Matt Demers - 22:54 EST

ALL HAIL!

Yes, that's correct; I have returned after a week at home to resume my duties of answering your questions and questioning your answers. You wouldn't believe how much mail and how many messages I've had from people wondering what has happened to Q&A! I apologize for being away, but Reading Week at home meant that updating would require the use of the archaic dial-up connection o' despair, and besides, I needed a week off anyway.

"And what about Tiptail?!" you might all say. Yes, I advertised her coming a lot before I left, but it seems that she lacked a certain password to get into the cookie jar that is the Q&A e-mail inbox... whoops. She will be coming soon.

What else can I report here? Oh, right! My week off allowed me to be finally FINISHED with Dragon Quest VIII, which in turn granted me the ability to concentrate my efforts on other games, such as Wild Arms: Alter Code F, Megaman X Collection, and Mario Kart DS, all of which are far better than I initially gave them credit for (with emphasis on the Mario Kart). That dreaded backlog is slowly, slowly shrinking!

I guess I'll answer a few of your letters right about now. I'm glad to be back, and I'm looking forward to the weeks ahead!

Ahoy oh slime master,

I shall indeed answer the call to speak of emulation, since you asked so elequently. Or however that word is spelled. Is there an 'o' in it?

Anyways, there is very simple justification for emulation. Well, at least in my case. I do indeed follow the honor system, if you can call it that, and am more than happy to buy a copy of a game I emulate if it gets a rerelease. The problem is, most of the games that are really good, on the SNES in particular, are not being rereleased, and not being sold any more. Now, you suggested buying games on ebay, or used, or what have you, but that itself doesnt fufill the basic problem with emulation, in theory anyway: when people emulate, they do it instead of buying the game. When a person buys a game used, how much does the company that made it get? Not a cent. And usually the game is bought at cut throat prices to boot. The simple fact is that when a game stops producing copies of a game, and no new copies are to be found, there is little alternative. Oh, and I do have my whole ps1 library backed up on my comp, legally. Its like 40 gigs =(. But, considering the increasing number of scratches on the discs, and the playstations being, yknow... made by sony, any hope I have of playing them again really is squarely on emulation. Unless you encourage buying a brand new system every two or three years to keep up with the systems breaking. And even then, I recall severe issues with FF5 on the ps1 being played on a ps2. Lets be fair, games on discs arent as long lasting as cartriges. NES games will still run fine. Ps1 games have issues. Hell, ps2 games have issues! You seem to be quite the intellectual (speaking of which, I think you should give us more mathy soaps) so Im sure you can see the reasoning. Or futile attempts to feel not bad about what Im doing...depends on the view you take. To be fair, Ive bought so many games in my life that the 3 or 4 that were released here that I just have no access to dont really seem so bad. Especailly when I buy a really bad game by that company. (I bought Unlimited saga when it first came out, for full price. I still feel the shame. Though I enjoyed Romancing Saga)

To be fair, your point is quite true though, many people will download games instead of buy them, but again you have to consider: would they have bought the game anyway if they couldnt play it? Probably not. It sucks for those of us who DO pay, but realistically the companies that make the games dont suffer as much as it seems. For instance, just about every rom I have is of games that I either own ports of (all of the final fantasies coincidentally) or games that were never released here, and have been out of print for years. Tales of Phantasia is a great example of this. The whole series is positively wonderful, as I hope you know first hand, and if it werent for emulation I wouldnt have been able to play it--at least before they announced the ports translation. But before they did that, which was relatively surprising considering how long its been since said port was released (in 2001 I believe) we had no oppurtunity to play, and worse, no forseeable chance in the future. Of course now that I hear its coming out over here im gonna get it, although the font looks pretty ugly from what Ive seen. Though the rest of the game is very pretty, which calls into question your remark about people not playing SNES games after playing the ps1. At the time they were indeed "top of the line" but realistically they look really ugly. I think its just that some people assume 2d<3d, which is absolutely rediculous, but there you have it. At least Tales of Legendia is fun. I hope it does well and they release Tales of the Abyss here...that one looks VERY well done.

So...now that Ive rambled semi-coherently (I hope it was at least partially so) lets ask important philosophical questions. Like...are fire arrows ecologically safe, or morally ethical? I mean, fire burns trees, and arrows kill people. I asume a tree people slaughter is emminent.

More importantly, since you live in the nether regions up there, do you enjoy snowboarding? I know I do! Im going this weekend and I cant wait. Its quite a wonderful sport. They should make an RPG about it so we can talk about it more. Whee snow!

