Vicissitude - 6:56 EST

Hey all! Vicissitude here, co-hosting for the very first time! Ourobolus' new Suiko-THONG game is looking pretty awesome. School rears its ugly head once more, so let's stick our collective heads in the sand and talk RPGs for a bit... :^D

Hey Josh,

It has come to my attention that I have never played a Suikoden game, so I'm wondering, what are the best and worst of the series, and, more importantly, what would be a good introductory title? I've heard Suikoden 2 is great, but it's extremely rare, isn't it? I've heard good things about the most recent one, but how closely tied are the storylines? Loose enough to play each one individually? Hehe, now that I think about it, with the impending onslought of games in the near future, I probably won't end up playing any of them anyway. Whatever.

Any great trials that I overcame? Well, if we're including all videogames, not just RPGs, then I'd say the most memorable moment of that type would be from the NES Ninja Gaiden. Level. Six. Two. You have to play it to understand. In terms of RPGs, though? Braska's Final Aeon was a read pain for me in FFX, especially since I was horrendously underleveled. After that insane battle, I could've cared less that the Final Boss was a total pushover. Heck, I was almost grateful.

At any rate, yesterday I happened to think about Twilight Princess, right? And all of a sudden I start to think: What instument will Link play this time, if at all? Personally, I think that a violin of sorts would be pretty cool, or maybe a trumpet-like thing. Although the best thing would be an electric guitar. And then Ganondorf would also play the guitar, and the final battle would be a 20-minute long guitar duel between them, and they'd like shoot lightning bolts out of their instuments at each other and whatnot. And then at the end they decide to put aside their differences and start a rock band with Zelda, who plays the drums.

Yep. That's totally what's gonna happen. Guaranteed.

What was it that Sony said a while back about continued PS2 support? Didn't they say that there could still be games being produced for it in '08? What do you think about that? While I'd LIKE to see that happen (because I won't be getting a PS3 anytime withing the next 3 years or so), I don't know that's how things will work out. Of course, maybe they never said that in the first place, but I believe I heard that. It's just, even if Sony "says" that the PS2 is still alive, what about the developers? Would they rather make games for outdated hardware, or will they prefer to be on the bleeding edge?

Oh, and Jim's now a blind cave salamander!

Until next time,
-Spiffyness

Hey Ouro/Vicissitude/Whoever,

There have been a lot of rumors flying around about a FF7 remake for the PS3, especially since SE never really denied that they were making it, just that they never told anyone they were. Do you think they're covering up their project? If so, when do you think a likely release date is given their current remake/port patterns?

-Roku

Hello there Ouro and possibly Vicissitude, I believe I attacked him during the contest ^^;;

I thought I'd chime in on some more stuff

Since my experience with shooting games is limited to that old snes jurasic park game, doom, Metroid Prime 1 and 2, GITS:Stand alone complex, Transformers, and maybe one or two more I'm forgetting, I can't really compare it to anything but them, basically shooting is fairly easy when you get a lock on it stays there so that was nice, melee attacks are useful, there are healing items, on the downside finding ammo is getting to be quite hard, upgrades and buying items costs too much since I hardly ever find gil, and you don't level up automatically, the story so far has been so so, unless your brain secretes a it's by Square and says Final Fantasy on it I must buy it substance, it'd be better to wait til it hit bargain basement prices, also it is easier than any game with shooting in it I've ever played ^^;; which is a plus in my book, it also helps clear up some of those pesky pronounciation desputes, and caused me to find out my friends I had in school can't pronounce made up words for jack -.-;;

Drakengard - the first game was a mesh of hack and slash, air combat simulation on a dragon, and simon says(you know the hit the pattern games) what shone through to me was the story which got more weird ----ed and depressing and regardless of which ending you got none of them were happy... ever, it also hosts some weird depressing allies so uh yeah I liked the story far better than most, also when you kill enough baddies your weapon's history is revealed, that is pretty entertaining to me anyway, if it's cheap I recommend it

In regards to manuals I generally read most of them, but it was by candlelight, although a friend of mine doesn't so I feel your pain on answering dumb ass questions, like how do I save, or how do I get the skills to work, and getting responses like I stood on the purple thing then I turned off the power but it didn't save!! -.-;;;

In regards to the game itself(SRT:OG) I'm a bit sad that there are only original creation mechas in it, I bought this for crossovers, but the combat is really easy so far and pretty fun too, then again i'm only on the 4th or 5th battle so uh yeah

Recently I've been writing alternate timeline's for a story of mine, the story deals with how small events and characters from the past being altered can have a big effect on the future and could completely reshape the story which brings me to my question for the day

Question: Have you ever wondered what would happen if just one little near irrelevant point of the plot of an rpg were changed and how it could snowball into the game being totally different?

Arros Raikou
*thinks of weird things*

How do I beat the Magna boss in Painkiller/Hell Wars?

Hey, Ouro and Vicissitude! Congrats on winning one of the guest-hosting positions. Maybe you'll get the chance to do it again sometime soon.

I thought I'd ask you a fun little general question. If you had any spell or skill from any RPG at your disposal, what would it be and why? I once thought that having the spell of Return (or "Zoom") from Dragon Quest would be lots of fun, until I realized that I wouldn't get as much exercise that way. Now, I'd have to say that my pick would either be Vanish from FF games, or Transform from DQ games. How much fun could one person have with one of those? TOO MUCH!

Thanks!
--
Matt, the moderately-evil Q&A host

Sweet, I hope Vicissitude enjoyed that as much as I did! Thanks a lot, and congrats!

Down to business. THONG2 will start on Saturday, so mark your calendars! I don't expect any more runes to show up for a couple of weeks, but items will gradually be added, so don't be surprised if some things become modified or changed. My fellow staff members are working with me to straighten out balance issues, as we don't want any runes more powerful than any others. I'll clean up the rules and prizes and such and place them on seperate pages to clean this up a bit! If you still would like to change something (character or rune), please email me before you answer your first Trivia question! Thanks! I shall see you all on Saturday, so keep Matt company until then!

***Josh is psyched for THONG.