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Googleshng - February 8 '99- 1:30 Eastern Standard Time
Before I begin, I'd just like to straighten one thing out. The
last few letters I recieved today were all talking about how Lunar should be pronounced Lun-AR
not Luner. It seems to me that these people miss the point. It's not the fact that it's being
pronounced with an AR sound, it's that the AR sound is EXTREMELY over emphasized. Just wated to
get that out there. No offense to Working Designs of course, they can pronounce it however they
want as long as they keep it funny. 8) Also, a couple people thought Ted Woolsey translated FF5
for FFA, but I distinctly remember hearing the tranlsation comes from a scrapped plan to translate
FF5 for PCs, which of course was a long time after Ted left Square.
In other news, yesterday as a little experimet I took over the world in Civilization with only
diplomats. Try it some time. That and the column's up late because I have company.
Oh, since the person who does the music for my game will be guest hosting soon, I might as well
let you hear his stuff... on second thought, I'll upload some tonight.
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Questi-ONS??
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Ask Google
Get answ-ERS!
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Recent Q&A's
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02-07-00
02-06-00
02-05-00
02-04-00
02-03-00
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The Old stuff
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The Archives
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Draw Me!
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Fan Googles
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How do you pronounce...?
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Listen
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In the PSX:
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RE3
Disco Jill
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In the Genesis:
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Phantasy Star 2
Out you come soon!
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In the Gameboy:
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My cousin's copy of Pokemon
He WILL pay.
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In the SNES:
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Civilization
AC tomorrow?
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In the SMS:
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Phantasy Star
Always.
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In the NES:
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River City Ransom
Whack-Whack-Whack!
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In the Saturn:
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Nothing
No games yet
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In the N64:
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Goldeneye
What else?
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In the Dreamcast:
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Soul Calibur
Best time is under a minute
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SaGa Frontier 2
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Hey there. Just a few random comments and questions...
Firstly, did you notice that the band Queen has produced three songs called
"Ogre Battle", "March of the Black Queen" and "Let Us Cling Together"?
Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it...
Another thing I was fairly baffled at... just by random surfing, I
discovered that SaGa Frontier 2 is going to be released next week... and
noone ever says a thing about it. I mean, sure, SF1 wasn't a masterpiece
(though I didn't hate it), but SaGa games never tend to be similar to their
predecessors too much, except for the main battle system (and I might add
that I personally found SF's battle system much more fun then FF7's or 8's,
for instance), and these water-color backgrounds are clearly a nice change
to the lifeless renderings and 3D-graphics the majority of games boast
nowadays. I guess it was just a mistake by Square to release SaGa Frontier
without giving us the Romancing SaGa games first... people might think
differently about the series if they had.
Oh, and lastly... what happened to the reader reviews? I don't remember
anyone ever saying that you couldn't send them anymore, but it's been a
while since the last ones were posted. Will they ever return, especially
since you just opened the soundtrack review section?
Anyway, that's all for now.
---
Gilgamesh.
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Googleshng:
I meant to mention the Queen/Ogre Battle thing yesterday myself.
Anyway, as for SaGa Frontier 2, well, I have mixed feelings towards the SaGa games. I've
only played the first 3 (released as the Final Fantasy Legend series here) and quite
frankly I didn't like the first 2. I just don't like the concept of not having anything
permanent about your characters. Weapons that break, abilities that get used up, etc.
Just not my style. On the other hand, the third game was extremely entertaining. A decent
fairly well written plot, the ability to turn any character on your party into any monster
in the game while still having character progression, and just about the coolest airship
in anything. I do however hear that SaGa Frontier seriously sucked. Non-linearity can
really tarnish a game's image it seems. Getting back on track though, the only thing I
know about SF2 is what Next Generation says in it's review. That's good enough for me
though unless they recently hired a new reviewer. I've never disagreed with them. So...
evidently the backgrounds are all watercolored paintings, the setting is similar to FFT,
it still has the multiple characters/plotlines deal, the combat is excellent, and it
doesn't suffer from wandering about in the wilderness as the original appearently did.
I really need to get a job. 8(
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You punk kids and your popular music!
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Did you ever notice that Magus's henchman from
CT-Ozzie, Flea, and Slash- are all named after rock
stars? Ozzie as in Osbourne, the former lead singer of
Black Sabbath; Flea, the bassist for the Chili
Peppers; and Slash, the guitarist from Guns N' Roses.
Just a pointless observation, either that or a devious
scheme to sell American music in Japan. Or maybe a
little bit of both.
Cheesboy
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Googleshng:
As has been said, there's meaning to most names in Chrono
Trigger. Add those three to the list.
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Nippon wa sugoi desu yo!
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Ah, Mr/Mrs Googleshng, a few serious questions about everyone's favorite
country involved in the video game industry.... and maybe a few RPG questions
1. What are most Japanese video games in (Hiragana, Katakana, or Kanji)?
Googleshng: Well, I haven't really checked extensively, but it's basically a mixture most of the
time. If you're asking which to learn first, learn hirigana, then katakana, then, if you're up to it,
kanji. That should let you read most stuff, although I seem to recall that SD3 (AKA Secret of Mana 2)
was written entirely in kanji so you can forget about that one unless you have a ton of time.
2. What is the easiest way to learn Japanese (other than take a class in
school)???
