MagRowan - 17:14 EST

HI, EVERYBODY! I have returned! Just can't seem to get rid of me, eh? Not that y'all would want to, right? Right!

All the recent reminiscing here about watching and/or playing RPGs with your family and friends has me waxing nostalgic. Heck, I'm waxing so nostalgic, I'm watching my bro play FFIX as I write this intro. Okay, okay, technically that's not nostalgic, it's contemporary. Still, I feel validated and relevant all at once!

So yeay for memories past and present, and onto the future and some fun letters!

Well, I really felt I had to read yesterday's Q&A what with the inclusion of a honest-to-goodness Irish Ninja and I had the urge to write my own letter after reading his/hers.

To the point - I wasn't thinking so much about the graphics of next-gen RPG's compared to this generation but more that the last of this generation just look so much better than what were seeing coming into the next-gen. Basically, do you not feel looking at the list of E3 games, that all of the best games (JRPG's at least) are coming out for this generation of hardware. We're getting Tales of the Abyss, Persona 3, Devil Summoner, Ar Tonelico, Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria, Rogue Galaxy, Disgaea 2 and any others that i've likely missed. Alright, all the best games are coming to PS2 then. Somehow the FFXIII trailer with the girl prancing about on the train just didn't get me as excited as any of these games.

Not that this is exactly shocking, you'd expect the last games for any given platform to be some of the best but with all the hype regarding next-gen RPG's, these games, which look to be the best RPG's for the PS2 since launch, are just being overlooked with all the hype.

And Secret of Mana, 2-player certainly was the best thing, ever. Hopefully they'll revive this on the Wii with the virtual console and WiFi capabilities. ^^

A quick reply to Redbeastmage. If you're willing to wait until June 26, Titan Quest looks undeniably awesome.

Thanks,
~ Pikey

Thanks for the letter ~ Pikey! Hopefully, in the future of next gen there will be some games to match some of your graphics expectations.

Zdrast-ye Tovarisch Matt,

I must ask a serious, very serious, question prior to any further ruminations on the world of RPGs. I know this is not necessarily your field of expertise but I'm running low on options other than a call to Microsoft's help center (and if you're a Mac user I'm in trouble). Lately my computer has taken to having the entire toolbar frozen. The icons left of the clock and right of the tabs indicating open windows seem to be unfrozen but cannot be affected by anything I do, and everything aside from those icons is completely immutable. This seems to start when I'm mucking about in My Computer and feel like using the 'Folders' command, whereupon the My Computers window frequently gives me an endless loading hourglass and the toolbar refuses any input whatsoever. As the only solution is to turn the machine off without shutting down, I feel resolving the situation promptly is imperative. Ideas, please?

And now - slightly less serious fare (if my computer stops working altogether the serious fare will probably send me into a spiral of hate). I can't really account for the completionist streak in me, just that when games give me the ability to collect bonus content I really like seeing that 100% marker. Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones was easy to collect all the support conversations in; just enter the Tower of Valni and wait around. It was much harder to do in the first English Fire Emblem. I had to gather a few C level conversations for everybody prior to the 2-part final chapter and collect everything that way. Oh, and if you're in the mood for a true challenge try Hector Hard Mode in Fire Emblem. I'll save a truly embarrassing story from my play of that mode for another day, but I understand even one of the most challenging things I've ever played through pales next to what Fire Emblem 5 in particular had to offer. To be feared are the players who have managed its conquest.

Dragon Force 2 thoughts clearly appeal more to the people who have played 1 (as opposed to bidding and selling it on eBay endlessly). It is my understanding that Dragon Force 1 was actually released on Sega's budget remake line for the PS2 in Japan - but that Sony didn't want an English version released. Is it true? I have no way of ascertaining. I do believe DF2 warrants a rereleased version also.

I share your utopian vision of the "Way the World of RPGaming Should Be." The Wii presents the opportunity to make it so. I must temper my enthusiasm with the hard cold reality, however, that translating games of primary interest to the readers of this site for the low prices Nintendo touts the Wii as offering means little incentive to do so. Without making a random guess I have no idea how much it would cost to translate, say, Treasure Hunter G for the Super Famicom into English, but I doubt it would be made up by the Wii downloading fee. And using fan ROM translations doesn't seem workable.

