Googleshng - 4:00 EST

I am now back from NonCon, so no longer shall I be mentioning it every other day. I'm sure that was getting a tad annoying. It went pretty darn well for me. You can read about it on my page.

There are a good number of classes which require some odd requirements. If you search for a walkthrough, you should find out how to get each and every one easily enough. I'd just explain it all here, but, well, I have a policy against giving two page responses. For most though, it's a late in the game you find a special item sort of thing, and generally speaking they can be missed easily.

Come to think of it, COULD you use the SNES mouse with that one? I think it may have come out too early, but that would indeed help. I know it makes the SNES port of Civilization much nicer to play at least.

Anyway, your best bet by far I'd say would be the Fallout games. Post apocolyptic setting, somewhat similar vibe I'd say (although Fallout has more humor). As far as a realistic setting goes, there's arguably the Persona games, and (again arguably, but for different reasons) the Koudelka/Shadow Hearts series. Getting even further out as we go, we have BoF5, we have various sci-fi settings, Wild ARMs, Phantasy Star, Valkyrie Profile... and then it's pretty much back to straight-up fantasy.

Then if you want to get into TRPGs, you've got Front Mission and a truckload of 15th century looking stuff.

My name isn't Andrew, nor do I hate Xenosaga. I'd say the reason most people don't like the series though would be that they're put off by the whole emphasis on plot over gameplay thing... and I honestly find that most people saying THAT haven't actually played it. The gameplay is actually better than most of what's out there these days, and the percentage of time you honestly spend watching movies isn't as much as is suggested. The only real problems with the game, aside from problems the whole genre has lately, would be some AWFUL pacing, and the fact that the dialog, by and large, sucks. Not the plot mind you, the dialog. Playing XS2 here, in a single cutscene I caught 5 or 6 instances of things like "Can I also call you Rubedo too?" Plus a lot of long random pauses.

Anyway, as for a series recomendation, I think I'll go with the Phantasy Star trilogy. Three spiffy RPGs, they did just about everything first, and they didn't keep milking the series after doing what they wanted with it... well, the developers didn't. Sega gave it to others who have been wringing it dry, but still.

Once again, with "how do I get all of the ____ in _____?" questions, you're much better off looking it up in a walkthrough than asking me. Less so if I happen to have just finished it, but my copy of Growlanser is actually a tad neglected.

The year end awards meanwhile you didn't miss. The results haven't gone up yet. We've been rather bad with our year end schedule this year, but they should be up soon enough.

As for your chocolate question, this I can answer for you. Japan doesn't do chocolate. Simple enough. Or sugar in general really. The only sweet things you tend to find are little bread sort of things with some sort of fruity coating/filling. Well, that and Pocky... and those "fruit drops" from Grave of the Fireflies. Still though, when you go your entire life without having candybars in your face, you aren't generally going to think to throw chocolate into the fantasy settings you create. By similar token, I don't recall ever seeing anyone eating squid jerky in The Lord of the Rings.

Just in case anyone was actually legitimately confused there, no, Xenosaga 3 has not been cancelled.

Hmm... whilst at NonCon, someone suggested I attend Connecticon as a guest too... I really need to find out whether that person had the authority to make that happen...

googleshng@rpgamer.com

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