Josh - 11:07 EST

Now that I've got my job back, I'm starting to remember why it's so annoying. Getting home on a Sunday night, with PT the next day, and now with a column to write in between...I'm going to start exploding violently some day. I guess the upshot is that I get to make some money, too. ^^

Ah well. At least that also means that I have you guys to keep me awake! I love sleep, but I usually suffer from some form of insomnia the nights before PT. Go figure. You know, the nights I actually NEED sleep. >_<

Just a reminder to all you readers...please feel free to write in about whatever you like! You don't necessarily have to address the topic I pose on Saturday, nor do you really need to ask a question (psh, I ranted more than anything back when I was a reader). This is basically an open forum for all of us to gather around and discuss our opinions on RPGs! As long as you don't take potshots at the other readers, I have no problems...you can even take a crack at me, but I warn you, I'll come back in full force! Anyway, just thought I'd remind all you guys out there.

In the sorta-words of Calvin, "Yukon Questions-Ho!"

Hello, I am your average gamer, however I have a few game related questions.

Granted I know you might know this, but I am a very old school gamer.

My first question is, Do you know if a game named Mother 3 coming out to the USA? It may be called Earthbound two, but I know little.

I've been playing games since the late 80's and I really don't know about Modern game release dates.

Thank you for all your hard work.

Hey Josh,

As you may already know if you remember our little chat in IRC the other day, I got Xenosaga III as well. I'm really glad it's getting such good reviews. I do need your opinion on something. I haven't played Xeno II yet, because I loaned it to my best friend to play through, so that he could start III. Well, he says part II is teh awfulness. He's getting through it...but he really doesn't like it. Josh, is it worth it? Should I just jump straight to III, or are there redeeming qualities for II that I'm missing? Fill me in, Xeno-master.

Donovan

The week before, he picked Cal to beat Tenneessee. Not only that, he picked Cal to win the National Championship.

Naturally, we got blown out, 35-18, with the score at 35-0 after the 3rd.

Mind you, Lee Corso always dogged on Cal before this, as a weak, soft Pac-10 team.

Now, instead of National Champs, we're probably screwed with a choker label along with 8-4 mediocrity.

Oh well... It's the Curse of Corso...

How do you feel about the Shin Megami Tensei games? I remember hearing rave reviews a couple of years ago when Nocturne and DDS came to the west. I'd like to check them out, but I'm trying to gauge whether it's worth it or not. So dang expensive now...

BTW, as a Colorado fan, I really don't want to hear you whine about your ranked Nittany Lions. At least they lose good teams

Vicissitude

Yo Ouro

Hehe, speaking of football (from yesterday’s intro), I live in Bay City, Texas, and our football team used to be quite good. We used to often go to state, and we won it a few years back. This is my first year in High School, and let’s just say… our team is embarrassing. Seriously. I’m in the band, and we’re sitting there in the stands playing crowd-pumping intimidating-type songs, and yet our team is losing 42 to zero. The defense did just fine, but the other team scored 35 points from interceptions. Yep, 35. This week wasn’t much better (20 to 54), but now it’s not sad so much as it’s just funny.

Anyway, back to RPGs. I’ve had a really neat idea in my head for an RPG for about 2 years now, the basis being an entirely unique battle system. I even drew a detailed dungeon back in 7th grade, the kind of dungeon that you’d see at E3 or something; it demonstrated most of the gameplay elements. Unfortunately, I think I drew it on the back of a permission form, and I haven’t seen it since (and attempts to recreate it have ended up not near as good). The battle system is a bit hard to explain, but I’ll try. First of all, it’s a bit like FFXII in the fact that enemies are on the screen and there’s a seamless shift from non-battling to battling, but it’s also a bit like a TRPG in the fact that the game is ALWAYS turn-based, even when there are no enemies near. The demo level I made was a medium-sized valley, with a sharp right turn at the end where the boss area was. Imagine, if you will, a web of nodes and lines layed over that map, with the different nodes corresponding to intersection points. Each turn, you move your different characters between these nodes, while simultaneously attacking if there are nearby enemies. There are many paths through the level, and you can use techniques to traverse the area faster. For example, in one spot, a node on a 10-foot bridge was right above a node on the ground below. If your character is agile enough, he could use his turn to jump down to the ground below. Furthermore, if he had earned a certain skill, he could jump down on top of a monster that happened to be below him, dealing extra damage. I basically just took the idea of three types of special attacks: Specials (attack only), Techniques (movement only), and skills (combination of attacking and movement), and ran with it. I’m sure it sounds pretty strange, but if it ever materialized I think it could be really entertaining. But it’s one of those things where the effectiveness of the engine is EXTREMELY dependent on the quality of level design, which is why I really wish I hadn’t lost that darn thing… *grumble*

So… Grandia II. I know, I know, it’s been out for a while, but I recently played it courtesy of Gametap (a pretty neat service, at least worth a trial run) and was thoroughly impressed. Everyone’s always saying how great the battle system is (and don’t get me wrong, it was very fun, one of the best I’ve ever seen), but nobody ever mentions the story, so I wasn’t expecting much from that area. I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I found that the game had a pretty fantastic plot, and it’s definitely one of my favorites in recent memory. Also, there were a few magnificent tracks, like the vocal ones or the main theme, that complimented the storyline very well. And don’t get me started on the battle theme… so yeah, good game, that.

And with that, I’m out!