Since I brought him into this site's subject matter, I must spread the wisdom of Carlin to the masses! What a curse it must be, to be a bisexual. Can you imagine wanting to f*** everyone you meet??? Ever watch golf on TV? It's like watching flies f***!!! 'The greatest thing since sliced bread.' So this is it, huh folks? The Great Wall of China. The f***ing pyramids, for C*****ake! Even a lava lamp. To me, is greater than sliced bread. 'Please check around your immediate seating area, for any personal belongings you might have brought on board.' Well - let's start with 'immediate seating area.' SEAT! It's a goddamn SEAT! Check around your SEAT! 'For any personal belongings.' Well what other kind of belongings are there? Public belongings? Do these people honestly think I'm going to be traveling with a fountain I stole from the park? 'You might have brought on board.' Well. I might have brought my arrow head collection. I didn't... so I'm not going to look for it!!! I'm going to look for things I brought on board!! Which would seem to increase the likelihood of my finding something, wouldn't you say?

I violated a few fundamental rules of paragraphs there - but oh well. I recited all that from memory. (Non-Carlin fans may run screaming now). Okay - back to genuine RPG talk. Golden Sun 3 should have been announced in some form a long time ago and wasn't. Whyyyy? The premise was quite clear and since Alex had gotten very little screen time his motivations could have been damn near anything. Has Camelot been occupied only with Nintendo sports titles since making those games?

Skies of Arcadia is a great title. I know since you don't own either of the systems it appeared on you're understandably hesitant to track it down. But if ever you do own a DC or a GC, grab it. And where's THAT sequel? I suppose a little work online would find for me what Overworks has been up to lately but dinner is about to be served.

On that note, SOCK guesses: #220: c. #221: d. I hate pavement primer that gets onto my clothes and WON'T COME OFF.

JuMeSyn

Good luck getting that out, though I hope you weren't wearing anything you're particularly fond of.

As for Skies of Arcadia, it's not really clear. There was talk about a sequel awhile back, and I remember people talking excitedly about the possibility. For whatever reason, though, it seems like the project, if there ever was one, is in limbo at the very least. Hopefully, based on the success of the original, we'll see a comeback in the months and years to come.

Thanks for your letter, and have a good weekend.

Anwho Hi Matt and or MagWoren (Not a typing mistake just my horendous lisp!

My question be from the land of pokemon in the asking of have you seen the recently released video of Pokemon for the Wii. Having not the resources (or the broardband) to doenload it I wonder if it will be a TRUE pokemon RPG with ALL of the pokemon available somehow instead of a gloryfied colleseum battles that the Gamecube versions offered up! As it has been stated that it will have connectivity with Pearl and such maybe both the Wii version and the DS version will have different pokemon akin to Blue and Reds different pokemon (Sandshrew and Ekans). I pray they won't make people use there DS's for a pokedex as that would be most cruel (But innovative).

220: (A) Hast thou any proof, for if not then be gone scurvy cur, lest my sword cleave your head from yon shoulders (Nice addition no?).
221: D

And the beat goes on. Bainick, I feel like going SWIMMING somewhere right now. Isn't that random and strange? I don't understand myself.

Oh and i've given up on Ouro's points due to ineptness for daytime soapies and the fact I spent an hour getting it wrong yesterday!

Never give up! You never know how many people are getting the questions right or wrong, and we won't know until it's over, unless Matt feels like divulging said information. Keep up the good work, Bainick!

Indeed! With only 4 chances this week, too, there really isn't that much opportunity for anyone to gain much of an insurmountable lead. I'll let you know if we have a winner next Tuesday; otherwise, this side contest shall continue onward until we do have one!

Don't even get me started on people who just hit x x x x x x skipping text. My loser friend would scroll through text as fast as he could and then get stuck, finally he would call me and ask me where he should go next. How the hell should I remember, I beat that game years ago, but hey, what are you gonna do, some people are just dumb.

Here's a fond memory I have related to RPG's concerning two player RPG's, Final Fantasy 6 on the PSX to be exact. My friend and I both owned copies of the game. Somehow my friend managed to turn on the two player function without his knowledge, maybe he was tired, maybe the menu screwed up on him, who knows. But the next time he loaded his game he had the weirdest error. He could start the game fine, wonder around the world map fine, but once he got into a battle he could choose an action with his first character, but the game kinda jammed on the second. He could still run away, but that was it. Hmm. Eventually he bought my copy convinced it was a disc error, when he still failed in his attempts to play he was convinced it was a corrupt file. I think it took him like a year to finally figure out he had the second character switched to the second player controller. Ahhh Good Times.

Well this is Question and Answer, so I guess I should stop rambling and out with a question. Hmmmm, who would win in a fight, Robocop or the Terminator. Likewise, who would win in a fight, Spider-man or The Ring, meaning that if Spider-man watched the video from the movie the ring, would he succomb to it's curse.....I think that's enough out of me

Gilgamesh

Terminator, all the way. Since they always show the sequel on TV, I had never seen the original until last year, when they decided to air it on TMN or some similar station while I was at home with the family. Have you ever seen the Terminator in skeletal form near the end of that movie? Jeez. With that claymation-style frame-by-frame movement, I think Robocop would just explode in either fear or humour (or some strange combination of both).

