Hey Google,

For the question on the Nippon Ichi TRPG's. Sure there's humor in them, but there is rarely any storyline when you compare them to most TRPGs, and then in most parts, none of the randomness in the game is just funny.

Like in Disgaea a little bit after Ninja Flonne and up until Gordon, there really is nothing amusing, and the storyline is just crap anyways. Then the ability to change classes is just that, an ability of changing classes. It doesn't make for any character customization, because having those different classes you'll have one or two stat points off. The only thing you can customize your characters with the classes is the weapons, and each weapon can only use certain abilities that are usually much like the last weapon a character used.

Disgaea is the same as La Pucelle, where La Pucelle has the exact same thing, where you learn spells or gain different things from weapons, but there really is nothing at all to customize.

It's just that these games have so much stuff thrown in there to look like you can create largely customized characters, but there really is nothing in the area of customizing, and you end up with hundreds of characters who have different abilities that do the exact same thing because they're equipped with different weapons.

-andrew- -kupomogli-

Isn't La Pucelle a Nippon Ichi game? Then it most certainly does have a plot involving a corrupt church secretly run by demons in a setting resembling Europe in the 1400s.

Google,

You mentioned that your personal favorite secondary character in an RPG is Myau. I have to disgaree. Nall is far superior. Not only is he quite humourous, but he's a talking, FLYING housecat (baby dragon, really, but he LOOKS like a cat, so a cat he is). That makes him automatically 50%better than Myau right there.

Anyway, my actual question:

I'm a huge Lunar (or LUNAR, if you prefer) fan. I bought a Sega CD specifically to play that game when it came out, and it blew me away. I've since followed the series, even to the point of purchasing the tragically disappointing Lunar Legend. and the upcoming release of Lunar Genesis fills me with both elation (because it's a new Lunar game. Duh.) and trepidation. First of all, the screenshots seem to indicate that the combat system is an isometric affair, similar to games like Golden Sun. I don't know about you, but Lunar's traditional battle system was always one of my favorites... moving to a generic turn-based system really seems like a step down to me.

In addition, this whole Light/Dark thing, as well as "Battle Cards" that can be traded seems to smack of gimmickery (is that a word? Well, it is now!). Maybe I'm overreacting, but it seems to me that the Lunar Genesis team is hard at work annihilating the mechanics of the series I love so much. I really haven't seen or heard anything about NPC interaction or inter-party interaction, but if they ALSO remove the wonderful character interaction that Lunar has grown to have, I may just cry.

Thoughts?

Thanks for putting up with my incoherant ranting, and keep up the good work!

i actually (still) own one of the alps controllers mentioned the other day. i rather liked it since the dpad was one big, smooth dimple, and i brought it whenever i went somewhere to play street fighter. i liked using it in general because it was bulky. i could really get my hands on it and actually control stuff.
so what i want to know is if i am a minority thinking that controllers are generally not being designed with the expanding demographic in mind. i'm no giant, and i'm hard pressed at times to feel like i'm really in charge of one of those little buggers.

cheers
nash

Hey Google,

I finally broke down and picked up a copy of Shadow Hearts: Covenant after hearing so many people ranting and raving about how great it is. I'm about 5 1/2 hours in, though, and I'm really not enjoying it so far. I went through abandoned subway tunnels, an abandoned wine cellar, and I just got to my next dungeon: an abandoned mine!

I've been forcing myself to play so far, and I wanted to know: does it get better any time soon? Why do RPGs always have so many boring filler dungeons? And most importantly: how many variations of "generic abandoned underground tunnels" is this game going to make me go through?

Thanks
Brandon