I sure did a lot this weekend. Put a rant up, did some major cleaning on my computer, learned perl, saw the season premier of Farscape. Heck, I even got a little done on my game. The only thing I DIDN'T get around to is that amateur game makers hub page that I started working working on, then someone leaked to the public so I started getting flooded with mail and I know this is a run on sentence but they're one every once in a while so I'm not about to finish it anyway know that I learned perl I can set it up so that people can add themselves to it so I won't have a horrid ton of work to do and will be able to pay attention to it again instead of redirrecting everything to a sub folder of my mail box. Get all that? 8) Well, let's get going.

Googleshng:
It's not a side quest per se, it's a bunch of flashbacks you see when you sleep in an inn with Shadow on your party. As for the question in your little P.S. well, that's one of those things that people always argue about, it's also a rather big spoiler, which is why I didn't print it.

Googleshng:
Yeah, well, I was getting a ton of mail last week, and today's a Monday. Keep that in mind everyone, on Monday you have a better chance of getting things printed. Anyway, I can't help much with these honestly. As far as Contrail goes, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that smaller developers don't tend to think as far ahead as the big ones. After WA2 you'll probably find out what they're doing next, but for now, I haven't heard anything. As for Gundam, as I find myself saying CONSTANTLY, I don't get the Cartoon Network, so I haven't seen it. Unless someone starts a write-in campaign to Eastern Connecticut Cable, all I can say about Gundam is that there's a lot of it, animevillage.com translates it, and the first few seasons are about as gritty as anime gets. Since you didn't say a game on that next one I can't answer it, besides it doesn't ring any bells, and finally, I've heard between $300 and $400, which is WAY too much to pay for a console if you ask me. Oh, and this is probably as good of a time to mention this as any. The PSX and PSX2 do NOT run Linux, or any OS. The PSX2 dev kits run Linux. There is no reason for a console to have an OS, and the only ones that do are the DC and the X-Box, although I can't see what it does in the DC... is it just to mess with memory cards?

Googleshng:
OK, first of all, keep a save file from before you go into Riovanes until after chapter 4 starts. There's 2 back to back nasty fights in there. Anyway, the best possible strategy there (aside from Be on level 99) is this: Monk with Squire as your secondary, Auto-potion as your counter, 99 X-Potions, and no other potions. Then you just run around the edge using Chakra if you're about to die, and Yell otherwise. Eventually you have 4 actions to his one and if that still isn't enough, you can always bring your attack power up with Accumulate. The best part is these things don't expire before the next part of the fight where the rest of your party comes in, along with some rather nasty demons, so you can beat that before anything moves. Another interesting strategy people have told me about is just to jump. When you're in the air, he can't do anything to you, and you hit for a ton of damage. Oh, and this question has been answered in this column like 50 times now. 8)

Googleshng:
When I saw that letter in Brad's column I was SO freaked out. I thought my mail box would be filled of nothing but people saying yes, he did the character art for Kartia 50 times over. As it turns out though, I got very little mail and only 2 like this. A few little corrections though. Amano didn't do the characters for FF7 or 8. People whined like crazy for him to come back, he did for 9, and NOW people are complaining about how stupid 9's characters look. There's just no pleasing some people. It reminds me of the time someone was whining to me about how Square made a huge mistake having Akira Toriyama do the anime intro and ending for the CT rerelease because he drew everyone like Dragon Ball characters. Anyway, Amano also did the original manga of Vampire Hunter D, but when they made the movie they didn't stick to his style, which is a shame, his whole long haired pale skinned anorexic in funky clothes style is perfect for a vampire. Although on the new VHD movie, which is based on the next third of the orignal manga (so I suppose there'll be a third movie eventually) and which I heard will be in US theaters, he has a bit more control over it, so it looks a lot better. I think that about covers everything about Amano. 8)

Googleshng:
That's just freaky about Ehrgeiz, I never played it myself though. Anyway, I haven't really been paying attention to WA2 being so busy playing the original, so, that's about all I have to say on the matter.

Googleshng:
Interesting point. It is true that basically nobody has time to play games through over and over again if they're getting every game that comes out, but that isn't a bad thing! I mean now you can play new Tactical RPGs all the time, if you want you can play nothing but extremely linear 80 hour games, or you can just play RPGs every spare momment you have without having to play the same games over out of boredom. Life is good! Now, if only I wasn't COMPLETELY broke right now. 8(