ASV up to bat:
As far as multi-platform development goes, I'm glad. Not only does it bring the game to larger numbers of people - which is the point of an MMORPG - but it also makes the development team work through a lot more bugs.

Paws says:
Zack has an excellent point, but he neglects one thing: not everyone that plays RPGs has an infinite amount of money to spend on them. I'm sorry, but I'd rather MUSH (online text Roleplay) for free than to pay for some pretty graphics. I simply don't have the money for it monthly, on top of paying for the game.

Ss for FFs on the GBA, it's very simple: not until Square and FF kiss and make up. Which isn't likely in our time, honestly. Oh, and the shameless plug isn't by them, it's by me (in a way). Katac sells a hilarious shirt, found right here which conveniently opens into a new window for your continued column pleasure.

Amish strokes his goatee:
1. The top on that list would have to be Final Fantasy VI. I remember seeing it in stores when it was released for the Super Nintendo in 1994, but only got a chance to play through the game 5 years later. Solid plot, solid music, cool espers, and a villain who was evil...just cause he was nuts. Solid plot, solid music, cool espers, and a villain who was evil...just cause he was nuts. Even after playing through a few PSX titles by that time, FF6 remains superior...some of us pay homage to 2D titles to this day.
2. There are very few titles that I own per se, most of them have been borrowed through friends...but the prize goes to Final Fantasy Legend III. While growing up, most of my gaming was done with friends' systems...however my brother and I did own a Gameboy Classic, and the favorite game on that system was Final Fantasy Legend III (the series continued to SaGa Frontier 1 and 2 on the PSX). While Gameboy RPG's were nearly non-existent, that was the best until Pokemon came around. Although snagging a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga would be nice...
3. Nobuo Uematsu of Squaresoft fame. While it's nice to see newcomers make their mark in a big way (like Yoshitaka Hirota in Shadow Hearts), the scope of Nobuo's work in the Final Fantasy series is too much to simply ignore. My favorite track of Nobuo's is "My Home, Sweet Home" from Final Fantasy 5. The FF5 soundtrack is only one of two that I own, and any video game track that passes as casual listening music as well is a winner.

Paws says:
1. Hard to choose just one. It really depends what day you catch me on. Sometimes I'll say FFIX or FFT; other days I'll say Lunar 2: EBC. Other days I'll say Shining Force. I'm ecclectic like that.
2. I own, uhm...no rare RPGs actually. I wish I could be a collector, but I don't have the inclination with so many friends to borrow and trade from...like you ;) I do own a non-rerelease FFT, if that counts. I have Evergrace for the PS2! Stop laughing! I just need a PS2 to play it =^^;;;=
3. As you well know, as you're mailing me some albums as we speak, I'm just really getting into the music aspect. I really like my FFIX OST, as well as an FF voice collection. I like Macross music, and VP music. Is there a common composer in there, perhaps? =^^=

Paws says:
Mog! I missed you, where did you go? I bet I know: when I moved from PEI to Brandon, Manitoba, we stopped writing. My plans for school were also put on hold with the sudden move (I was accepted for college in PEI! ;.;), so I'm hoping to go back in September. While I don't watch any TV, I've kept up with the Olympics a bit through friends and cbc.ca, so I wave happily at our medals in hockey :D
As for the banal weather, I wish. We had 2 really nice days, enough to melt all the snow into water, before everything refroze into one big sheet of ice. Speaking Ice Sheets, the Scotts Tournament of Hearts is on this week (it's the biggest female curling tournament in Canada), and I was lucky to be able to go today...I won free tickets! =^^=

Castomel, the News Head, trickles in:
Having done a news story I can't find anywhere on this game that I remember nothing about some time in the distant past, I'm apparently qualified to answer this question. Now, as a sometime reviewer at RPGamer, I've never had the chance to review this game, nor has anyone else, it seems. On the other hand, loads of Italian people have. Here's the opening paragraph of a review, found at http://www.dreameye.it : Comincio col dire che quel poco che ho sentito pare che ci sarà veramente da divertirsi. According to my trusty translator, this means "I start with to say that the news regardingthis Hundred Swords I am really pochine, but from that little that I have felt it seems that there will be really to have a good time him." Wonder what pochine means... Anyhow, I don't mean to be facetious, but if you like the game so much, why don't you review it yourself? We're always looking for good reader reviews, and besides, I personally can't afford to spend twenty bucks on a game. This doesn't usually stop me from buying them, of course. I just thought I'd mention it.

Paws says:
If someone were to offer a review copy, I'm sure I could find someone to do it, actually. We're actually starting to receive more and more of them from companies, which means we have more reviews up the day of release or shortly thereafter; somtimes it's tough, since we don't review a game till we beat it. Yes, Guru, I did cut the slanderous remark out.

