Matthew Demers - 22:01 EST

WHAT A GREAT DAY! A perfect precursor to the long weekend upon which I will be journeying home to the family, eating much in the way of barbequed food, and playing many-a-round of Pokémon with my brother. The sun is shining brightly, my class earlier today was fantastic, and I'm feeling all-around awesome.

Except for one thing.

I need a bit of a catnap. I'm a bit drowsy, strangely, and so, I'll be back to finish this intro in about, oh, twenty minutes.

...

There, much better. That was actually closer to forty minutes, but it felt so gooood. OK, time for a letter or five.

Here's a letter on a subject I thought of just now: the hidden uberboss.

I tend not to like them, because their implementation is generally flawed. They usually require one of two things, possibly both: a lot of tedious level-upping, and/or a "cheaty" strategy designed to take down anything at all that moves (*cough*knightsoftheround*cough*). This is done so the programmers can grin in sadism at the stats and abilities of the horrible thing they put into the game.

What do you think of them? What's the best implementation you've seen?

(I'll save DQ9 until next time if you're still in need. :))

In Final Fantasy, I'd say that I agree with you most of the time. Final Fantasy XII was a bit different, though, I think, because the marks all formed a set of uberbosses of escalating difficulty. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the game contains one of the best implementations of this, except for one minor irritation: I can't believe the things you have to do to search for some of them. The last mark that I killed was Fafnir, and after I finished the game, I looked online to see what things you have to do to find some of the last marks. Really and honestly, there is NO WAY that anyone could figure out how to find some of them in the first place unless they fished around online (irritating, to me). There should be some kinds of in-game hints that provide ample information for you, but they aren't there.

Anyway, I have to say that Dragon Quest VIII also contained some spectacular bosses. They didn't require cheap strategies, generally, and not only that, they helped to tie up the storyline very nicely, too. One could argue that fighting seven different final dragons is a bit overkill and repetitive, and I kind of agree. But, they provided a solid challenge to heroes wanting to push a little further... not a challenge that would send most people to the closest strategy guide looking for cheap ways out.

Thanks, Leaper!

Hiya Matt-type person,

First things first: looks like I have a slight break in my normal schedule enough to be able to get in my long overdue cohosting session next Friday, the 25th. Is that doable for you?

My question is simple: it occured to me the other day that the Wii has four regular controller ports and four Gamecube controller ports, making a potential eight controllers. Wouldn't it be totally awesome if they came out with some eight-player game? I'd love to see an eight player co-op RPG a la X-Men Legends, or better yet, eight player Smash Bros! (But let's all not pick the Ice Climbers, because then I'd have no idea what's going on.) Any thoughts?

Of course, that would also require that we can get eight people all together at the same time, and my group of friends seems to have enough trouble with four. Oh well, one can always dream...

You guys bring up some interesting ideas about the save points, and yeah, it'd really be an interesting concept in life. But you know what would also be cool and probably a little less problematic? A pause button. Essentially, the ability to think about what you want to do next for as long as you want, but react in real time!

That's all I've got tonight. I'll catch you later, during SOCK!

-- Arpijy

Be there, or be Square... Enix. Okay, that was terribly bad, and I need a slap.

Seetings and Gralutations,

First of all, and, call me a suck up, or call me lame, heck, call me both, but I really enjoyed reading about how you cramatize all that busyness into one day. Me personally, I work a full time job and go to school full time, and that's enough for me to have only a scant few hours of Pokemon goodness, which by the way, is exactly what I just said. You know what? No, not goodness, GREATness. Can't seem to put the dern thing down!

Anywho, question time:

- Consider any game or series. What would you change about it?

Now, as opposed to going into long-winded rants about 37 different games, I'm just gonna throw out some quickie changes I'd like to have made:

-FFVII, Cait Sith. Nuff said. Also, was Red XIII's tail supposed to be on fire? It like, glowed in the cutscenes or something. It really should've been on fire.

-FFVIII, come on, only 9 at a time max when you draw? REALLY? Couldn't kick it up to an even number, or, god forbid, get some double digits to at least ensure I don't hit my next birthday by the time I finish drawing 300 triple from Cerberus!

-FFIX, The hell was up with THAT card game? In FFVIII the card game was instrumental in advancing your characters with startling ease so very early in the game! It was the perfect mini game! The FFIX card game reminds me why I don't play stupid games with no reward: THERE'S NO REWARD.

-FFX, Tidus' voice was more obnoxious then Joan and Melissa Rivers at the oscars. It made me wince. A lot.

-FFXI, Na ah, not EVEN gonna touch it.

-FFXII, Balthier did not have nearly enough lines. Neither did the smarmy/weird/perv/fashion mogul? Al-Cid. Also, the espers were totally useless. They make it so that your awesome party of three, with finely-tuned gambit machines, is reduced to you and a brainless pal. You spend most of the time using it as a decoy, hoping the enemy/boss/mark/whatever, will target IT instead of you. At least, that's what I used it for. I might've used my espers... oh, I dunno, 4, maybe 5 times the whole game (100+ hours), and forgot i even had them most of the time.

-FFXIII, dubya tee eff what the "new" trailer? That's like starting out thanksgiving with a nice, appetite wheting appetizer, and then when it's time for the next course, they bring out a glass of water. Buh-mer.

Oh yeah, and one more (My brain won't turn off), I would make FFI exactly like the 8-Bit Theater web comic. Seriously. I have tried to play FFI over again like, 3 times, and ever time I do, and they don't speak like they do in 8BT, I get disappointed and turn it off.

Oh geez, and another thing (MAKE IT STOP!), going off of what you said about the starter pokemon always being lame grass/water/fire, why not let the PLAYER pick from ALL the different types? Then, after a type is chosen, you get 2 from that category too choose from. Obviously they would be the more common of that type, so as not to give a crazy unfair advantage. Also, it would be amazing if the town you started off in was based on how you filled out your name, gender, etc. They could have additional questions like about weather and colors, and start you off in the environment that most closely corresponds. You could start in a totally new places, with a totally different pokemon like a billion times! Well, not a billion, but you get the idea.

Exit Light,
Enter Night.

Oh man, forgive my lameness, it be the fatigue, I swear it!

Frammy

Eh, I'm lame all the time. REALLY... I CAN'T WALK WITHOUT A CANE! Ahahaha. Bye! (Don't kill me.)

Hey Matt,

I'll jump into the whole save point thing if you don't mind. Aside from the whole morality and lack of consequences thing, if everyone could just restart, couldn't that result in a loop if two people had conflicting objectives? For example, if you wanted event x to happen, you could keep trying until you made x happen, but someone else might want event x to not happen or want an event y to happen that requires x not to happen. Events would just keep going back and forth until someone gave up. Anyway... on a positive note, it would be nice if you could have multiple save points for particular moments in your life you would want to experience again. Also, it would be the perfect answer to everyone that suffers from lack or time or a massive backlog. Since you keep your memories, you would be able to play a game all the way through, save, and then just load the save right before you started and gain back all that time.

Speaking of backlogs... mine goes back to the playstation and I have a habit of buying games I can't play and don't foresee having time to play them anytime soon... further adding to the backlog... At least that means I'll always have something to play I suppose.

As far as pokemon goes, I got pearl the Sunday it came out and I've just recently hit the 200 hour point somehow... But, as the weekend draws near, I'll be dropping it for Etrian Oddysey. I don't believe I've played anything like it, but I can't help but feel compelled to play it after hearing about it. Making my own party and dungeon crawling just seems so appealing right now.

- Tasukete

P.S. If I could have anything else from an RPG in real life it would be a moogle because they're just cool, kupo!

!!! Wow, you've put my Pokémon hours to shame! (And I was ashamed of the amount of time that I've put into the darn game.)

Etrian Odyssey looks awesome, and from what I hear, it really is a fun game to play. I haven't played a traditional dungeon-crawler in ages, and from the sounds of it, the turn-based combat hits the spot too.

As for Moogles, you can have mine. He kinda stinks up the place and pees on the floor every now and then, which isn't fun to clean up. A Moomba... now those would be neat.

Thanks, Tasukete!! I appreciate the letter much!