Boojum - 19:58 EST

WELCOME, LOYAL READERS, to another installment of RPGamer Q&A. When last we left Q&A, Wonderslime was beset on all sides, in danger of being overrun by hordes of ravenous letters, while also mounting a valiant defense of the fabled artifact Thee'sys. In today's episode, he is joined by an unexpected ally in the form of Boojum, who attempts to hold the letters at bay. Will their combined might be enough to prevail, or will they be swallowed by the tide of words? Read on to find out!

Hey!

So, I ended up buying the Wii. It still hasn't arrived, but my brother is excited, and so am I. I'll try to make sure to drop you my impressions in the near future. Thanks for the advice.

On the subject of world maps in RPGs, I said it in many places, it's one of the things I miss the most in the recent Final Fantasies and such. But I think things are about to change real soon, Revenant Wings will have a world map which you can actually travel using your airship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl4klhKg8rE yey!) and Nomura said in an interview that he want to insert this feature in Final Fantasy Versus XIII since he loves airships so much.

Looks like the future is bright for overworld maps my friend, let's keep hope!

Let's talk generally here for the sake of this question: what do you usually like more, stylized designs or realistic ones? The games that attract me every time are the most colorful ones, those that uninformed people would consider to be the "childish" ones. It has been like this forever, I'm (much) more inclined to love a game with character designs like Kingdom Hearts and Ape Escape than, say, Gears of War or Half Life (not taking gameplay in consideration). Not that I don't play games with that kind of art direction, on the contrary. For example I like God of War a lot, but I would have surely replayed it a LOT of times more if Kratos' design was more to my likings... I know, it's a matter of tastes and if that particular art and graphics would fit well or not with the game itself, but the "realistic" ones hardly appeal and fatally end up looking all the same to me.

What you think about Opoona? It doesn't seem to get much love, but I'm looking forward to it.

Random: I want Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker already, where is the English version release date, Squeenix???

-Franklin (Way to the Dawn on the forums)

Good to hear from you, Franklin - thanks for tipping me off about Opoona.

Hello Guy Who Has Same Name As My Cousin,

Man, I gotta say, having that little sidebar of topic ideas sure does make it that much easier to write in with a question.

Anyway, I'm gonna tackle two more questions this time.

-What awful game do you secretly love to play?

This one is tricky, because by today's standards it might been seen as awful, but back in the day it was a phenom. Resident Evil. My god, the dialogue. When I first played it, my friends and I started a new game with Jill at least 3 times just to play the first 10 minutes. "Blood. I sure hope this isn't CHRIS' blood." And when Barry kills that first zombie, and laughing says, "What IS it?" God, it was amazing.

I was watching Final Fantasy: TSW, and I got thinking about video game based movies, and how horrible most of them are. Resident Evil in particular sticks out in my mind, seeing as how it's one of the most beloved franchises in video gaming history. It just boggles my mind how badly they screwed that movie and it's sequels up so bad. The first movie had nothing in common with the game except for zombies and Umbrella, and the second one was only better because it actually added in a few characters from the games. When you have a hugely successful game like that, with equally successful sequels, you ahve the blueprint for movie goodness right IN THE GAMES. The first movie could easily incorporated every element from the games, from the mansion to the enemies to the lab and on into the the next game with Raccoon city and actually including the REAL Resident Evil characters. I didn't think it was that difficult, but obviously I was wrong, so, afer much rambling and complaining, I pose a question to you Matt:

What is your favorite movie based on a video game?

-Frammy

|= |=

Ahh. This is a better question than the slightly different one: "Which video game based on a movie is your favourite?" The answer to that, of course, is "NONE, GO AWAY."

However, it's still the case that most video game-inspired movies are pretty awful still. I'm hard-pressed to think of one that I actually enjoyed. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was cool but really quite boring, I thought. My mom and dad liked the movie better, which is funny; I've found that many non-gamers enjoyed the movie much more than hardcore FF fans. Yeah, I still can't think of any as I type on, so I'll go out on a limb and say "Pokémon: The Movie" or whatever the first one was called. I was mildly entertained by it, if I recall.

Thanks, Frammy!

Hey Matt,

About the one guy that was wondering if he should pick up a PSP or 360. I myself recently picked up a PSP for a similar reason that he wanted it for, to play older games wherever I'm at. There's actually an ebootloader program where you can turn your PSX games into files that can be played without the need for an emulator, so I ripped Breath of Fire 3 and Wild ARMs 2 to put on the memory stick.

The other reason for the PSP is the system is actually starting to pick up on a lot of good games. Gundam Battle Royale and Mega Man Powered Up are games I picked up and already own, but it's coming out with Dracula X Chronicles(3d and original Rondo of Blood plus Symphony of the Night) which I'm definitely picking up. While Final Fantasy Tactics is an enjoyable game, but I wouldn't pick up the PSP version. However, Final Fantasy 1 being rereleased once again interests me slightly(yet I'm not picking it up either.) Sure I own four copies of the game from varying systems, but it's possibly the only game in the series that deserves as many releases as it gets and not because it's the best game, but because it's an amazing game that can be reworked to offer different style of play or additions to it. The only other game that could be reworked to be different is FF2 and in my opinion needs it badly. If FF2 had a level based gameplay and removed the weapon and spell levels then the game would actually be really good, but every single release the game has had and it's remained the same pathetic game in each one. The only Square Enix games I'd end up picking up would be a completely remade version of FF2 like how I stated above or Front Mission 5, Front Mission 1st DS, or Dragon Quest Monsters Joker.

