News of the Legend of Zelda compelation game made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside... or maybe that was the hot cocoa I spilled in my lap out of sheer surprise.

Personally, I played the first two on the NES, but I never got an SNES or N64 to play the sequels. Therefore, this is both a chance for me to enjoy some nostalgia AND try raved-about games I never had a chance to play!

Now I just meed to get Wind Waker, and all will fall into place... AAAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Personally, I hope they keep the first two games intact, except for the second game's ridiculous reset. What I mean is the fact that hitting reset sends you ALL THE WAY BACK to Hyrule Castle and reduces your experience points to zero. This makes leveling up Link beyond 5 or 6 in each stat IMPOSSIBLE unless you do a second playthrough.

Ah, enough old-school ranting! I haven't hurled a Prinny in 24 hours! I need exploding penguins, dammit, and I need them NOW!!!

NeoCarbuncle

Blowing up penguins since... about a week ago.

ANDREW Uhh... No it doesn't. In fact, it's all I can do not to be 8-8-8 by the time I hit the fifth palace. Then again, I do have ungodly powers at that game (I can finish it without the candle), so I guess that's not entirely surprising. ALLOY In all truth, it's been a long time since I played The adventure of Link. It's not even my favorite game in the series. Actually, I think It's my least favorite game in the series. Then again, I never played the oracle games cause I don't have a GBA... Does that make me a bad person? Or just one who doesn't play handheld? Makes you think, don't it? ANDREW Not me, but then again, you crazy theatre majors probably have a different definition of "makes you think" than us English majors who are usually limited to such earth-shattering considerations as "what does the green light REALLY mean" or "you can totally see up Fanny Hill's dress on that cover!".

As for making it a "Zelda All Stars" kind of deal... I don't know. Having the games at an increased resolution would be nice, but to completely redo the graphics would be a lot of work for them to do. If they can up the graphics and sound for the NES titles and bump up the resolution for the N-64 ones, then I'm for it. Ideally, there would be an option where you could switch between "Classic" graphics and "Updated" graphics (similar to what Nintendo did for the Game & Watch titles).

I don't have a Gamecube and never played the N64 Zelda titles, so this compilation makes a Gamecube more tempting...

-- Deshrill

ALLOY I will agree about the Gamecube becoming more tempting. In all truth the only reason I don't have one now is because I'm a cheap bastich. Well, that and PS2 had more games I wanted when the next-gen consoles came out. If they do this right, they will get some major props from me. ANDREW Yes, I think at least 16-bit graphics would be nice for the first two titles, and to be honest, I think Zelda II would probably work very nicely in one of the 3D engines Nintendo has kicking around. Heck, with all the extra buttons kicking around on the GC controller as compared with the NES pad, you could even make magic a little less irritating to cast. Still, Nintendo hasn't really converted any of its classics since the days of Mario All-Stars (the Metroid add-on with MP was left untouched, right down to the ass-ugly tiles that appeared in some locations), so I'm not holding my breath at this point.

Anyway, I've been a fan of Legend of Zelda since I was little (we, littler than I am now anyway ><) so I thought this was a great idea. Even if they do mess up the graphics and all, I can't wait to replay all my old Zelda games!! The Master Quest diskthat came with Wind Waker was cool enough, but this is be great! It'll be so fun to play all old games and not be considered a totaly fool. (since I still am obsessed with Duck Hunt...yes, after all these years! Nothing beats that mindless game with the evil dog that laughs at you!) At least when people ask you can say, "I got a new GAMECUBE game today....bwahahaha!" :D

So anyway, I really can't wait until it comes out in the over here. Oh...*sniff!* the memories!!! I must find my N64 and play Ocarina of Time (THE BEST GAME EVER) over again. Remember the 100 Gold Skulltulas?

-Tess (who suddenly wants to play Duck Hunt again ^^)

Ooo ur in luck again. Another Yankee game is on so I'll have to shut up now.

ps: I see your point on the porn star for governer. Still, do porn stars really know ANYTHING about running a state? Heck, do they know anything at all?

ANDREW You know, I really don't choose my games by what other people say. If they tell me the game I'm playing sucks, I just do something really annoying repeatedly every time they're in the room while I'm playing. For instance, while I was playing through Suikoden II my housemate would always wander into my room to play Warcraft, but never without mentioning how much SII sucked. For revenge, everytime I finished a battle I'd read out the "You got (x) potch. You're now holding (x+y) potch." in a Ted Koeppel-style voice. Oh, and read out Chaco's dialogue in a terrible Spanish accent. ALLOY Uh...are you insane? Not that there's anything wrong with that. I enjoy insanity. Hell, I revel in it. But...you're scaring me. In all truth though...DUCK HUNT DOES ROCK! I love that game! I even still have the laser gun for it that I got with To The Earth. That dog...I so wanted to shoot him most of the time, but then I got good at the game and he stopped laughing at me. So I don't whant him dead anymore. Yeah... ANDREW Well, let me put it this way. Does Arnold Schwarzenegger know anything about running a state? How about Jesse Ventura? Hell, while we're on the matter of competence and its lack, let's not forget about Dubya. ALLOY Oh dear, here we go in the political arena...I ain't touchin that one. Well, maybe a little... I would have voted for Gary Coleman cause I loved Diffrent Strokes.