"Nether Regions"... pssh. I really enjoy watching snowboarding, and I loved following it during the olympics. I also have several friends who are quite avid snowboarders and have travelled far and wide to places where there is actual geography; see, I grew up in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, where the world is unimaginably flat. There isn't much snowboarding to do there, but I used to be on my high school curling team! Imagine that the year I quit the team was the year that the team was so successful that they went all the way to the all-Ontario curling finals. I keep telling myself "correlation... not causation" but thems are bygones by now anyway.

Thanks for the letter, good sir! Do write again sometime.

Howdy Matt In The Hat, if indeed you ARE wearing a hat....

I haven't written in a question or an answer since the days of Google, so you know it's been a cold age, and I felt that the time was right for me to come back, I have read your columns, and I find you to be quite a stellar fill for the Q and A spot, I have enjoyed reading the columns again!

On to the point:

I had been doing some thinking the other day whilst admiring my new copy of Grandia III, (Which has crippled my social life and almost got me fired from work for being late 3 days in a row.) when I happened to notice that in the case behind the counter, next to the other couple copies of Grandia III, was GTA: SA. Having at one point owned (And subsequently traded in for Xenosaga II, OH! How I still lament!) this game and having played it for hours upon hours and enjoyed all the yummy chaos contained within, and also having seen all the "Hot Coffee" mumbo-jumbo and the following legal goings on I had a few thoughts, and seeing as how I haven't been around in awhile, I may have missed (check that, most definitely missed) the conversations on that.

Well, my question more really has less to do with that and more to do with the future and what not.

How do you, as a seasoned gamer, feel about the governments claims about how video game violence affects children and turns them into violent heathens and the like? Do you think that Hilary Clinton and company realizes that the next generation of world leaders and politicians and policemen and woman and judges and presidents and ambassadors will be kids who grew up on GTA? On the next gen craze and the most graphic, bloody, and provocative era in gaming ever seen? The citizens of the world of tomorrow will be made up of you and me, people who have allowed their imaginations to run wild in fantasy worlds, the likes of which people 30-40 years our senior could never even BEGIN to believe in.

To wrap this up, I think the adults of today forget what it was like to be a kid. When your a kid, you don't want to be sheltered from new, exciting things, you want to get out there and do as much as you can. And maybe if the government realized this and tried to work WITH the media outlets of today, instead of scaring everyone with their exaggerated tirades, then maybe the old generation could leave the new generation a world worth living in.

Sorry for the length, but when I get impassioned, I ramble, ha!

~Frammy

But, Frammy, you forget! The world of today is now run by exaggerations, fear-mongering, and putting political spins on everything where none are required. You're out of luck.

Many adults of today DO make that very mistake, though, of not letting kids be kids. I have a prime example of this, entirely unrelated to video games: Thirteen years ago, when I was a wee gaffer, my mother headed the Parents' Council at my elementary school, and worked together with students to raise over $10,000 in order to install new playground equipment in the schoolyard. Two years ago, it was ripped out without warning by the regional school board along with the swingsets that had existed since the school was built. Why? "Kids might get injured, and parents might sue." Somehow, over the last twenty years or so, it has become intolerable to let kids get banged up in any way, shape, or form, without pointing the finger and someone and screaming "YOU'RE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS!!?!"

It's absolutely ridiculous, but it's out of a shielding kind of love, and this same kind of overprotection overlaps into the video game discussion. I could go on for hours about much, much, MUCH more, but I'm sure I'd bore some people. Besides, other writers-in might want to contribute to the discussion too. Yes...?

Thanks for the letter! This is an interesting issue that we haven't really touched much upon before, and I'm glad you brought it up.

Hi there

I was just reading through your q&a page and I saw you mention FF9 being really pixelly on a replay - I noticed that too! My understanding is that it's due to the ps2 using a software emulator to play some ps1 games and not through hardware, and this title didn't fare to well in the process - not sure how true this is and I've never got my hands on a ps1 again to see if it actually always looked like that. Anyways, just thought I'd share. Keep up the good work

Joe.

Enh, I suppose that anything is possible! Whether it is or not, I couldn't believe it... Final Fantasy IX seemed very much worse than I remembered after all those years; I suspect, though, that it's just because in the interim, I became accustomed to games like Final Fantasy X and X-2, with very smooth animation and sharp graphics. Thus, I would guess that it's an entirely psychological phenomenon, though it's very interesting when you notice. I found the same thing with Super Mario 64, and with several other games too. If so, then our mind's eye isn't very trustworthy, I guess! If not, then perhaps your explanation is certainly a plausible one. I don't have a PSX to test my copy on either, or I'd tell you outright!

Hi Matt,

#121. a) Blue
#122. d) Chun-Li

Quick question: If you had to chose an rpg character's theme song as your own theme song, who's theme would it be and why?

