Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. The face of understanding is the voice of reason. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Saturday night, and all's well. Well enough, anyway. As expected, I've enlisted another GIA member to do the work of an introduction for me. Tonight, I bring you Brian "Slick" Glick talking about a subject we all care deeply about: Chrono Cross. Enjoy.

It needs to be said: Chrono Cross absol-freakin'-lutely rocks. The fantastic visuals, immensely stunning music (courtesy of Mitsuda, who incorporates many of the musical themes he used in Chrono Trigger), intriguing story, and good ol'-fashion gameplay make for a title which could easily surpass Chrono Trigger's quality. Like Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross has a certain indescribable charm that other games lack.

I'm hoping (pleading, begging, begging) that Square EA realizes its potential and devotes a sizable staff to the localization and translation. They're certainly capable of it, judging by FF VIII's relatively fluid dialogue. And the game's audience isn't limited to nostalgic Chrono Trigger fans; CC easily stands on its own. Brian out.

Calm down there, ferret, or I'll cut you. *ka-klick*. Just kidding, Sugoi, you know I wouldn't pull a Bun-Bun on you! Anyway, I sure would like to see more than 6 letters for characters in Chrono Cross, but I wouldn't bet on it. I'm just glad you can fit "Andrew" into 6 letters (barely). Square might increase the number during the translation stages, but I wouldn't count on it.

Now that I've said that, though, they probably will end up doing it... I should just give up on trying to predict what Square will do to their games once they leave Japan.

I'm sure many people will correct me if I'm wrong, but a memory card block is 64k bytes. I think. I'm pretty about that.

That math was actually a breath of fresh air, after spending much of my time the past year or two doing Calculus and other similar nasties. The system sounds pretty cool, and easy for a player to learn. Not only that, it appears relatively easy to implement, on a programming level. I like it. I give it two thumbs up.

As for what I would do, that's a hard question. Something I'd have to give a lot of time to, like you obviously have. I think mine would have, like banana points. Eat a banana, get a point. Get a lot points, and you win. So basically you'd sit around and eat bananas. That may be a crappy idea, but it's late, and tiredness makes crappy ideas sound that much better.

Dude, I'm humming that in my mind and I'm liking it. A lot. That must have been one kickass dream. Did you snap your fingers and stomp your feet during it?

I totally feel your pain, Michael. Gotta try to do anything for those cuties. I wish I could help you out, but to be totally honest, I really can't. As I understand it, those things are hard to find in Japan, let alone here in the U.S. I know of a ton of people that have quested for that funky and cool FF8 merchandise on Square of Japan's pages, but I know of none that have been able to find any.

A bunch of people sent me the lyrics after they had been churned through a translator like the ones you can find on Altavista, and they didn't make any sense. I guess this is the reason why... they're not Portuguese. Does anyone know what they are?

And, hey, come on, I wasn't THAT inconsistent when I started that letters column on SquareNet (which might have been once it mutated into RPGamer, I can't remember). OK, well, maybe I was. Ah well.

Xarion, you say? Never heard of it... even though it's tempting to lie, because a parrot that sung REM would be a really cool pet! I'd feed it a lotus...

Oh, he had used a 50/50 lifeline? And the choices were Jigglypuff and Frodo? The guy is a total moron, in that case. He had to be living in both a social oblivion and a literary gingerbread house to not know either one of those. Makes me wonder how he got up to the $500,000 question...

Well, there's a pretty big difference between working for many online sites and working full-time for a publishing company. I'll cover both to the best of my knowledge.

Many online sites, such as the GIA, are "fan sites." At the GIA, I think we've blurred the line between "fan site" and "professional site." At heart though, we're still a fan site. The reason is that our staff does the work for minimal compensation. We do the work on the side of more regular jobs and/or school, and work on the page for next to no pay. We do see a check every now and then, but they're not enough to support a family off of. We have only one member that currently has a college degree, although several of us are in college.

Generally speaking, with online sites, the prestige of the site will affect the type of applicants they accept. The bigger sites are able to pick and choose the best of the crop, while others will hire and random Joe they meet in a chatroom. As is always the case, having connections helps. A lot. At the GIA, we occasionally accept applications when we're in need of help, and hire our favorites. Currently we're not looking for help, though.

Working full-time for a magazine or online site run by a publication company is a completely different animal. Here, you're paid by the hour as in normal jobs, and you work at a desk at the offices of the company. These jobs generally require a college education, commonly English or Journalism, or so I've heard. As is often the case, proficiency is as important a factor as degree.