Here are my feelings on the PSP versus the DS: I firmly believe that the DS - not only the developers, but the MACHINE ITSELF - loves you. It loves you, it loves me; it loves us all.

And it proves its love for us by providing not just one, but SEVERAL interesting twists on handheld gaming: the microphone, the touch screen, the FREE wireless play (and all that it implies), and even the dual screens themselves.

It proves its love further by providing, in addition to the unavoidable gimmicky games that force themselves to make uninspired use of the system's features, remarkable and innovative games that make full and intuitive use of the variety that such a system provides. I'm thinking of games like Trauma Center, or Animal Crossing (mostly for the wireless), or Mario Kart (again, for the wireless), or Lost in Blue, or Warioware Touched, or even Phoenix Wright. Hell, even Brain Age.

Oh, and as if that weren't enough, the damn thing is backward compatible. No matter what that jackass from Microsoft had to say on the subject, backward compatibility = awesome. And if you have the good sense to let people play their old games on your new system, or to keep your old system alive and viable for those who never had a GBA (like me, for example), then that puts you far ahead of the game. That's not only a smart business practice, it's a damn nice thing to do for gamers, especially those of us who missed out on the GBA.

The DS loves us, and it wants us to love it. But I get no such sense of love from the PSP. So far as I can tell, the PSP does precious little to advance handheld gaming, apart from having remarkable graphics and a control stick. Both of which are wonderful, absolutely (though that control stick could use a little work, I feel). Oh, and it also has that free WiFi multiplayer feature...man, that's awesome no matter how you look at it.

The trouble with the PSP is it's too busy trying to do things that other gadgets already do. I have an iPod. If it were a video iPod (it is not), I would have precious little reason to get a PSP. Such as it is, ALREADY have precious little reason to get a PSP, because I've yet to see a single game for the system (except maybe Liberty City Stories, which is ported to the PS2 now anyway) that would pique my interest even remotely well enough to warrant the ridiculous $250 price. Oh, and in order to take advantage of many of the system's features, you need a Memory stick, which you'll pay even more for.

And a word about its ability to play UMD movies: No. I rebuke you, PSP, for your gimmicky movie-playing ability. For charging DVD-area prices for your odd (but growing) selection of movies, to be watched on a tiny little handheld screen. I'm not even sure if those movies can be played on something that ISN'T the PSP (like a PC, for example). But if you can't, that makes it even MORE ridiculous, unless your entire movie collection is based off your PSP, and you're totally OK with that.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is this: strictly from a game system standpoint, the DS wins out. It's innovative, it's really two systems in one, and it has a number of great games that actually make use of that innovation. The PSP is just a gadget that happens to play some seriously pretty games. Both are remarkable in the sense that their technology is incredible: we are playing what are essentially Playstation 1-quality games on machines that fit in our pockets. But, as handhelds, the DS loves you, and the PSP loves your money.

Both seem to be pretty lacking in the RPG department right now. But the DS has an immediate advantage, because the GBA has the best lineup of RPGs of any handheld system to date, and owning a DS gives you immediate access to that library.

As far as the future goes, I'd say the DS has the advantage again, because the touch screen and all its other features would, if properly used, make for much more interesting RPG experiences than anything the more straightforward PSP could cook up.

Of course, I'm speaking purely hypothetically, as I have very little awareness of what titles are coming up for either system, except that the DS has FFIII and a Harvest Moon title coming up. What I mean to suggest is that the POTENTIAL for RPG greatness is much, much higher for the DS.

Assuming they don't screw it up. Because the worst thing about the DS is how easy it is to turn its awesome features into a gimmick, and crap up your game. I hope that developers don't feel the need to make the touch screen or microphone integral to their games, JUST BECAUSE IT'S THERE. If you can't think of a good use for it, DON'T USE IT! We don't need to be popping out the stylus every thirty seconds to enjoy a game.

I also wish they'd stop coming up with cutesy-clever uses for the letters "DS" in their game titles. Lunar: Dragon Song? Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow?
Just stop it!

Actually, just stop making Lunar games altogether; they weren't all that great to begin with.

::ducks::

-TV's Adam

Heh, I still have not had the dubious honor of playing any of the Lunar games, though one of the ports for the PSX is sitting on my shelf staring at me, so no worries about ducking me.

Thanks for the letter, hon!

Hey Matt

As much as I hate to let go of first place, I've decided that I'd like to go ahead and trade in my points for a co-host position. The loot's nice (Arc the Lad is rather tempting), but co-hosting isn't something I can get to do anywhere else, whereas if I want loot there's always Ebay, right?