Amish reveals the nickname:
No kidding, what would an Amish guy be doing playing roleplaying games and working for a website? The oxymoron always gets people asking that question, so...
I used to work as a computer salesman for a local OEM company a while back and had a long goatee. My manager thought this was funny an noted that the store now had an "Amish guy selling computer hardware". Although I haven't worked at that store for some time, the name (and the reaction it gets, an "Amish computer/RPG/geek...etc") has stuck. Thanks for keeping up the myth..;)

Paws says:
I'll break this down a bit.
1. Amish and ASV are official staff reviewers. Not everyone on staff is allowed to do reviews, as there is a stringent screening process all reviews written for the site go through (a three tier editting process being included), and not everyone is patient enough for it anyways. Staff reviewers are expected to write a review no less than once per month, barring problems with the editting process. Reviewers are expected to buy a new game once per month and/or as necessary. Reviewers are required to have at least one new system (GBA, PS2, GCN, XBox). No, sorry, we're not hiring any more reviewers right now. I'm just trying to explain the crap these two went through to get in and stay in ;P
2. When is a raven like a writing desk? Uhm...nevermore? =^^;=
3a. Yes, as previously mentioned, I'm the Head of the Media dept. I feel pretty honoured I was picked for it, being that I was pulled from a different section of the site (I have never been a Media grunt; I was hired as a newsie then whisked into Interaction and PsoV). It takes a lot of my time, but I like it. It's a LOT more behind the scenes work than people think. For example, I check every single media update for errors and/or broken links. I also fix all the broken media links sent to webmaster@rpgamer.com. I convert pages from the old format or colour scheme, I moved internal directories around, etc etc etc.
3b. I hire and fire, yes. Hiring is fun, but tiring. Especially when you're putting the application up on the main page; usually our hiring is done through one or two people being brought on, whereas public hirings are 3 positions or more. It's very tiring. Firing, well, I've done before. Couple times, actually. People think it's cool, or it's fun, and it's not. It sucks. Really. Trust me on this one.

ASV bats again:
If I had to take a stab in the dark, I'd say yes. But, since I'm not a big fan of Xenogears I haven't been paying much attention to Xenosaga, I must admit.

Generally speaking, the column doesn't go through any sort of staff proofing (at least... not that I'm aware of). Sometimes the server cache can make the interaction portion of the index not be completely up to date for a couple hours at a time. That might be the trouble.

Well, I'd cut off my legs and sell them on the black market for a copy of Valkyrie Profile, so that's easy enough answer from my perspective.

Paws says:
Stu! I feel so special now, Stu's a reg ;)
1. My guess will be the episode number is the subtitle, though I'm sure I will be eventually proven wrong =^^=
2. Some days the column is up the stroke of midnight, some days it's not up till 2pm. If you don't see it, try a ctrl-shift-refresh, or emptying your cache. Or smack the server repeatedly like we do.
3. Vagrant Story. Have it done and reviewed by May 17th. Trust me on this one.
4. I am indeed Canadian, and you forgot making like bunnies to warm up.

Amish strokes goatee with flair:
What, you don't remember all the Pepsi cans with Jar Jar Binks? ;-D Call it shameful, but it's all too common practice for a business with a highly profitable venture (e.g. Everquest, Final Fantasy, etc.) to venture into a new medium or such and milk the profits of their namebrand. From a business point-of-view, it would be foolish NOT to expand on a recognizeable name.
Fortuantely, ventures like that have become so cliche that they have to be done extremely well to have any effect, before true purist audiences (yes, all you MMORPG people out there) laugh at the effort. The first showing I went to for Lord of the Rings has a local card-game dealership handing out free cards for the new LoTR CCG, so the idea of the trailer makes sense.
As far as these ventures dragging the series down...hard to say. Star Wars: Episode I may have disappointed a lot of people, but there are a lot who will still come back to see Episode II. We'll see.

Near my university (in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin metro area), the local Best Buy stores that I visited on occasion were short of GTA3 more than once. Last Christmas season though, I went into one of those stores and picked up a PS2 console, Sony Memory card, DualShock2 controller and was out of the store in 20 minutes. Didn't have trouble finding any of that equipment.
The fact that Microsoft had loads of XBox equipment was pretty obvious, just by taking a look at the displays. Again, my experience is only based on a few visits, not from an employee's standpoint (such as yourself). But with the release of some solid titles for each of the consoles (e.g. Grand Theft Auto 3, Super Smash Brothers: Melee, Halo, etc.), hopefully the hardware shortage is what you said it might be: an underestimate of demand around the holidays. Now for price cuts...

Paws says:
When we were talking earlier tonight, Ess said to me, "I dropped EQ like a bad habit."; my reply was, "EQ is a bad habit." - he agreed.