Googleshng: Watch subtitled anime. Seriously. If you watch enough stuff subtitled you do
eventually start to pick it up. Some things are better then others for this of course. Slayers has a
character who speaks perfect textbook Japanese for example while Evangelion has someone who speaks the
Osaka dialect, effectively another language. True, this doesn't teach you to read it, but learning
hirigana and katakana is a lot easier than it sounds and you need the meanings first.
3. Do YOU know Japanese? Just wondering, everyone has to ask at least ONE
oddball question...
Googleshng: As if you couldn't tell from my answers, yes I know quite a bit.
4. IF I already own Final Fantasy Anthology, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy
VIII, Final Fantasy Tactics, Xenogears, LSSSC, Thousand Arms, Parasite Eve,
Brave Fencer Musashi (ugh!), Grandia, Beyond the Beyond, and Breath of Fire
III, what other RPGs should I get? (I like games in the style of FFT,
Grandia, FFV-FFVIII)
Googleshng: For starters, get the original Vandal Hearts! Probably Kartia also. Oh, and when it
comes out, look for Koudelka.
And now the few , the proud, the rants: Hey, people, stop complaining about
spoilers - it's an RPG site in the first place, just look away and scroll
down... it's not that hard, really, I do it all the time! And honestly, you
can't expect to avoid EVERYTHING about an RPG, especially if it's popular.
I'm sure you have a few friends who like RPGs as well, and they just happen
to discuss a game you haven't yet played and ruin the plot for you, all on
accident. Consider the column just that!
I guess that's all....
Cloud078 "It's hard to be smart... that's why I quit a long, long time ago."
P.S. - Paws should guest host more often, especially when Brad is supposed
to be hosting... no offense to the Oracle intended!
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Googleshng:
I honestly don't exactly have people screaming at me about
spoilers, but the thought is appreciated.
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Disc 2 woes
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Google,
<This is my first question ever so it'd be cool if you answered
it...>
Do you think that the majority of the Xenogears scenes on disc 2,
which were quickly covered in a narrative and in some cases you got to fight
a boss, were meant to be fully done areas in the game? What I mean by this
is, do you think the original game story board called for you to fully fight
through those areas but because of space contrainsts and game length they
had to cut it down. To me, so many scenes got "skipped over" and I was
sort of disappointed because I didn't get to play them out but on the other
hand I was relieved because fighting through all those MASSIVE areas was
sortof getting on my nerves. I'm talking about the part of disc two where
either Fei, Elly, or Citan is sitting in the chair narrating out events and
you, the gamer, are saying "Arrgh! Why don't I get to do this?!?" What dya
think Google? My personal thought is they ran out of space and had to make
cuts. Whoever did the editing and trimming did a pretty poor job because
there is such a stark contrast between discs 1 and 2; but that's just my
opinion. All in all, I did really like the game and the story.
Imagine what a Xenogears character/plot web would look like....ouch, maybe
you shouldn't.
-dark357
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Googleshng:
They certainly didn't do disk 2 the way they did because of
space limitations, I know that. Actually, switching formats for most of the disk like
that would add a bit of code for the different format. Anyway, on a CD, space taken up
by actual plot and gameplay is negligable. If you want proof, start playing FF7 or 8,
switch discs when you get a chance, and the game will play the same way until you hit
a movie segment, plot and all. When you switch the disc is a tricky part though. 8)
My personal theory is that, well, since A LOT of people start getting a little tired
of ANY RPG no matter how good after playing for 60 hours or so, they wanted to pick up
the pace towards the end. Plus there's some MAJOR stuff happening which would require
serious changes to maps and such constantly which would be a big hassle. On top of all
that, they were trying a new style of doing things which I quite frankly enjoyed. Still,
you can't please everyone.
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Important Correction
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hey google, i just wanted to mention something about the letter i write that you posted yesterday.
apparently, pokemon was spelled pokimon repeatedly. what happened was that whenever i tried to type
the 'e' with the line above it, my email made it show up as an 'i'.
i HAD to get that out of the way, as i would've probably gotten about a million emails from pokemon
people calling me a complete idiot for not being able to spell pokemon.
--NightTransfer
P.S. heh, paws and i have a similar problem with programs not spelling things correctly
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Googleshng:
Actually, the readers seem very forgiving about typos, but I
see your point. It's impressive how a couple small typos or translation glitches can
make a person sound like a complete moron. 8)
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Complaints
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Am I the only one who doesn't give a crap about bad translations, no character development, whatever magic
system is used, fantasy or technology setting, male or female lead character, sexism, bad language, violence, length,
graphics, music, and all the other superficial elements of games that everyone complains about? If a game has
enough good features to shadow the bad ones (and all the bad ones are just a matter of opinion) then I will play it, if
not then I pass it by (without bitching about it) and move on. I hate to complain to get people to stop
complaining, but then again this is America!
--Nick Boice
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Googleshng:
I wouldn't exactly say magic system music and length are
superficial, but I do see your point. People seem to complain about a lot of odd things
in games, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. Saying you hate Parasite Eve because it's
short is just plain silly, it was common knowledge before it even came out. Just like
it's silly to complain about high tech FFs because that's been going on forever. Still,
discussing that sort of things in games is not a futile act, especially if it's in a
forum where game developers might actually see it. If enough people whine about how
they want longer RPGs in public, RPGs probably WILL start getting longer. Personally I
say the 30-60 hour range is probably the best bet, but it depends on the game. 8) Anyway
I seem to have been lecturing all day, so I'll shut up.
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