Meanwhile you know how you said in a recent column that until not long ago your were working on an RPG of your own? Is it just me or is SOCK itself is starting to look like an RPG what with all the new items and, in particular, the status ailments (I'm particularly impressed by by the "Dark" status; that's wonderfully evil.)? Hmmm... This would, of course, make all us competitors characters (or pawns perhaps...) within said RPG. And naturally that would leave you as the evil overlord plotting our collective demise......

Hmmm..... Well....

*Ahem*

So here are tonight's SOCK answers:

#220
a) Hast thou any proof?

#221
d) Thwomp

Bonus Question #3
j) The Legend of Zelda (I remember seeing this and your comment that they seemed rather unhappy with their jobs. Heh-heh.)

Best,
Erika

Well, of course! I have to channel my creativity somewhere, even if it is through random day-to-day trivia. I can't wait for things to heat up once more spells and items get fired back and forth. Uwaaaahhahaha! <3

Does anyone have any other ideas for the competition? Let me know if you think of anything ultra-diabolical, and you never know... you might see your idea incorporated into my twisted game one day!

Heyo Matto,

I've been reading everyone's letters about favorite RPG moments so I thought I might contribute. Like Bigwook (6/08/06) I have several, but I'll try to keep a couple of them relatively short.

1) In Dragon Quest VIII, when the Argonian King is describing Princess Medea to Prince Charmless in an attempt to motivate him. Jessica's reaction to the whole "Va-Va-Voom" moment is classic, especially if you talked to a lot of people in Alexandria ( i.e. the little girl who doesn't understand the term) and Port Prospect (Jessica's often described as "a sailor's dream").

2) I don't know if you've ever played Tales of Symphonia, but the final battle is fantastic. Not only is it fun, but if you actually listen carefully when the boss has lost half his HP, you'll here him and Lloyd argue. I think that combined with the action-oriented battle system made the small moment very memorable to me. It's like telling the story through battle, something that I haven't often seen in games.

3) The "Yuna's Sending" moment from FFX really is superb. It's just such a simple and elegant scene, I can watch it over and over again in the theater.

Oh, and can I talk about my least favorite moment? I'm sure I'm not alone in absolutely abhorring the "love scene" at the lake in FFX; you know the one, where Tidus and Yuna drift underwater for like five minutes of tedium. Gah! That couldn't be over soon enough to suit me.

It wasn't until later that it actually became somewhat enjoyable. A few months ago I was talking to my girlfriend's brother about the game and I brought up how much I hated that scene. Well, my girlfriend was curious about it so her brother played the movie in the game's theater. When it was over, my girlfriend said something about Yuna's panties being wet and I started laughing my ass off. Oh, sexual innuendo is funny.

Anyway, keep up the great work!

~ The Irish Ninja

I'll pass on your regards to Matt. Thanks for the letter!

PHEW! That went well, didn't it? MagRowan, thanks for yet another fantastic job! I swear that if something ever happened to me, you could do very well to fill my shoes.

What, poetry? Again? Come on, you're killing me.

~Welcome to this spot
I never know what to say
So I write haiku~

***Answers to June 7th's Questions***

#220. a) Hast thou any proof? - 340 points (a question that hearkens back to Dragon Warrior 1; it's a quote from a townsperson in Brecconary)

#221. d) Thwomp - 275/550 for JokingChimer (thanks for the submission! Thwomps never appear as combatable foes in the original Mario RPG)

Bonus: j) The Legend of Zelda - 1 Star

***Today's New Questions***

Reader-Submitted #222: According to the instruction manual, if the secret love between Cid and Yuffie ever came to fruition and produced a love child what are the possibilities for that childs blood type? (300 points)

a) A, AB
b) B, AB
c) A, B, AB, O
d) AB
e) A, B, AB

Yikes! Tough questions, these are.

Only one more day remains in the SOCK bonus challenge! There is a link hidden somewhere in this column that will bring you to a secret question, and the person who has accumulated the most stars after this column will be granted Ouro's 2,094 points! If there is a tie, though, the extra questions will continue into next week, where someone will win by sudden death- as soon as someone is alone in the lead, they will be granted the pointage! Goooood luck!

Oh, and a message to CAP. For some reason, I don't think you're getting my e-mail messages!! I've been asking you about items for the last week or week and a half, so check your Spam folders to make sure my replies aren't being eaten up. I need to know what items you want! Thank you!

That wraps it up for my four days this week, but don't stop now! Ouro will be taking over tomorrow for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday's columns, and he's got plenty of fun in-store, especially with a recently-unveiled game of his own!

From myself to all of you, I wish you a fantastic weekend. I'll be back on Tuesday!

***Matt has another busy weekend in store himself!