Some magazines and online sites also offer freelance work, where you're paid by assignment and don't actually work at the offices. These tend to be hard to come by, but don't usually require a specific education. Again, connections help.

Man, you're too kind. I really didn't mean to be meaningful, it's against most of my standards. I prefer meaningless drivel. But I guess every now and then I stumble onto something. Thanks for the award!

Speaking of Drew, he's powerfully cool. He may be a crazy guy, but that's why we love him. Doing letters every day on top of school and work is a tough task. He's really a bigger man than Weekend Boy me for doing it.

Just as there's nothing wrong with listening to video game music, there's nothing wrong with listening to the other stuff! To each his own. I like the Barenaked Ladies, and I like Marvelous 3's "Freak of the Week" (I don't know Freak on a Leash, so I'll pretend you mentioned a song a recognized). And I too own a bunch of Final Fantasy and video game albums... and I'd own a bunch more if they weren't so darned expensive! Classical is also powerfully cool. Those Mozart and Beethoven guys did some pretty incredible stuff. Making such awesome music is just unfathomable to me. I struggle for days to make some dinky, poppy little song with 3 chords.

But it's not about the complexity, or the genre, or the format. It's about the sound. Whatever sounds good to someone's ear is music. I may not like the tonality, and you may not like the rhythm, but someone does. So it's all good.

As for the FFVI Piano Collections... I'd be happy to buy it for you, if you give me a $200 tip for the favor! Or maybe if you'll buy me one of the Rickenbacker basses on eBay...

Atta way! Just because a song isn't in your particular favorite genre, you accepted it as a cool song because it musically jives with you. That's the way it should be!

Man on the Moon was written back in 1992, and was a leading inspiration for Milos Forman to make the movie that borrows the song's name (Mr. Andy Kaufman being another inspiration, of course). Since they made the song that inspired the movie, it was only logical REM do the soundtrack as well... so they did. A nice fit. You might enjoy the entire soundtrack, or the entire Automatic for the People album (the 1992 album with Man on the Moon).

The slide guitar on Man on the Moon tends to give it a bit of a country flavor, which actually isn't REM's only song with that tinge of country in it. "Don't Go Back to Rockville" on Reckoning (1983), "Driver 8" on Fables of the Reconstruction (1984) and "Country Feedback" on Out of Time (1990) also have a country feel. You might want to give them a try.

"What a self serving letter. Only a total ego-maniac jerk would print such a letter." I bet you're thinking that, and you're absolutely right. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm shameless. The easiest way to get a letter printed is to complement me gratuitously. I don't know that you'd want to be like me when you grow up... mainly because that means you'd be a college student for the rest of your life, and a weird one at that.

You rock, too, Nick. I don't know why either, but you do.
1) 10 1/2.
2) Three words: the ugly stick.
3) Of course! Silly question.
4) I'm sorry to hear that. I'd suggest to her that she lay off.
5) Well, my guess is that somewhere during the storing process the light gets disturbed a lot, and that either does something to mess up the filament or messes up a connection somewhere. Or maybe filaments wear out, even when not in use. I'm not sure, I don't know exactly how bulbs work. I'm really not that bright when it comes to electrical stuff. I plug things in, and I expect them to work. End of story.

It takes insanity to write me a letter? I think I'm insulted, but I'm not sure. I'm a little too tired to decide. Unfortunately, there's no word on either Soul Blazer or Shining Force... two series with which I'm not that familar. I'd like to play them both some time, though, when I have time, whenever that may be. And hopefully on a next generation system.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that by golly, FF9 will be great. Not just great, really really great! In fact, I'm so confident in this that I'm going to say it again in italics. And I'll center it, too. Watch this.

I think that Final Fantasy IX will be the best Final Fantasy ever released.

And there you have it. You heard it here first. Or second. Maybe third. Maybe even fourth, or lower.

My roomate and another friend of mine are big fans of TMBG, actually, so I've had my exposure to them. In fact, they were playing at a local bar a couple of months ago, and I was going to go with my roomate to see them... but I got busy with writing a paper and couldn't go. Ah well. I think they're pretty cool and stuff.

Closing Comments

Man, I answered a lot of letters tonight. And you know what? I bet none of you are any wiser after having read this column. And that's the way it should be. Unless you did learn something, in which case, whoa. Cool. I am a success.

-Andrew Kaufmann