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Antennas to Heaven |
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Seán Michael Peters - June 5 '02-
Here I am, joining you once again. I wept copious tears when I was forced to cancel my previous column, however, fate smiled on me, and I was given the opportunity to join you all again, now with content!
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| Compliments, a question, and clarification
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Hi Rico -
Didn't you work on the Dragon Warrior 7 localization team? Great job. Great game. Anyway, I have a question and a comment.
My question is this - how in the blue moons are you supposed to beat the Dark Elf in the FF Chronicles version of FFIV? My levels are around
25-26, and I should be strong enough, but I'm not. What gives?
My comment isn't directed at anyone in particular, but at gamers in Canada in general. I've seen quite a few people lately complaining about
how unfair it is for them to pay $70 (Canadian) for a brand new game compared to the $50 (American) that is charged here. One reader on
Friday's column brought this to mind, and I mean no disrespect to anyone in saying this, but please pay attention to all of the facts before
you complain about something. A simple trip to an online currency converter will show you that $70 Canadian is worth approximately $45
American. So to all of you great gamers in Canada, please do not continue blaming the game companies. If you must blame someone, blame the
exchange rate that has the Canadian dollar worth approximately 65 American cents, give or take a few.
The Ravyn
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Rico:
Yes, yes I did. I was one of five people who edited the roughly translated (17,000 page) script for Dragon Warrior VII. Glad to hear my work was appreciated and made for a good game experience. We put a lot of effort and love into that script.
As far as the Dark Elf goes, level 25 or 26 should be sufficient, as I believe that's what Edge joins at quite a bit later. As with most boss fights, you'll want to Berserk Cecil and your other main fighters, as they'll hit more powerfully and more often. Aside from that, try juggling your equipment so that you can still attack, but that your defense isn't absolutely horrible, and he should go down easily enough. If you feel the need to level anyhow, try killing your other party members and fighting with Cecil alone in the Toroian forest. Just watch out for the cats that can use Bluster, and I can guarantee it'll pay off later.
It doesn't seem like there's much else to say other than higher numbers seem higher... same reason things get priced at 19.95 instead of 20.
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Get to know your friendly host
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Hey Rico! Questions for you!
1)Are you suave?
2)Which did you like better: Final Fantasy 6 or Chrono Trigger?
3)Space Ghost, Zorak, Brak, or Moltar?
4)I'm not necessarily asking which you thought was the best, and it doesn't necessarily have to hinge on RPGs, but which era was your
favorite, 8-bit (NES/Sega Master System) or 16-bit (SNES/Genesis/Turbografx)?
Snooch to the nootch!
Robust Stu
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Rico:
1) I'd like to consider myself so. I'm gracious, I'm sophisticated enough to type sentences without condensing words into one-letter homophones... plus, I've got over two feet of hair (regularly washed, thank you), and am learning operatic technique. Suave to the max, baby.
2) Although I hold a certain fondness in my heart for Final Fantasy VI, I'm going to have to say Chrono Trigger. The combination of New Game+, Janus, and Frog's theme is just too much for poor Terra to take.
3) Moltar all the way.
4) This one really has me torn. The 8-bit era contains my favorite RPG of all time, Dragon Warrior IV, but overall, I think I've gotten more enjoyment out of my Super Nintendo. And the 16-bit era has Cube! CUBE!, so 16-bit gets my vote.
"I'm not even supposed to be here today!"
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It's exposition day!
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Hi Rico.
1. Uh...who are you?
2. What do you do for RPGamer?
3. What is your favorite RPG for the SNES, PSX, a portable system, and one other system?
4. What games are you playing or have recently played?
5. What game are you most looking forward to?
6. What consoles do you have?
7. Are you into anime, tabletop RPGs, fantasy or sci-fi novels? If yes to any, what is your favorite anime/tabletop RPG/authour?
That's more than enough questions. I'll stop now.
--Rahlious
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Rico:
1. I'm Seán Peters, a lowly college student with delusions of editing and vocal performance grandeur. Also, I own more Slime paraphernalia than Googleshng.
2. I started at RPGamer in May of 2001 in the media department, providing the lovely pictures, artwork, movies, et cetera, that you see on the front page and the specific game pages. Recently, I've acquired the Editorials section, which although being somewhat low on submissions due to a slow RPG news season, will be updated as soon as I get one e-mail I'm waiting on, and will have a grand re-opening with a new design and (hopefully) Tons O' Content™ later this month. Stay tuned.
3. All my favorites tend to vary by what I've played recently and what mood I'm in, but right about now, Live a Live, Valkyrie Profile, Final Fantasy I (WSC), and Dragon Warrior IV, respectively.
4. Right now I'm playing through Grand Theft Auto III, Morrowind, and Breath of Fire III, and I should be starting Final Fantasy X this weekend.
