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Googleshng - May 29 '03- 2:00 Eastern Standard Time
I am going to type this entire intro with my eyes closed, not so much
to test my typing skills as because I am really freaking tired. Hey cool, no typos!
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Sparing me some trouble #1
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Hey Google,
Since you seem to be a bit lax in letters, I suppose I'll ask you this question about Katakana, given that Andrew is busy with swag. It concerns the kana for "Final Fantasy," which reads "Fainaru Fantaji-." I don't understand the "ji-" part, since we clearly pronounce the "sy" in Fantasy as "see," and I would think the ending Japanese syllable would be "shi-." I could understand the j-like sound in words like fantasia, Asia, version, and so forth, but I just don't understand this. What's ironic is that for "Phantasy Star," as I've seen on Sega's Japanese site, the Japanese kana for the first word is "Fantashi-." Weird, huh?
-Otta-rando (Otterland)
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Googleshng:
I think you probably answered your own question there. Shi is the better fit, but one could run across
si → ji in various other contexts and figure that was the way to go.
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Sparing me some trouble #2
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Hello "Googleshng" of RPGamer....
In case you do not know, I just wanted to tell you that the art of "you" (hehe), submitted by Xellos-kun, is actually from a popular webcomic called Sluggy Freelance (featuring internet dating, of course).
On another note, what is your opinion of Pokémon? I myself dislike the repetitive Anime, overwhelming merchandise, horrible spinoff games, and masses of little kids, but I find the main series' games to be wonderful. What do you think of them, and how many Pokémon games have you ever tried?
Have a nice day,
-Ket Shi, Cait Sith Fanatic
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Googleshng:
I am well aware of the origins of yon Sluggy character, and I agree with you more or less completely on
the Pokémon matter. I was a bit disappointed with Ruby/Saphire though, and I think the Stadium
games have some potential. Particularly back before Gold and Silver came out, the whole box management
without constant saving and bubble-sorting was quite nice.
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Quite long, but not a multiparter oddly.
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Hey Google,
In response to the guy/girl who mentioned that new games just don't seem as fun as the old ones, I think this is a common idea. Things always seem more fun when you did them years ago, and when they were more novel. The old Atari system I had was way more fun than PS2 is simply because it was new and I hadn't seen anything like it before. Things always seem rosier when viewed in hindsight. I have to say however, that beating Mike Tyson's Punch Out! isn't as much fun now as it was then. I can actually do it now, though when I was 7 I counted myself lucky to get past Von Kaiser. Like here in Taiwan, the Dengue Fever outbreak we had last year seems like complete picnic compared to the SARS of today. I can almost hear people saying, "Ah, to live in the Golden Days of Dengue."
In response the the Woodchuck quickie, here's a good one I found in an old Calvin and Hobbes strip. How Many Boards Would the Mongols Hoard, if the Mongol Hordes Got Bored?
In response to the Andrew Proliferation Treaty, I have a brother named Andrew.
I've been reading a lot of fanfics lately. They're pretty good across the board, though it occurred to me that in the vast majority of FF7 fanfics, the various love interests seem to progress from mild indifference to shy infatuation to full-blown lust in frightenly fast succession. Kind of like the awakening of love and libido happen simultaneously.
One more thing, to all of you aspiring writers out there, be sure to utilize the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) method when doing your papers. I'm proofreading a 50-page master's thesis by one of my students, and am finding out that, in academic circles, we are doing our best to make language a complete inpediment to understanding. I'm on page 22, and have still to discover what the student is talking about, and I'm an ENGLISH teacher, damn it!
Enough! Power and Glory to Google!
Ke Da-Wei
The evil Taiwanese Bushiban Teacher
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Googleshng:
Roughly a dozen people made the same Calvin and Hobbes reference today.
Anyway though, on the subject of old being better than new, the bulk of that notion comes from the fact
that you tend to forget mediocre garbage. I mean, I can pretty much guarantee that during the 80s and
90s, the average person reading this site stumbled across all manner of lame, forgetable games, they just
don't remember it. I'm not such a sadist as to jar those memories, but let's just say that on the SNES
alone there were several hundred terrible licensed sidescrollers.
In this particular frame of reference, the problem gets even worse. The annual number of RPG releases
has skyrocketed in recent years, making it easier to spot the lousy ones (easier to find good ones too
mind you), the gaming media has sprung up, calling attention to a much wider selection of games than the
sort of grapevine word of mouth from years ago. Plus going by what demographics I've picked up on, I think
it's a pretty safe bet that the average person reading this page has a far larger gaming budget now than
they did 10 years ago, making them a good deal less paranoid about accidently buying garbage.
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Tri-Quickie
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I always assumed that the "Trigun" guns were Vash's, Knives' and Wolfwood's.
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Googleshng:
That's what I said yesterday, just worded more vaguely.
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Hmm an RPG related topic: Did you ever play an RPG that you absolutly hated, due to graphics, gameplay, music,etc. but turned out to be your favorite?
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Googleshng:
Not really. If I hate something, it's usually for a pretty significant reason. I can however name three
games which originally struck me as fairly underwhelming, but seriously grew on me once I got into them:
Wild ARMs, Vandal Hearts, and Lunar:SSSC.
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And of all the original console RPG's (namely Final Fantasy 1, Dragon Warrior 1, Phantasy Star 1) was your favorite?
and last but not least...
Cyrus
Knight of the Square Table
(how do you keep a slime in suspence?)
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Googleshng:
Phantasy Star. No contest.
Final Fantasy came out a couple years later, so I'd be inclined to disqualify it.
I mean, DW2 was already out by then. All FF was bringing to the table was picking the classes of
your party members, and some interesting graphical concepts.
Dragon Warrior has this nice zen minimalistic quality going for it, but that doesn't really score it a
lot of points.
The original Phantasy Star on the other hand was the first console RPG ever to impliment characters joining
your party, cutscenes, vehicles, different backgrounds when fighting on different landscapes, and monster
animations. More importantly, it had a wider scope and better graphics than even most 16-bit RPGs, and
several other innovative and interesting concepts which didn't really catch on in the mainstream. The
ability to talk to certain types of monster for example.
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