That said, I've heard people complain about psuedo-RPGs and non-RPGs that trick you into buying them by claiming to be real RPGs. But I don't see the word "RPG" anywhere on the box, or usually in magazine ads either, even for real RPGs. The magazines I read actually describe the game rather than give it a loose genre name. Where do they get the idea that Warcraft 3 and Metal Gear Solid 2 are supposed to be RPGs?

ALLOY I have no idea what you're talking about with Threads of Fate not having XP systems. Each time you use a magical attack, your MP grows, and whenever you were hit, your HP grows. I consider that to be XP, but that's just my own opinion. As for MGS2, there are a lot of people out there who use the term "RPG" to mean any game where you take the role of another character in the truest sense. That's why people are confused about Zelda being an RPG when it's really an Action/Adventure series. MGS is more of a covert military game than a true RPG. But, as I said before, that's just my opinion. If you don't like it, TOO FLIPPIN' BAD! ANDREW More to the point, we call it an RPG because if we didn't, legions of Zelda fans would descend upon us and demand blood. Moreover, Zelda games rule and give us an excuse to cover Nintendo, since it doesn't tend to put out RPGs itself otherwise. As for your "criteria" which "suck ultimately," they're awfully close-minded. Xenosaga, for example, doesn't have towns or dungeons as such, and comes perilously close to being an interactive movie at times. FFX lacks free exploration between areas for much of the game, since you're pretty much dragged around by the collar. Chrono Cross lacks a well-defined experience system, and Final Fantasy Tactics doesn't really have dungeons either. All of these, however, are considered to be among the finest RPGs ever made by many, and yet you would dismiss them as "pseudo-RPGs"? Bad idea. Basically, the term "RPG" is an amorphous, highly subjective construct, which is why we cover some titles that sites such as RPGFan don't, and vice versa. It's terribly messy, granted, but trying to definitively nail down what exactly RPG means is well-nigh impossible at this point, so why bother trying?

You have made my day today with your outlook on stupid people and the soon dead N-Gage... I am proud to say that I emailed the freak who didn't know what a RPG was. ^_^ I'm all giddy now. In my rather short and un-rambling note I might have mentioned something about trucks and plastering his name all over the internet. Hmmm....what should I sign him up for? Online Viagra newsletters or perhaps those annoying credit budgeters... Any suggestions??

ANDREW I cannot condone this behaviour *cough*email furry porn delivered daily*cough*

For an updated Zelda series......BAH!! It will most likely fail miserably....or maybe I'm being too cynical as always... The whole artwork for the series was terribly bad until LoZ: Ocarina of Time. I really wouldn't want to see a gay looking Link running around wearing flesh colored tights..... Eck.

Tomorrow, which will be today when your column goes up, is the end of Elba Central School's homecoming week before the game Saturday, so that means that I will be stuck in a gym for the "prep"-rally for almost an unearthly hour.... Maybe I'll be crowned prince. *shudders* Please pray to Yevon to protect my soul from those evil, dirty, incarnations of Lucifer... In other news of anti-jock rallying! The Senior sociology class did a study in school to see which students received the most praise and who were looked up to.. Guess who was on the top?? Male athletes... Gawd, I hate high school... Dumb idiots who decide that being druggies and alcoholics are looked higher upon then lets say....students in drama, art, and others who can actually hold an intelligent conversation without talking about who they want to sleep with.... Hmmm..can't wait to graduate....leave this small, gossiping, "sports are our lives" village and go somewhere where they actually think about other things. Maybe I'll go to Messiah College in Pennsylvania?!? *insert a thought of me walking into the Christmas service with a giant pentagram on my shirt, and a tattoo of 666 on my arm and other things of evil* Maybe not.... Evil isn't my thing, methinks. But, I did have fun telling a group of obsessive worshipers at a booth at the NY State Fair that I was Atheist... ^_^ They even told me I have, "time to change". Fun times, I tell you. I hope that you haven't committed a large scale murder rampage against everyone on your street......yet. You must remember, fun things are best done with friends...

I'm glad that at least your page was put up today, and I would've been happier if Roy was eaten by the tiger! Those animal abusers deserve to be eaten!! ET even read "letters to Roy" yesterday, from red-necked losers who think that he deserves to heal.