Thanks,
Dermot

Oh, wow... I haven't thought about this one before!

Let me think...

*CALCULATING... CALCULATING... *

In all honesty, one of my very favourite character themes of all time is probably one of the least well-known. The hero from Dragon Warrior IV's theme- i.e. the overworld theme while controlling him/her, is one that I fell in love with from the beginning. It's so sad... but really hopeful at the same time, and it makes me think of being alone in the decisions I make to carve the path ahead through my life to come. Yeah, it's a little over-the-top for a description, maybe, but that might be my theme.

Another possibility, though, would be the theme "Unfathomed Reminiscence" from Final Fantasy IX. I associate it with Garnet in my mind, but I can't even place if it actually is "her" theme or not... but I always think of that music when I feel stressed out about life, especially when the stress involves great expectations that have been placed on me, usually by school. It's a wonderful piece of music, no matter what... it makes me breathe very deeply just listening to it now.

Two Ts said " What IS the point of spells in that game, anyway? They're so incredibly underpowered that the game gives Final Fantasy II a run for its money in that respect. "

Oh? That also sounded like you were trying to bait someone into asking about FF2. With an exaggeration that outragous, you must have a view you wanted to put forward. So lets bite...

Assuming naturally that the player isn't doing something stupid, such as:

- Spending all the "Mage"'s time on physical attacking. (It may save all their MP, but that really isn't a Mage they've made, it's a Fighter with a some magic ability.)

- Equipping their "Mage" as a Tank. (Of course, all that heavy equipment only goes and severely interferes with the spell-casting. Why else do you see frail Wizards wearing flimsy robes, instead of some plate mail protection!)

- Over-leveling too much in the very beginning. Such that you would waltz through the whole game regardless. (That favours weapons and leaves magic as tiresome.)

... then in what ways are you saying, that the FF2 spells are "incredibly underpowered"?

I guess you might indeed have to play favourites as for which to level, but the other customizable Final Fantasy's have pretty much the same thing. (I.e. With weapons so powerful, that you barely use spells beyond Cure, Haste and the latest Summon Monsters!)

P.s. "Nelley & Tthewy" didn't really have the same ring to it. So (as you see,) I've gone back to your good old suggestion for now. ("Tiptails & Two Ts" is more delightful!) And yes, Drewy will be missed. I still even miss Googles too. (Someone mentioned battle frequency in Skies of Arcadia and no-one said about staying in the area too long!)

Two Ts is one of the best nicknames I've ever heard, and it goes quite well with the Tiptail name, or so it seems. Two Ts it is! To address your other comment, I actually have no first-hand Skies of Arcadia experience, but if the encounter rate is anything close to Wild Arms: ACF's, I could understand the pain, especially if there weren't random escape-dots available to help you out.

So, I'm all olympicked out. It was an amazing couple of weeks, though! I never would have thought Canada had a shot at placing third overall in the medal count! Both the US and Canada did wonderfully during the games, and I watched faithfully quite a good bit. To bring up curling for a second time during this column today, I thought that the Gold Medal game in men's curling was one of the most wonderful moments... I've never seen such amazing plays by anyone before, or such a high scoring end for that matter as the one where Canada scored an incredible SIX points only after missing the last shot.

Anyway... next part, NOW:

Let us remember back, back, back to the questions that were posed before my break of horror...

#121 asked what the complementary colour of Pierre the lawyer's hat was. Firstly, Pierre the lawyer is a random dude you can talk to in Guardia castle of Chrono Trigger. His hat is BLUE, so the complementary colour of his hat is thus d) Orange, for 115 points.

According to MagRowan, also, the Capcom Fighting character appearing as an NPC in Breath of Fire is d) Chun-Li, and that was worth 75 points (150 for Mag). And if you think that my double-D day was unfair, then you can eat my shorts, in the words of a certain Simpson. I like standing around in my undies anyway.

Question #123:
Which spell did King Slimes know originally that they don't know now? (90 points)

a) StopSpell (Fizzle)
b) Blazemore (Frizzle)
c) FendSpell
d) Ironize
e) Sleepmore (Kasnooze)

Question #124:
Ask Bainick!-->Which of the following main characters from an RPG starred FIRST in a game called "Radical Dreamers"? (75 points)

a) Zidane
b) Reid
c) Dart
d) Serge
e) Ramza

More tomorrow, folks! If you have any thoughts on any of today's topics, give me a shout! I'm sure some of you have something to say about spell usefulness in select Final Fantasy games, or crazy lawsuit-loving parents. Better yet, what character theme would best suit YOU? By all means, let me know what's on your mind!

Gootbye, all!

***Matt is listening to FFIX's boss music in the background!