Played FF1 for the first time in years this week. Decided to try the black belt for the first time, too. Party: Fighter, BB, BB, BM.

Dear God that was easy.

I realized that blackbelts were a little too much when I ran into the WarMECH in the sky fortress. I saw him come up on the screen and said "oh SMURF!" The battle went like this:

BlWz- Casts FAST on Master No. 2.
Master No.2 attacks WarMECH - 13 hits for 1027 dmg.
WarMECH - SMURFs himself.

Tiamat and Chaos were the only single characters that could take more than one round with me and my two masters. And since I didn't have anyone to spend money on, I just dropped valuable armor that I had no use for because I was at the max gold anyways.

And does the black mage have any use other than Lit2 vs. Wizards in the Marsh Cave and the occassional fast spell? I mean, Muting Astos is kinda nice, and Lok2-ing Lich makes things somewhat easier. NUKE is kinda nice in the Temple of Fiends vs. large parties. Did I have a point here? They just seem so necessary to have around, but then you think about it afterwards and say "hmm. . . " I think the same thing about white mages. But it never fails that if I go without a black/white mage, I find myself occassionally saying "damn, I need a black/white mage."

And I just hate Red Mages. Best character until the Earth Cave. In other words, the exact opposite of the Black Belt. Then they just take up space/money. Thief/Ninja is pretty dumb, too. Unless you like running away.

Anyone have some alternative schools of thought for these characters?

OneWing (actually NOT in reference to anything to do with Sephiroth. More like the Xenogears OneWing)

Hey there. Just browsing through the site and thought maybe you could answer a question for me. Is there any hope for those of us Diablo II for the PC lovers, to be able to play the game or something of the sort for the PS2? The original Diablo was the first RPG I ever played, and it was fair, for its time I suppose. Diablo II was great and I still play the expansion pack once in a while. I love RPG's and all, but I just can't stand anime and all of theÊgames containing Japanese cartoon looking creatures. Is there anything in the near...or distant future, or that is already on shelves that may satisfy my taste?

You're note about Eternal Darkness and Lovecraft reminded me of something my girlfriend was inspired to draw while she was visiting...
She drew a Pikachu with the head of Cthulu, she calls it Pika-Cthulu.
It tickled her to no end... she couldn't stop laughing... Should I have feared for my soul? I didn't at the time, but in retrospect maybe I should have... Excel Saga is a worthwhile purchase... I work at a Suncoast, and one of the other otaku has talked... three (I think?) non-otaku employees into watching it. It's just so hilarious. And, yes, for a while, I would have sworn Menchi was a cat...

I've seen in a couple of sites of an rpg game called Star Ocean Blue Sphere. My question is is true its currently being made for the GameBoy Color? If so will it come out here in the States?

I read what you said about RPG ports from PC to console in the Rountable discussion, where you said that you lose the customizability in the port to the console when there's no reason. While it's not a port what do you think about the way the Baldur's Gate series was sent to a console. While the PC version gives you complete control over customizing at least the main character in your game the console gave you a choice of pre made characters. Can they even call this a Baldur's Gate with it being so different?

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