Until the end of time, I will always be on your side,

O' Shrouded One

ANDREW Well you have to remember that ET plays 24/7 in hell, so it's not surprising that they'd have a feature that insipid. My question is, how many times did they say "Oh, you!" or say something else with that inflection in their voices? Also, jocks aren't all bad, they're just... jocks. Their existence really has nothing to do with yours, and in the end, if you don't care what these people think, then you should probably just ignore it, since you are on your way out of your two-horse town and all. Remember: in twenty years they'll be working in a lumber mill, while you'll be acting, painting, and conversating your way into a giant sex party in New York with Andy Warhol's ghost and twelve Marilyn Monroe lookalikes feeding you grapes as you lounge on a giant divan reading Kierkegard. On the downside, a small percentage of them will show up at that same sex party, as they will be multimillionaire football players. Incidentally, I find Link's flesh-coloured sword much more disturbing than his tights. Is it even possible to hone skin to the point where you can stab someone to death with it? ALLOY Uh...mister shrouded one...or should I just call you O? Anyway, first off, I don't really like the implications that you put on Link's sexual preferences. Oh, wait...sorry, I read that wrong. Carry on. Secondly, I'm in college right now and I can tell you from personal experience that the people loving jocks over people with brains thing doesn't stop at high-school. It will haunt you for the rest of your life. Unless you go to a performing arts school like me where the people who are the most friendly are the most popular. Sigh. I'm never gonna be popular until the cynical, pessimistic (best of both worlds, kids) people are the ones who are looked up to. *wipes tear from eye* I think I need some time alone. ANDREW Good news, dudes. Cynicism is cool right now. Just look all over the internet - there's plenty of goths who will look up to you. Some of them might even be reading this RIGHT NOW! Ugh. I never thought about that. I feel so tainted... Time to cut myself, to see if I still feel and all that jazz.

I want a Rocket-Propelled Grenade. Anyways, that one guy Mighty_RaZieL, that was talking about UNLIMITED Saga, well, he spelled it wrong so there is the correct spelling(heh, ok, I'll stop with that), and also, he should rent the game before he buys it, because it's one of those games the person will hate or they'll either enjoy it.

Sorry for not talking about my opinions on FF3 and the NGage yesterday, which you will recieve my opinions of them today. For all the people who want FF3 to come out as the 16bit WonderSwan Color version of it, I just have one thing to say, what is wrong with you people?? The WonderSwan Color versions of the FF games suck, first there is FF2, which I don't need to talk about because FF2 just sucks to begin with. But then there is FF1, where the normal mode, which is said to be just as hard as it is on the NES, which I was actually happy that FF1 came to the PSX because even though I would have rather had the original graphics, I wouldn't have had to play for about 5 minutes and suffer from my nintendo freezing up on me randomly, with the huge blurred scan lines running through my TV, until I played it and the game is pathetically easy, which normal is the only thing I tried playing on the game, and I got to Kraken like nothing, I didn't have even close to as much trouble as I did when playing the original. Another reason is for the horrible translation of everything on both FF1 and 2, and also the fact that on FF1 for PSX, both characters and enemies missed 75% of the time, until you got weapons such as Flame Sword or the Ice Brand, but then all the hits didn't hit so basically 75% of the 1st hit always missed, so you always took off one less hit than the characters max amount of hits. And the movie made no sense since there is only one Dragon you fight in the entire game, and thats in the volcano to get some armor.

So, Square-Enix needs to release the original FF3 while just translating it, without changing the graphics or any of the gameplay, and not making it any easier like every new game that's released by Squaresoft (except UNLIMITED Saga) has been. Then, Dragon Warrior 5 and 6 should be released, not as a single game, but like the one guy said all of this stuff should be released on the Gameboy Advance in cartridge format. The only thing that needs to be changed for the Dragon Warrior series is the biggest problem that most people probably hated for the series, even though it's an excellent series, the thing I didn't like is when searching a spot, I always had to open my menu, move the cursor to search, and then hit the button to search all the drawers and everything, so they should just have it where you hit the a or b button, the drawer or the ground will automatically be searched, just like on the remake of Dragon Warrior 3, and like when playing Dragon Warrior 7.

Also, I think the NGage will suck badly, I mean, they have games like, Spy Hunter, and Tomb Raider on that, the one guy is right when he says people don't want to buy games for double the price that they could buy a long time ago for half the price, especially since, I think, that the games I've seen in the magazine ad's suck. Who wants to play Tomb Raider anyways, I think the game was boring, and only found enjoyment jumping off the top of huge mountains or buildings, depending on the level I was in, into the water, then getting back up to the same spot, and doing the same thing again. Also if you wonder why I've played it, it when I was in New York and my cousins their at the time(which was along time ago, didn't play RPGs, since the only ones that were out at the time were some like, Wild Arms and Final Fantasy 7 just being released(but FF7 sucks anyways).

