
story you'll notice tons of typos and bad sentences. It's extremely easy
to
miss these mistakes, especially the first time through."
I believe I've mentioned this before in a Double Agent Column (not to
you,
though) that I went through the first chapter of FFT looking for mistakes
and
found 80-100 mispellings, confused words, etc and 50+ awkward sentences.
This does NOT include the tutorial or the character bios. Those were all
mistakes in the first chapter game itself.
The first chapter isn't even a quarter of the game's length and isn't
particularly text heavy, but the translators still managed to make it
look
like a bunch of monkeys were hired to randomly put errors into the game.
There's no excuse for how crappy FFT's translation is.
-Locke828
This is the sentence "I'm going to kill you." This is the sentence "I'm
going
to kill you" in FFT "Im going to, kil you."
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From what I've heard, FFT's translation woes lie not in the overall grammatical and spelling errors, but in the fact that the text is completely unconversational and downright meaningless at times, much like Xenogears. The characters talk like they're thumbing through a Japanese to English dictionary as they speak.
| Theme song |
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Hell yeah, Gilgamesh's theme is the best music from FFV, its so cool!
Have you ever heard the version off of FFV Piano Collections? Its great
also! Just thought I'd say that.
Reijin
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I'm one of those poor schmucks who never got a chance to play Final Fantasy V. Luckily, I'm also one of those schmucks who didn't even know what Final Fantasy was until part VI, so I didn't have to go through the heartbreak that those eagerly anticipating a sequel after enjoying IV did. As such, I'm looking forward to the anthology. I'll finally get a chance to play at least FFV, if not FFIV. It's dead sexy.
Yes, that's right. Not only have I not played Final Fantasy Tactics, I've also never played Final Fantasy IV. I was too busy stomping goombas good and flat until I discovered FFVI; what can I say? I'm making up for it by adopting a section of highway in Nevada and turning it into a drag racing strip, it's the least I can do.
| Roody poo candy ass (for good measure) |
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Double Agent Man,
Why is everyone suddenly bashing the opening to the SegaCD version of
Lunar? While I'll admit that the singer isn't the best (although not
nearly as bad as 90% of recording "artists" out there who manage to
somehow sell millions of CD's), the song itself rocks. It has an air of
excitement and action that helps to pump you up so you want go and kick
Ghaleon's roody poo candy @$$ right away. I for one was a little
disappointed that it wasn't updated and re-recorded with a new singer
for the intro to SSSC. Of all the Lunar music I've heard (I have both
SegaCD games and the PSX one) I have to say that this was probably my
favorite song.
-The Bad Guy (who, BTW, had more fun playing Wild ARMs than FF7)
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I like to present both sides of an argument, even when it happens to be as trite as whether or not a song is any good. Besides, Bad Guy used the phrase "roody poo candy ass", which happens to be the only thing related to wrestling that I like.
| Uhm... |
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Drew....
Can I lick your teeth?
-Raven
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Only if you're a gorgeous woman and you promise to brush them with minty fresh Tartar Control Crest when you're done.
Closing Comments Come close. I have something I need to tell you. This is really hard for me to say, but... Well, sometimes, late at night, when I think nobody's around to see me... I transfer power from the wheels that slip to the wheels that grip. I had to get that off my chest. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. -Drew Cosner, the spy who shagged you. |  |
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