Anyhow, that's my taste, and I never thought I'd be writing an e-mail like this looking for help, but Spring Break is coming up soon, and what will I do without an RPG to play?!?! ::cries:: Please, cheshire-one-kenobi- you're my only hope!

Peace, love, Krelian (It's my idea, copyright 2000 Xenochick- ask Casey Edwards!)

Xenochick
-the Xenogears Goddess-

Cheshire Catalyst:
Well, you've got pretty much the cream of the crop picked out right there. Star Ocean 2 is a massive game with lots of characters. It's half-decent throughout the first disk, but everything starts to drag on disc two. SaGa Frontier 2 was a very average game, as is Legend of Mana. Vanguard Bandits is also a decent TRPG. Your best choice might be the underdog "Valkyrie Profile". I know about fifty people who would kill me if I didn't at least mention this game. That's probably your best choice right there if side-scrolling RPG is your thing. Vagrant Story too!

1. Where can I find the Garpa Fruits in SoA? I wanna find all the discoveries and this one's drivin' me nuts! ;)
2. Who's your fav Xenogears char? I like Billy. He's sexy.
3.) What's your fav anime intro? I love "Child's Toy" and "Moonlight Denetsu"!
4.) What's your fav... uh...video game intro? I like FF8. It's sooooo cool! Rinoa and Squall are so kawaii together!!! ^_^
5.) I'm getting paid next week. ^_^; What should I buy? Lunar 2 or or Grandia 2?

Thanx!
-Selphie-chan
-"I'll be there waiting for you. I promise."

Cheshire Catalyst:
1.) Look for the Garpa fruits under the isle that Horteka is on. You thought that was a pain? Wait 'till you have to look for Flutterflies.
2.) Ditto. He's a priest by day, and a male prostitute by night. His dad was a cooler character, though. Why, oh, why weren't you a playable character, Jesiah?!
3.) Escaflowne's intro is mighty sweet.
4.) I'm listening to the sweet opening song from Suikoden II right now. That was a cool intro. FF8 was kinda cool too...
5.) Lunar 2. Hands-down. (Whatever THAT means...)

Alright, advice time. It's not RPG related, but I'm a faithful RPGamer who is in a time of crisis, and we all help each other out at a time like this, right?

I've liked this girl at school for a long time, six months now. She's perfect. Well, to me, anyway. I know her a bit, and vice versa, but I haven't been able to bring myself to ask her out for a long time. It's spring break here now, so I get the urge to go to Excite.com and input her name to see if I find anything, a picture or something.

A) Is that stalking?

Now, what I find is just a broken link on an old page. Fine, not much, but it's a start. I relay the story to a friend online, and 15 minutes later, he gives me a link, saying "pics from a film camp she attended during the summer." Interested, I check it out. After looking at all the pics, I turn up nothing. In the corner of my eye, I see a link to a movies page, with everything that they filmed. I click.

Here, to my great surprise, I find a video that she starred in. After much hassle to find a link that worked, I got a Real Media stream going. I nearly cried when I saw her face.

B) Am I stalking yet?

Neat story, no?

--Ryan

Cheshire Catalyst:

Bad news....
Oh, and to make this RPG related, more RPG heroes should have to stalk/actively persue women. There seem to be only three kinds of heroes. 1) Guys who have women just fall into their laps and don't care. 2) Lecherous womanizers (most of these guys are warm-hearted though) or 3) Don't care.

But there are quite a few things I have to say that Sony really has to consider. Let's face it, even with Square, Working Desgins, Konami, and even the now acclaimed Atlus who brought us the awesome, if not confusing as hell Persona series-- if they don't start kicking their game standards into HIGH gear, the X-Box will eat them alive. I've seen Malice's graphics and let's just put it this way... unless Sony comes up with nothing short of farting holy light (I prettied up what I was originally going to say), Bill Gates' power-house will beat them out.

Most of the PS2 games have been mediocre at best and let's just face it, with Bill's X-Box and the overrated Gamecube (In my mind), mediocre will never save them. But let's hope things go in Sony's favor this year. And there are only 4 ways to do that IMO: 1) As nice as it is, Net Play is NOT a necessity. 2) Stop releasing remakes! As much as I love the idea of playing FF7-9 on the PS2, it's taking too much attention from the games actual development making VERY tragic losses in gameplay (Orphen is one prime example, as well as Oni). 3) IF a game is NOT BROKEN, don't fix it! I swear to God, if I could could all of the games that DIED because they fixed TOO much, I'd be a millionaire!

And lastly, FOR GOD'S SAKE, DO NOT RELEASE A GAME THAT IS NOT PAST BETA STAGES! Midnight Club and Smuggler's Run were prime examples of this! I've seen the pics, so don't tell me they're that great. The idea that a game being released way too early is just irresponsible of the game companies. I don't care if you have to postpone a game by YEARS, just make damn sure it's ready to play right out of the box! That's at least something I commend Working Designs for... no matter what happened, short of the world ending, they would never, at least to my knowledge send a flawed game to us. Lunar: Complete and Eternal Blue are prime examples of their hard work (As far apart from the original, Lunar Complete was one of their everlasting testiments to excellence.)

Maybe Sony will grow a brain and take these ideas to heart... then again-- since when did they ever have a brain? (Just kidding.) So write me back on this, k? I'd like to know your comments on this, Chesh.

Jon Gibson

Cheshire Catalyst:

- Lord Sephiroth

Gamecube can be reserved right now in certain places. The Babbage's store I work at has been takin' 'em for about 2 months already. I'm #5 on a list of around 80 or so people, so hurry if you want to be in the first shipment.

You can preorder the X-box too, but some stores may not be taking anymore for at least a couple more weeks/months. It just depends on where you ask.

-Gaeriel

The Last Laugh:

Here's a pic from ShinZaphod.

Goog will be here tomorrow. Back to work for me...
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And back to school for you! HAHAHAHA! Weekend is over! Get on the bus!