5. I'm really looking forward to Star Ocean 3. The demo I played was fricking sweet, and I know the people that will be bringing it over to the U.S.. Hell, I might even get a chance to work on it myself. Excelsior!
6. NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Dreamcast, PlayStation (long since broken and discarded), and PlayStation 2. I was never wealthy enough to purchase more than one system during my childhood, and so was deprived of the goodness of quite a few SeGa games, but through the magic of Smash Packs and hopefully the upcoming Game Boy Advance release of Phantasy Star 1-3, I'm slowly catching up.
7. I don't know if I'd say I'm "into them", but I do enjoy anime and fantasy/sci-fi novels, and admittedly, I've rolled a few dice in the past. I highly recommend anime fans pick up Hellsing when Pioneer begins releasing it this summer, and I also enjoy the first 60 eps or so of Rurouni Kenshin and both its Original Video Animations, as well as Escaflowne, Trigun, and Revolutionary Girl Utena, to name a few. White Wolf's World of Darkness, specifically Werewolf and Mage, kept me occupied during an earlier time in my education, and Orson Scott Card has written some fine, fine works.
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Greetings Rico,
In response to help the poor J, something like he wants does indeed exist.
1. Theres what you mentioned to Epo, verge. www.verge-rpg.com
2. Theres Ika which I myself haven't messed with enough. www.ikagames.com
3. Theres my personal favorite, Sphere. http://sphere.sourceforge.net/
These are all basically what he asked for: Engines that use a simplified
language for you to code the game in. The language Verge 2 uses is some
form of C, Verge 3 will use C#, Sphere uses JavaScript (Which looks like
easier C to me, but I have hardly any exp in C), and Ika uses Python.
Also, most of these are capable of creating just about any 2d game, not just
RPGs. (I hear Sphere has some simple 3d capabilities too...)
As a last note, RPGM and similar series are a disgrace to RPG making. Don't
use them unless you want whatever pile of trash you produce to be laughed
at.
-SDHawk
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Rico:
There you have it. Although I don't quite agree that good products can't come from one of the RPGMakers, you'll undoubtedly be able to make more unique, flexible games using something else.
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Another woman speaks
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Facetiousness begins.......now.
I have a comment about the ever so perky gamer girl who was looking for a male gamer. Considering the gender ratio of female to male gamers,
I reeeeally doubt she's ever tried. (Now, before you get on my case for being cliche, World At Large, I know there are girl gamers; I am
one. However, you have to admit that we're outnumbered.)
Essentially all a girl gamer needs to do to gather a following of fanboys willing to be her eager slaves is:
- Show up at a messageboard, chat room, or other well-populated area
- State your gender
- Post a pic that doesn't involve farm animals or a scary ex-boyfriend
Bam, you're done. Sit back, relax, and have one of your brand-new lackeys bring you lemonade as you watch them fight over your honor.
Helpful hints. ;)
-- End facetiousness. --
Thanks, and enjoy your guest-hosting stint!
Sarah. (sans legions of lackeys)
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Rico:
I have to admit, this made me chuckle, in no small part because I've seen similar things happen... sometimes even with a real woman doing it! Sometimes, truth comes from joking moreso than anything else...
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"Macho Man" Randy Savage Has Nothing To Do With The Letter
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Rico....3 questions that im hoping you could answer......
1) Upon wandering around on RPGamer.com, I found this great game that alone
makes me wanna purchase a PS2 despite the fact that I hate Sony gaming
products. .Hack looks fabulous and I was just wondering how the hell that
game's title is pronounced. Anyone know(my best bet is you)? Dot hack
perhaps.......or maybe just hack? I wanna know, please.
2) Rico.......why did you break my computer last year? Be good for sanity's
sake!
3) Where are the previews for .hack?
Thanx a lot, man
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Rico:
I must admit, I too have felt the pull of the almighty .hack, with its interesting concept and apparently quite good companion anime. It's pronounced "Dot hack", as you surmised, and though we don't currently have a preview available (We normally preview games closer to their North American release dates), there's plenty of screenshots, art, movies, and other goodies accessible from .hack's game page.
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Into the box with you
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Hail, Rico, Master of.... well, come to think of it, I don't know what
you're master of. I haven't visited RPGamer due to my computer being
suicidal, so I don't recognize your name. >.< Sorry!
Anyway, on with the questions!!
1. Has there been any more info out about the new Chrono Game- Chrono
Break, I think it was called?