-andrew- -kupomogli-

Wow, that's a dense paragraph! Not much interest in Gundam or Mega Man, but Dracula X Chronicles would be on my must-buy list if I had a PSP. I already own FF Tactics, and while I would like a better translation, it wouldn't be enough for me to buy it over again. FF 1 and 2 I already have in Dawn of Souls for GBA, so no interest there. I'm not entirely sold on the idea of revamping the entire gameplay system for FF2 - the main attractions it has at this point are as a historical curiosity, nostalgia for those who played it as kids, and completists who want to play all the FF games, and if you took out the unique gameplay elements (as bad as they may be) it would lose that. I'd rather just see a new game at that point. The Front Mission series has always intrigued me, but I've never quite tried it. DQM: Joker, on the other hand, looks great, and I'd be happy to grab it if it makes it over here. Thanks for weighing in, Andrew!

Man, yeah. I would not be too impressed if they went through and massacred FF2's battle system. Even if it has its flaws, it was remarkably original for its time. I was really pissed off when they converted to "MP" in one of the recent Final Fantasy 1 remakes- I think it was the Dawn of Soul FF1, but there are so many these days that it is rather difficult to keep track.

Hi Matt!

You know, I really need to start sending in letters a little more often. I try to save comments from a previous letter so a not to make them too long, then I completely forget them. Maybe I should write them down or something...

Oh, it's true. I'm falling into the depths of senility as well as I get older; I can turn around from doing something and completely forget what I was doing within a matter of minutes. Don't feel obligated to write in, though... unless, of course, I go on one of those "AHH, I need letters so I'm going to make you feel verrrry verrrry guilty about it!" days. But, you guys have written so much lately, I don't really need to. Yay.

Sir Boojum, we meet again. Salutations.

I'm still on the anime theme junket. http://gh.ffshrine.org/song/2670/8 comes from Video Girl Ai, which is a surprisingly sweet six-episode show. I like that tune.

Had I known you regularly read the reviews updates, I wouldn't have pushed mine. But unless you'd mentioned it prior to that last co-hosting the information was not well known. I've kept up an esoteric trend in my reviews, eh?

Let's see here - I did try, briefly, to pick up a Gamecube. After four or five eBay auctions in which I got outbid at the last moment, I've given it up for now. And it's for the best when I discovered even more titles on the systems I already own that I want to pick up. I never did round out my Dreamcast library very well, even if Time Stalkers is probably not worth much.

In addition to that, my DS library has increased 11-fold since we last spoke on it. That really cements it: I don't need any other systems. I can keep exploring the ones I own for a loooooong time.

I'm trying to decide whether to pick up Pokemon now that it's out or not - I still have a few games left in the DS backlog, and I really don't want to start a new time-sink RPG when Etrian Odyssey is right around the corner, since I know I'll drop whatever I'm playing when that comes out. It's a title that hasn't gotten a whole lot of hype, but it looks like a great return to the dungeon exploration and flexible party tactics of games like the old Wizardry and Might & Magic games that I cut my teeth on.

Well, I can't fault your objections to Sakura Wars. It obviously isn't for everyone, but within that sub-genre (which it is pretty much alone in) the games are the top of the heap.

On the other hand, a series you would have to import which does have a lot of tactical prowess requirements is Langrisser. Well - you could just get Warsong, but it's the least of the Langrisser titles I've played. I talked about Langrisser 2 last fall when I was playing it, and now I'm playing Der Langrisser. It's sort of the same game as 2, though a fair bit easier (no worries, these titles are not easy by any stretch). The major draw here is that the player can choose alignment. I chose to ally with the Empire when offered the chance, and now the four generals who I would have to kill under other circumstances are on my team while the people who joined my team in 2 (and still would if I stuck to the Light path) are my enemies. I've already killed a couple of the people who could be on my team. I understand that I could also have betrayed the Imperials, though I didn't take the right actions to let that happen.

As is now customary, I shall provide a piece of music from that game for you to mull over: http://gh.ffshrine.org/song/1532/2 Since Leon is the strongest Imperial general that usually plays for the enemy - but now that he's on my team it plays during my phase.

Lately I keep replaying Advance Guardian Heroes to unlock more characters instead of much else on the DS. I suppose that means it's a worthy game, though it pales next to the original. As you most likely haven't played either, what's your stance on melding an RPG with a beat-em-up?

Gotta make Matt work for a living, so have another musical track: http://gh.ffshrine.org/song/1189/53 This is from Tales of Phantasia, when entering Dhaos's castle in the past. Considering about half of the game is left to go, it's a nasty place. I got killed several times in there.

Rudra no Hihou is actually one of the few noteworthy Super Famicom titles I don't own. I may pick it up in future, but I already have plenty of stuff for that system. Like two early Fire Emblem titles, though the third FE on SNES goes for truly outrageous prices. Check this out: Click Here.

I can't stop myself - I must tell you of another CRAZY INCIDENT from Tengai Makyou IV. In Atlanta, I watched a snippet of something called 'Gone With the Fire'. It involved acting by Clock Gable and Vivian Eee, and had a big Southern mansion catching fire while a laugh track kicked into motion along with applause. The mansion catching fire (in a TV program!) was blamed on my party, and then the TV crew tried to interview us. Never brush off the media, man - they got us thrown into jail where TV Man made us watch the rest of the program. Fortunately we were freed by Magu, who is commander of the Alamo after General Custer was slain in Texas. Then the Alamo led the attack on the power center of Atlanta's TV station - but Magu was slain in the operation, begging me to 'Remember... Alamo!'

Got another track from Napple Tale for you to try. http://gh.ffshrine.org/song/2535/3 This was one long level, with lots of ferris wheels and long drops while snow is falling. Called 'Fiyol Land' if I remember rightly.

Pretty fun sound with a lot of odd instruments - kind of reminds me of a carousel theme.

Fare thee well, good sir.
JuMeSyn

And you as well!