Attention J. K. Rowling! I went and saw your bloody movie and bought your damn book. Please call off the attack drones. The lasers burn my flesh, and it smells like rotten sausages.
In all seriousness, yes I did go see Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone. And I'll be damned if it wasn't really cool. Not as good as the book, mind you (Which I bought for $5 at Barnes&Noble), but still good. If I were a decade younger, I would be seriously into this. I'd probably be chasing owls down the street and acting paranoid around cats: waiting for them to metamorph into severe headmistresses. The plot is clever, the characters are fresh and well thought out, the descriptions are vivid, and the dialouge makes me laugh. Oh, and if you needed another reason to read it, Jerry Falwell hates it. That's usually good enough for me.

In other news, I just thought I'd announce that yesterday was my great-grandmother's birthday. She's one hundred and three years old. No, I am not kidding. When she was born, William Freaking McKinley was the President of the US, and she hadn't taken a ride in an "auto-mobile" until she was eighteen. She's been alive in THREE seperate centuries, and I love her dearly. Happy Birthday, Grandma.

What else.... Hmmm....

That's about it. Let's do letter time.

Hey Chesh!

First of all, this is the first time I've written in five months. Second of all, I'm totally clueless about the world of RPG ever since I stopped reading up on them at RPGamer. Maybe with a few more days of checking out the news section, I won't be as clueless? Anyway, I was intrigued by the topic you suggested for Saturday. RPG "skanks"! Heh, anyway, my skank was Secret of Evermore. I don't know about you, but I was naive when I got it. I was at the local Movie Gallery (go figure) and I was looking for RPGs. The RPG bug has bit me only recently at that time, so I was hoarding them and playing as many as I could. It was just my luck to find a copy of Secret of Mana! Everything was in alphabetical order, and right next to it was a copy of Secret of Evermore.

Of course, I thought that OBVIOUSLY these games were linked somehow. I now know that they weren't that closely linked save the title and somewhat the company that made it (even though one was Squaresoft and the other was Square... USA? Is that right?). Anyway, I rented both games. I was "dazed" by the colorfulness of Secret of Mana, so I played that one first. I got pretty far, but I didn't get much of a chance to play Secret of Evermore. So the next week (it was summer), I rented Secret of Evermore again (not Secret of Mana, though). In the next two days, I played it, finished the game, and I loved it. I loved it! I don't know how to describe how I felt about it. I guess it was just naivete, but I still liked it. I got a computer and the internet that year, so I looked stuff up about it and found out that, quite frankly, some people (I'm not sure how many?) didn't like it. When I looked it up, I was quite sure that a LOT of people didn't like it because it was uber-American and what not. I remember saying to myself, "How could they not like this game?" I felt like an outcast for liking it, but I still like it. So, in a nutshell, Secret of Evermore was my RPG skank.

- Zeel, the RPG Outcast

Hello Chesh,

Yeesh you say Illusion of Gaia was unpopular? I beg to differ. Not only do i beg to differ let me add that IoG is still my favorite video game of all-time. It got me into story-driven games. Heh, as for its popularity, how come at the time i can remember an online (online being AOL) following that was bigger than FF3? Gad, imagine that. But still, i'm sure it had plenty of naysayers even though i can't remember one. Oh, and to answer with my favorite unpopular game, i think i will have to go with Star Ocean 2. *Shrugs* i liked it.

-Raza

Hey Chesh,

I'm an on and off reader of RPGamer's columns, and it's good fortune that I happened to stop by yesterday before I went to bed to find out about this topic, simply because I've become disgusted by recent reviews of a lot of games. It always seems that the games I consider great aren't all that popular among others, and the games I favor less are the big Final Fantasy blockbusters.

It seems that, in this era where videogames have surpassed movies in terms of yearly revenue, huge companies like Square are moving backward. One of the most disturbing trends I've noticed is the downward spiral in terms of difficulty. I find it appalling that I was able to beat FF9 without being killed once.

That said, I really liked playing Legend of Legaia for the PSX. While it isn't anything spectacular in the multimillion dollar cutscene department, the battle system is innovative, the story isn't as bad as everyone says, the characters were well-developed, the music was good, and it was challenging. Vahn, Noa, and Gala, while not rendered in three million polygons each, were characters who anyone would remember. I'm not usually one to play games more than once, but this game was the only game I've played twice since FF2 (or 4) was released for the SNES ten years ago.

Please tell me someone besides me has actually HEARD of this game :)

-Steve
editor@shoemakervillage.org

That string with the white wizard was good:) But despite what people say, I have to agree with you that the white mage/wizard is a super-sexy chick.

The first thing you need to consider is that back in the 8-bit days of old, details were few and far between (especially in the early games like Final Fantasy). Yes the face is a bit broad, but come on, you are talking about a battle-hardened babe who is ready for anything! And are there gonna be too many healing males who have their (red) hair run as far down as their waist? Let alone wear a hood and white dress? My guess is, none:)

Also, anyone here seen the Wonderswan Color remake of Final Fantasy? I have it, and yes the white mage IS still a super-sexy femmie. She wears her hood and dress like she did in the original game, only her hair is brown in this one. Square changed nothing about the game, other than making the game 16-bit quality, why would they change the sex of a character for no reason?? AND, if the white mage were masculine then why for the love of god would the white mage class suddenly have a sex change in time for the fourth Final Fantasy installment? There was no change my friend, she is and always was a SHE!

While simple 8-bit details may be enough to sway some people, the white mage is clearly feminine. 8-bits for graphics really isn't a lot (in fact nowadays it's pathetic...not to diss the NES, it was one of my best friends growing up). Why people would make such a statement as to question a white mages sexiness is beyond me. Anyways, just thought I would share my thoughts:)

-Andrew Richardson

• Dinosaurs
• Dodo Birds
• Tazmanian Tigers

• Horrible new mutations
• with psychic powers
• and big eyes.