2.Should I beat the games I never quite got around to finishing >Valkyrie
Profile, Dewprism, FF7 to name a few<, or should I just make up my own
endings for them and go ahead and buy FF10? >I know, I'm far behind
everyone else in gaming... And I'm going to pretend I DON'T know that I
hafta kill off Sephiroth, that it was all just a bad fanfic story... But
I'm a hopeless Fangirl, what can I say?<
Then, the *real* reason I actually wrote...: I recently won an XBox in a
raffle, and I was really psyched about it- til I got home, that is. After
renting a few games, doing a little research, and overall playing with my
new toy, I began to realize one very key thing:
The XBox doesn't have squat in the way of quality games
I rented Blood Omen 2, Onimusha 2, and Azurik, and I looked over several
other titles in Blockbuster. None of them seemed worth the 7 bucks I'd have
to shell out though. So, right now, there re several options:
1. Allow it
to counterbalance the PSX2 and N64 by my tv/aka be an industrial sized
paperweight
2. Try to find a copy of that game where you create your own
hero right down to the socks they wear
3. Trade it in for Gamecube >I'm a
fan of the Zelda series<
Tell me, should I give the thing another try? Are there games out there
that I just overlooked >I like any Square game, the Chrono and Seiken
Densetsu series being my favs,I'm not a big sports fan, and I suck at online
games
Please help me in my time of utter confusion and overall indecisiveness!
SLS- off to play copious amounts of Dynasty Warriors to make up for Azurik's
blueness
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Rico:
To be helpfully redundant, I'm the master of Editorials around these parts and frequently proof news articles, as well as doing the occasional media update. Now, on to bigger and better questions.
I personally recommend the finishing of your older games, provided you at least like them enough to do so. Final Fantasy VII's is quite controversial, and Valkyrie Profile, if you've been a good little explorer in the Hard mode dungeons, has a fantastic extra dungeon with some great hidden characters. The dungeon's really available if you complete it on Normal, too, but all the spiffy hidden characters are Hard only, and they're really the best part. There's nothing wrong with being a bit behind in gaming, especially with the frenetic pace of game releases. All you really lose out on is a few discussions.
As far as the Xbox goes, I personally am not a fan. It doesn't have enough titles that appeal to me to justify a purchase, and its laughable performance in Japan makes me wonder how it will fare in the future. However, it wouldn't be fair of me to say it has no quality games. Morrowind is a personal favorite of mine, though without the Construction Set, it definitely falls short of the PC version. Halo is apparently a very solid first-person shooter, despite its sometimes dully repetetive level designs, Jet Set Radio Future is worthy of its predecessor, et cetera, and it's getting some good-looking games in the future, such as Ninja Gaiden, Crazy Taxi 3, Project Ego, and several more. I'd personally side with the GameCube, as my copy of Smash Bros. Melee has well over 200 hours on it, which is enough to justify a console purchase right there, but since you didn't pay anything for the Xbox, you may want to wait just a bit longer to see how some of the upcoming games shape up. Zelda isn't going to be out for a little while, after all, so there's no real harm.
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Atlussy goodness
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I heard that Atlus had a similar distribution problem ( to the current one with TO: tKoL) with Ogre Battle 64 when it was released.
You think they'd learn...
For the record, ebgames.com now reports that they have copies in stock. I've placed my order. Hopefully, they won't be emailing me to
tell me that they made a mistake.
Sullivan
www.soundclick.com/sullivan
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Rico:
I received a couple of letters on the subject, and so I just decided to print the first one, which incidentally happened to be the most helpful. Go, my handheld tactical fans. Just not too many of you, I don't know if there's enough to go around... ¬_¬
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Obligatory fowl appearance
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Dear Editor,
First off, I am not formating my letter because I don't want you to get too soft. Also, feel free to edit my letter any way you see fit.
1: What are (in your opinion, natch) the best games for theses systems:
GBA, GC, and DC?
2: When are you getting a PS2? You need to know the utter joy that is GTA3 and FFX.
3. Where have you been hiding the ed updates?
4: Is project arcturus an intentional Simpsons reference? Or is someone asleep at the wheel?
5: There is no five
6: If I called you Sexypants, would you hold it against me?
7: a haiku:
No update for Eds
Sadness is thoughout the Land
Are you bad 'nuff, dude?
TRC- I am Love.
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Rico:
1: Respectively, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Super Smash Brothers Melee, and Skies of Arcadia.
2: It should be here Thursday or Friday. I'm holding my copy of FFX right now, and I've had the PC version of GTA3 for a few days now.
3: In the relative emptiness of my inbox.
4: A little from column A, and a little from column B.
5: Sure there is. It's funny.
6: Short answer, no, however, Thor might sue one or the both of us for infringement, so please refrain. It's for the best.
7: As previously stated, Editorials is due for a small update when the mailserver behaves and a grand re-opening later in the month. I see you all are waiting with bated breath, but don't let the lack of oxygen keep you from sending me stuff in the meantime.
And, in accordance with my agreement, I hereby recommend wholeheartedly to all readers of this column and site the visitation and patronage of RPGuides, our FAQ section.
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