Also about the Zelda compilation being released, I think they should just name it, Zelda 2: the Adventure of Link: Collectors Edition, remove all the other Zelda games, and sell us Zelda 2 alone because that's the only enjoyable Zelda game, as for the others where you do the same thing every time, same puzzles over and over again, some boring swing your sword and not be able to do anything different at all, where getting past the first dungeon is just like playing the entire game since you're doing the same thing throughout the game, same puzzles, same weapons, same character in green cap.

Even though I don't like Megaman that much, they're coming out with two collector cd's celebrating the 15th year aniversary of Megaman, one which is going to have Megaman 1-8, and the other is going to have the Megaman X series, then the Megaman games that don't really have their own series, like Megaman Soccer and the others that have been released, are going to be divided up and put on both of the cd's, which early on I thought Megaman was cool, got kindof boring with the X series, but they're releasing one awesome collection, so I know that's something I'm going to get.

-andrew- -kupomogli-

ANDREW Why would anyone want to pay for Megaman Soccer? Hell, some people will be paying for it twice. Think about that for just a minute. ... ... Good. Carry on. ALLOY I can honestly say that I disagree with everything you just said. It's incredible. I've never disagreed with anyone so much in my entire life. Well, except for this one guy at school who says that all anime is like Speed Racer and I just want to punch him and punch him until he stops breathing and then punch him some more... *looks up and notices everyone looking at him* Metaphorically, of course... *runs*

I wrote in last week to talk about the Breath of Fire series. (I think that started the whole chain of BOF5 discussions) and we also chatted about hockey. Since BOF5 is still such a hot topic, I figured I'd weigh in again. In regard to Beth's letter from the other day. Most of the strategies you gave follow with mine. Storing up party XP is a huge factor as well as getting good weapons and skills. But, using traps is immensely important as well. I'm a huge fan of prox bombs and regular bombs. The key with the bombs is to set them off during battle. My personal favorite technique is to lure all the enemies together with meat and then set a few bombs around and then engage them. Once in battle, not only do the bombs deal more damage, but you gain tons of XP and Party XP. And then if you have Ryu's hex skill you can gain even more XP!!

ANDREW And have it I do. Thanks for pointing out the bomb trick - it's an excellent way to earn XP that I probably should have mentioned yesterday, but since I was still distracted by the evil service tech and incapacitating gutrot from the greasy diner I had been to a few hours prior, it slipped my mind.

As for baseball, yes I am pulling for the Cubs as much as I hate Sammy Sosa. I love their pitching, Wood/Prior reminds me of the 2001 D-backs with Schilling/Big Unit. But frankly, as a Mets fan living here in NYC, I just hope my hated rivals the Yankees don't win. I don't want to listen to my Yankee fan friends. Oh and how great is it that hockey season started. An impressive win for my Stars against the defending Western Conference champs. And while you are right, we did lose Hatcher and that's huge blow, Turco is no longer a hold out and we have tons of firepower. As for your team, I think the acquisition of Nieuwendyk was huge and very unheralded. But what's with you guys stocking up on our 1999 cup team's players, eh?

Thanks for your time and courtesy peace out
- Lucky Melchior
Let's go Stars, down with the Yanks, time to play some more Breath of Fire V

ANDREW You do indeed have tons of firepower, which I somehow failed to notice. Still, I'm kind of iffy because there's lots of strong teams in the Western Conference. In other news, having seen Manny Ramirez engage in bush-league post-homerun antics two games in a row, I am wishing death upon Boston, because regardless of how much I dislike the Yankees, at least they have class. Well, except for Roger Clemens. He can suck a lemon. ALLOY Not only have I not played Breath of Fire: Dragon's Quarter, I hate baseball. I really have no way of speaking to you unless you don't mind a hopeless ramble about a completely separate subject. Okay, uh...I'm play Guilty Gear XX characters in the Marvel Role Playing game that I play with my friends on Saturday. Faust is on the good guy team and Zappa is on the bad guy team!

Oh. And... Uhh... Explain the similarities between FFVIII and FFTA.

Love,
Oreo Xander.

ANDREW While I do indeed "know many chicks," as you put it, I am reliably certain that none of them would be willing to whore themselves out on camera for your amusement. What I can offer, however, is my own personal webcam service. All you have to do is buy me a webcam and I'll perform to your heart's desire, if you get my drift. ALLOY I also know quite a few chicks. Fortunatly for them, most of them have boy/girlfriends and don't need to be oogled at by you. In all truth, I'm not even certain why you would ask a question like that at an RPG Q&A column unless you were purposefully trying to be the Unfit For Print letter... Cheater! Ban him from Unfit forever! ANDREW NEVAR! Then who would I strip for?