Googleshng:
While I personally could never justify the cost of importing the english-release of a game in Japan when it was sitting right there in the US, the fact stands that a game released in Japan is going to run on a Japanese system, not on a U.S. system, period. So, FF10 International would not run on an unmodified U.S. PS2.

Googleshng:
OK. Arc the Lad Collection is NOT a remake or rerelease of a game. It's a series of THREE games, which were never released in the U.S. to begin with. When the translation rights for AtL3 went up, Working Designs grabbed them on the condition that they could snag the first 2 too. So, that one slightly pricey package has three games, one of which is pretty new, and none of which are remakes.

As for whether it's worth buying, well, baring pure masochism, the fact that WD is taking the trouble to translate that much at once, at the expense of not releasing a thing for a year, would indicate the series is very much worth playing. If you want a more grounded opinion, we should have a review up release day.

Finally, you should never use the logic that "the original was probably a succes if they rerelease it" when deciding whether to buy a game. Publishers will rerelease ABSOLUTE GARBAGE from time to time, particularly when they're bundling a bunch of games together. Want proof? Look at any "Classic" Arade Collection. They tend to be one or two true classics, bundled with 3 or 4 pieces of trash that most people have never even heard of, for good reason.

Googleshng:
A lot of people often make this mental association that the most famous name within a company is directly responsible for everything it does. Like the time I had someone talking about all the games Bill Gates would be making for the Xbox. Another thing that comes from the sloppiness of speech is the notion that "Square" is one company. In business terms, it's technically about uh... 5? The one where Sakaguchi is pretty high up is Squaresoft, the actual developer. Not Square-EA, as the Japanese publisher is currently known. He didn't start the company, and for that matter, he didn't create "the largest and most popular game series in an entire genre" either. The Ultima series has always been a bit larger, and the Dragon Quest series has actually always been a bit more popular. Plus the whole thing about where the name of the FF series came from is that if it wasn't a success, Sakaguchi was going to give up on the business, not Square as a whole.

Finally, your summation that the executive producer of a game has nothing to do with it is quite quite wrong. Generally, if that's the only thing someone is billed as, it means they aren't really getting their hands dirty, but they're still calling all the shots.

Googleshng:
Squaresoft? German? Wha? This is one of those times when someone sent in a really long letter and I read right over part of it isn't it. *Checks yesterday's column* Yup. OK.

Xenosaga is not being made by Squaresoft.

Xenosaga is not being made by Namco.

Xenosaga is being made by Monolithsoft. Monolithsoft is a group of people who at one point worked for Squaresoft, but left a few years ago to form their own company. They then started working on Xenosaga, and got Namco to publish it. They've never stuck German in the title of a game before, particularly since this is the first game they've made since officially becoming their own company.

Googleshng:
I'm one of those few people who actually liked the second disc of Xenogears. Still, if you want me to sit through a remake, I want to have some new stuff, and there's plenty of neat stuff skipped over in there.

Googleshng:
Slayers is a comedy series that can best be described as an animated version of what happens if you play a campaign of AD&D long enough for everyone to get really overpowered, and the GM starts getting silly. It's a bit sillier at times than Trigun is, but since you listed Tyler too, you'd probably like it unless you can't stand fantasy settings.

Googleshng:
There is no english version no, which means you'd have to find it at an import store, on eBay, or just find someone who has it.

Googleshng:
A sequel to Skies of Arcadia is one of those things where I've seen mention of it in enough places to be reasonably sure it IS in development, but there's no official word on anything, and most likely won't for quite some time.