I decided to play through Xenogears for the second time, but I have a couple of catches. I'm gonna play it at home instead of on the black & white TV I brought to work, I'm gonna do it without any game shark or anything, totally legit, and here's the real kicker...I'M GONNA TRY TO KEEP TRACK OF THE STORY. I already decided that if I can't manage this, I'm going to condemn myself to playing WCW Thunder for an hour every night for a month. Believe me, Russian spies should use that when torturing CIA agents instead of shoving reeds under their fingernails or whatever they do.

Robust Stu

No matter how many silly accidents she causes, Fei will never leave Elly. Two reasons, actually. One, his only other choice is Alice's corpse somewhere in the charred remains of Lahan. Also, Fei's completly expendable in the bedroom department. He already suffers from utter inadequacy when he compares himself to Elly's telescoping 'rod.'

"Why not? I don't have anything to lose but my life. . .and I got that for free!"

Setzer, of course, in FF6 when he joins your team.

-Draconius

Dear Mario,

For tomorrow's column, I've got a couple topics for the readers to write in about.

First, in recent news, we see that Enix is postponing development of Dragon Quest 8, meaning it will be quite a few years til we see the game. In contrast, Squaresoft usually only lets a year or two sit between each of its Final Fantasies. Keeping both of these examples in mind, how long do you think a company should wait before releasing a sequel to an RPG, and why?

Second, partially related to the first topic, though many games have sequels, many other games do not. Tell me which deserving RPG you'd like to see continued with a sequel or spin-off of some kind.

And Mario, though you probably get this a lot, what unreleased game are you looking forward to the most right now?

Thanks,
Aegis

"State of Emergency" Made by Rockstar games, the folks who brought you GTA3. Let me ask you something. Did you ever do something specificaly to piss someone off? Say your friend hates it when you snap your gum. Because your friend freaks out over this small detail, you do it over and over just to tease him and to get a kick out of his goofy reaction.
I'm pretty sure that's what Rockstar is doing with us right about now. They released Grand Theft Auto 3, an incredibly fun game all about glorification of criminal activity. Naturally, there was a bit of an uproar. Parents moaned, teachers were horrified, moral watchdogs denounced the game, groups with words like "Family", "Children", and "Values" wrote long dissertations about how this game was not only indicative of, but also caused a downward spiral in "Traditional Values" (Whatever the hell they are.) So what does Rockstar do?
Snap snap.
Here comes "State of Emergency." Basically, a game about all the fun that can happen in a mass riot. Mass killings, looting, etc. etc. All the good stuff. Provided it makes a good game (pissing of Laura Schlisinger, while fun, isn't enough), I'll be picking it up.

The Last Laugh: