I just ate a whole chicken. It wasn't really a big chicken. But I ate it. Home cookin'.. talk about a beautiful thing. I need me like a wife or somethin'. Not that I think all women should stay home and cook.. but I'd love to find one who thought that was a cool deal. I mean, I make enough.. why should she work? (I guess that's work, too, but well, you know.. er. I'm just getting myself in trouble.)

I LIKE PORK!

Anyways, moving on. Tomorrow, Heather in da house. Or something. Yeah. Homies, hah-ha, hah-ha. Check this out. One of the readers sent this in. It's a bit.. er.. language content-based naughtiness.. nothing REALLY REALLY bad. But there's a couple things in there that are "Really" bad. I'd go with a PG-13 rating at least, closing in on R. If your parents are going to throw a fit if they hear this, please don't download it. But it's still funny. And here it is.

Dude. Homey! Buddy! Homey. Dude! Buddy!

Heh. For all of you who earned cookies yesterday for getting the correct reference (Yes, it was from "Who needs Sleep?" off the Barenaked Ladies' 'Stunt' CD).. What I really sent you was a voucher for a future cookie. Don't worry, you'll get the cookie. Just hold your horses. Anyways, I was saying, like last paragraph.. or two ago, whatever, I'm easily distracted.. look! Butterfl-- ER FOCUS.. FOCUS.. VINOSEC.. doh. :o

Heather will be here tomorrow. She'll answer questions. She's not entirely game-saavy.. in fact.. her idea of a good time is JumpMan on the Commodore 64. (That's why we call her Comrade64.. she's a militant communist). heh, heh, heh, she's going to kick my butt tomorrow for that comment.. har har! Anyways, so please, please, please, send in questions for Heather. If you don't, I'm going to let her at the normal questions.. and let me tell ya.. she does NOT know how to get dragon fangs in FF8.

... But I do! :)

That, and more.. in.. TODAY'S COLUMN!

Did u knew that Seed Rank go down not becose u dont do storie sequence , but rather becose u didnt fought enought monsters. Actuelly , if u fight a lot, your Seed Rank may go up!

And by the way, do u know why nobody speak about Suikoden 2 ? I really loved the first, and I hope the 2 is evan better .

Brad:
Hi! I am learn English from wookie! ET is funny ha-ha! Cowabunga turtle man! Tu madre es muy grande! .. and yeah, I heard Suikoden 2 was really good too. I haven't gotten to play it yet.. maybe next week.. maybe..

That's not very fair. That's like, discrimination.. aren't there laws against that?

Any way, I'm taking a breather from FF8 (the card game has got me addicted.) and I'm on to Suikoden 2. Which by the way is fantastic. So I've got some questions here... and a comment or two.. again..

CARRRDD GAMMMME.. .. damn you all. Ya'll get to play Suikoden 2. And I don't. Not yet. I'm crying. .. oh that only works for you.

1. Are there any codes or tricks for the game at all?

I'd try GameFAQs   for your k-rad info hookup. They have some deal with the cats who collect all those Game Genie codes.. so...

2. I was in a battle where I used nanami and the hero's Family Attack, and I saw the funniest thing, when the duo attack, Nanami starts off with fans first then lets the hero pound the victim while she sits down, eats, and reads a manga ( I think that's what she's reading) It's only happened twice but it's still neat...

...manga.. that's naughty stuff! In a .. game! How horrible!

3. Tsk tsk. Boo's been a bad hamster...

When the going gets tough.. someone hold my rodent! ... Comaraderie.. adventure.. and steel on steel.. the stuff of legends.. Right Boo?!

Thanks again for the time! Have fun, be good, act like your emotionaly stable, and give Imoen a hug! Or a swift kick in the. a..hh never mind. And remember... SILENCE IS ALWAYS RIGHT. Except for those two hookers in Vegas....

I thought Las Vegas had outlawed prostitution inside the city limits.. did.. you.. break the law!? :o ..and I don't like Imoen.

Silence "Boo will miss you."

Squeaky wheel gets the kick!

Near the start of FF8 Cid gave me something called a battle meter although I skimmed over the details of how it is used, some guy in the prison supposedly upgraded it. How do I use it though, there's nothing in the manual and I can't find any option in the game.

Also I noticed when performing a summon spell, if you hold down select it sometimes shows a small button and a numerical value. Pressing the Square button increases the number although it sometimes gets and X through it. Have you any idea what this is ?

Allan

Brad:
It's in one of the menus, I think somewhere in the Tutorial.. I'm much too lazy to go across the room, take FF8 off the 'beaten games' stack, put it in the PSX, turn it on, find the thing, and tell you about it. Look in the Tutorial/Help section though, it's in there somewhere. As for the other question.. yeah, that's the "Boost" thing that you had all your GFs learn, but didn't know what it did. If you hold select while they're doing their graphical prep for destruction, you can "pump them up" ..(oooh, hans and frans!) .. anyways, you hit [] as fast as your little fingers can go, and it adds damage to the Summon. If you hit the [] button while the X is over it, however, you will drop back to the starting value of 75. So it can't really hurt you, but let me tell you. I've gotten a 270 boost. That's almost 4 times the normal call strength. That's very cool in a tight spot.

Oh mighty Oracle of wisdom beyond my (and many others) years, i graciously thank you in advance for responding to my letter. I wrote two to that )#^@% JD and he didn't respond. So thank you almighty one for responding. (did i get you to respond yet? no? oh, you want questions. gotcha) k, here it is, many questions rolled into one: where do you find these items: moon stone, star fragment, sharp spike, energy crystal, pulse ammo, and a regen ring. I need all to get everybody's final weapons, and since your wisdom is way beyond mine (and all those FAQs i've looked at) I thought you might know. That's all.

locke_57

Brad:
Alright, shopping list. Thanks go out to Hunter Wilcox, who really helped me out when I was doing this exact same thing. Here goes:

• Moon Stone: Dropped by those Tiger-ish things with looong whiskers. Find 'em in the streets of Esthar. Only get them at the end of battle.
  
• Star Fragment: Heh, you're not going to like this. Iron Giants (the big blue guys).. find those if you walk into the area below Lunatic Pandora and along the path up that way. (You can steal or win them).
  
• Sharp Spike: Steal, win, or Cardmod on Grand Mantis. Find them (thinks) on the Galbadia Continent? I had a lot of these by the time I was really into searching for items.
  
• Curse Spike: You didn't ask, but you need these for someone's weapon, and well, Sharp Spikes were too easy to get. Tri-Face has the Curse Spike, I'm pretty sure. Steal them from him.
  
• Energy Crystal: Win these almost every battle with the big half-bee things in the air over the streets of Esthar. (Do not steal from enemies you want to win items from!)
  
• Pulse Ammo: Easiest one yet. Well, not really. Just use Ammo-Refine on Energy Crystals. Two should cover you for enough ammo for LionHeart.
  
• Regen Ring: Easy, easy, easy. While dancing around the streets of Esthar waiting for the Elonoyle (half bee thing? spelling?), you'll run into Turtapods, and the Tiger things. These battles will give you regen rings aplenty. I'm not sure if it's easier to win them or steal them.. but try winning them, I think that's the way to go.
  
• Dragon Fang: locke_57 didn't ask about this, but plenty of others did. Steal Dragon Fangs (mug) from Blue Dragons. I found them most often on the Island Closest to Hell.
  
• Dragon Skin: From the Snake guys. The wussy ones.. Anacondas? Something like that. They drop it at high enough levels.
  
• Barrier: Get this from winning it from a Behemoth. You might be able to steal it too.
  Ooooh, ul tags are neat, and your friend!

I wanted to know what the Chrono Trigger remake would be like. Will if be just the original with special cut scenes done in anime (like FF5 or FF6 with the FMVs) or will the entire game be redone so that it is all in anime format? If so, why is Square actually doing something fans would enjoy (unlike their past record - like screwing us over by not including FF4 in the Anthology or giving us the kiddie version of FF4)?

-MikeYour name is Steve.. Your name.. is Steve...

Brad:
Chrono Trigger Remake will be the same as the original game, just with Anime Cutscenes thrown in for happiness.

Brad:
FFA shipped yesterday. It should be in stores today, or if you live in a backwater podunk, try tomorrow. It's a rerelease (not a remake) of FF5 and FF6 (both in English, a first for FF5), and the only addition to the SNES games is the FMV scenes in.. strategic locations.

1. Isn't the "Devour" command one of the most disgustingly funny things you've ever seen?

2. Where can I quickly and easily find energy crystals and dragon fangs?

Brad:
1. Yeah, it's great.. I haven't seen a good use for it.. anyone who's found any really cool effects with Devour, let me know. As for the rest.. see above.

Actually, the reason Ultemecia did the time compression was so that she could gain all the power from the sorceresses of the past and future. You find this out by using Scan on her first form. Kinda a stupid place to put a major plot point, but hey...

DragonKeep

Brad:
Okay, I didn't scan her.. oh well.. after there was no more slots in my GF list, I kinda just didn't bother with draw or scan on bosses.

I've had Star Ocean 2 for quite some time now. I got to the point where you just get that flying dragon thingie from the cave. I stopped playing SO2 because of FF8! Now that I am done with that, I forgot everything about it! Where the hell is North City!?? I cant find it anywhere!!! God help me!! Please!! Don't make me get out the hose!

-Andrew

Brad:
It's around leftish and downish from the center of the map. If you can see the flying castle in the sky, it's southwest from there.

First of all I'd like to say that the first time I fought them I went for twenty minutes, and then got absolutely creamed when I ran out of magic points, so I learned from my mistakes, heh.

However, when I reloaded after much swearing and gnashing of teeth, my party of Claude, Rena, Celine and Chisato, (some would call me crazy...) I equipped Claude with a "stone check", Chisato with a "stone check", everyone with a "star ruby" (for that nasty diving flame thing that makes me weep every time it's used *sniff*) and actually gave Celine and Rena two Star Rubies, and that made them more or less immune to fire attacks.

I also put Chisato on "attack with all MP" and gave her "burning cards" and "tear gas" (my favorite!) and then sandwiched one of the two of the "Ten Wise Losers" with a "tear gas" on one side, and a "mirror slice" on the other for thinnly sliced and pressed boss guy.

Needless to say, in less than five minutes this time, due to proper preparation, I kicked serious posterior. In fact, the damage the first in the first fight averaged 4000 per hit on my party, to only about 1000 or zero per hit, which was so funny to me, that I gave the controller to my fiance' and let her finish the fight for me.

Well, I hope that helps, and if it doesn't then it's time to go back to "sissy RPG" school.

Has anyone but me noticed that when you 'taunt' with Chisato she grabs her crotch and says, "what's this?"... Does this scare anyone else?

Kev
"Claude has advanced forward, heh."

Brad:
That help ya out?