~Spiffyness

I can't believe it's 2AM here and I'm deciding to put off sleep in order to read the column and answer the questions. But hey, I'm still up, why not?

Oh, and about making RPGs! Back when I was in high school, me and my friend started on a collaborative writing project to write the plotline of an RPG, which quickly turned into poking fun at as many RPG cliches as possible. We were the main characters in name only, as our personalities were oversimplified versions of the stereotypical character types...I was a fighter who had a knack for pointing out the obvious, and my friend was a wizard with a dark and mysterious past not even he knew anything about. After my friend lost interest in keeping the project going, I ended up finishing it myself. Granted, it only existed as a walkthrough written in Word and not as an actual game (though an extremely detailed one complete with item and ability lists, I still have them here if you're interested in reading them), but I was really proud of what came up out of that. Later, I expanded the game into an entire trilogy that still managed to keep the whole RPG parody thing going, and now, about five years later, I'm finally getting around to starting the actual programming of the first game, which, if I have enough time, energy, and patience to actually work on, might exist as some sort of shareware program...or a means to show possible employers that I'm competent in my programming ability.

-- Arpijy

Hi there Ouro, sorry your team lost ^^;;

Ah now for a letter, it's long so beware ^^;;

First off in regards to JuMeSyn's letter to Matt asking about Boktai 1 and 2, I sent a longer more detailed letter to Matt but it got lost in the shuffle, Boktai 1 is a pretty original action rpg shooter stealth thingy, and outside from boss fights, growing items and a handful of puzzles sunlight is optional, or you can cheat with a powerful blacklight, Boktai 2 is more of an rpg and also much better than Boktai 1, yet again you only need sunlight for bosses, puzzles and weapon smithing, Boktai 2 also features some link up to some Megaman game and some dude from Metal Gear, my non-RPG knowledge brings much shame...

Second, if I could make an RPG it would be a strategy RPG that works like this

Battle: Your character has two forms, one ordinary useless human the other elemental powered warrior, at the start of most stages you'd be in human form, and depending on circumstances you'd have to let a counter build to reach a certain level in order to transform(though for boss fights it'd be prefilled), while transformed stats are upped and you have access to uber spiffy attacks, however each turn causes a hit to the meter you'd have to build up, and attacks cause an even bigger hit, when the counter runs out you revert back to normal and have to charge it again(sorta like the confine system from PB only more than once per battle), while you are taking out enemies there are usually NPCS running arround that you have to protect, if they die their bodies spawn a very powerful monster and also causes your rewards at the end of each stage to plummet, get enough npc deaths and it will severely alter the story, also the hero isn't human and not only changes into an elemental anime superhero but also a wide variety of mythological beings, which sometimes go out of control during battles causing his allies to fear him, in addition to the death of those poor NPCS(but come on there NPCS no one really cares), however players can reduce the chances of him going crazy and killing everything by mastering certain abilities in his monster forms, and that's that I think it would do well since it's sorta part sailor moon, part phantom brave and part shadow hearts ^^;;

Story: I surprisingly have something planned for the story and dare not give it away ^^

Also it has recently came to my attention that I'm out of space on all my PS2 memory cards, as well as money in the old bank account, so this brings me to my question for the Ouro

Question: After I break my Disgaea 2 addiction which game should I hit next The list is as follows:

Growlanser 3(I've got data for it)
SMT: DDS1(I've finished it but gotta beat that super secret boss)
Tales of Destiny(I love the combat but can't get past talking freaking swords!!!)
Wild ARMS 1 or
Suikoden 1 and 2?

And now a bonus question for the Ouro

Bonus Question:

Out of Fire, Ice, Lightning, Water, Dark, Light, Earth, and Wind, which is your favorite element and why?

I love lightning hince my made up last name ^^;;

Arros Raikou
*Hopes this gets posted and no one laughs at his ideas !.!*

Luca Blight begins to charge up.
Leaper moves to Tile 4.
Slimey moves to Tile 8.
Bucket moves to Tile 6.
Draconn moves to Tile 6.
Genjuu moves to Tile 8.
Alan Tse moves to Tile 1.
Slashlen moves to Tile 11.
PureLunatic moves to Tile 7.
William.T moves to Tile 9.
Spiffyness moves to Tile 7.
Vicissitude moves to Tile 5.
kupomogli moves to Tile 3.
Aurelius moves to Tile 8.
Aylee moves to Tile 3.
Tabor moves to Tile 7.

Mweeheehee...I can feel you all trembling with fear!

Answer to #L4: E. 12!
It was "and," I said, not "are," and "and" and "are" are different! This was implied as a non-quote, but I gave you credit if you said 16 and explained why, as well.

#L5. I just saw a kid get hit with a van. My friend Glenn then calculated the radius of a circle. Lastly, I came across a viper devouring a lynx. If numbers represent letters, what game am I talking about?

A. 15
B. 66
C. 33
D. 14
E. 25
F. 83

I had a JuMeSyn letter too, but I'll have to do it tomorrow, because it's already about 1AM now, and I have to get up in four hours. Sorry! Oh yeah, a kupomogli letter too.

Those questions may look tough, but you'll be hitting yourselves when you hear the answer tomorrow. ^^. God...doesn't that just drive you nuts?!?

Keep sending those ideas in, so far I'm impressed with what you guys have to offer the RPG world. Let's see what the rest of you've got! Later!

***Josh may not get any sleep tonight. It happens.