Blackout
Edition
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| November 4th, 2011 |
11/04- 12:00PM EST
Welcome to another edition of Q&A! This
week will be a bit short as I had a pretty
crazy week. Also, I will be away next week,
and Becky "Ocelot" Cunningham will be
filling in. Please send her some good
Q&A questions. You can e-mail her at ocelot@rpgamer.com.
Please include "Ask Ocelot" in the subject.
You guys are great, and I'm sure will
provide her with some good questions!
Anyway, on to your letters!
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Completion Time : Approx.
40 hrs.
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Yeah, that's how long this letter will take
you to finish reading! And the sidequests
are mandatory!
Wheels
But...but...I
don't wanna do the side quests!
If they're mandatory, doesn't
that make them main quests
anyway? I bet it does!
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Want me to come up with an even awesomer
movie pitch and soundtrack? FINE! But I am
not happy about it! I will do the honourless
thing and include some songs already present
in my previous list, just because I love
them. Not this time though, or my letter is
going to be far too long. Think of my list
as good wine. It needs a bit more time!
Heheh.
Wheels
Oh,
very well, I will grant you more
time, but just this one time!
Don't expect my next challenge
to you to be so easy. (Pro-tip:
brush up on your favorite music
of the 2000s)
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Yes, I am a child of the 90s. Worse, I am a
Dutch child of the 90s, together with
Germany basically the birthground of techno
hardcore (not to be confused with the rock
version) and happy hardcore. I should've
known you wouldn't know Dune, but they are
one of the best, in my opinion THE best,
happy hardcore group ever existed. I say
worse not only because this has affected my
taste in music in a seriously bad way (the
aforementioned happy hardcore, which you
might know by the name “rave”), but it also
meant MANY RPGs never found their way on my
SNES, or found their way through difficult
(and some may say illegal) means.
Wheels
Oh
no! Europe is much better off
now, but I know you guys missed
a ton of great RPGs back in the
day. I will have to do some
research on techno though, as I
have no reasonable idea what
happy hardcore techno is.
Anyway, back to games...
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To this day I have not finished Final Fantasy
6, because I knew that the screen
would turn black during the ending sequence,
because a british magazine told me so. I had
to use an adapter to make it work on my
European SNES, so there you have it. Sure, I
now have it on GBA (and had it on PSX), but
life is getting in the way these days.
Getting Super
Mario RPG to work was also a choir,
and just looking at the adapter meant you
lost your game saves to most games. It did
create an error once which gave me 99
economizers in FF6, but when I gambled
one in the Colloseum it threw away all of
them...
I will finish FF6 one day! I WILL!!
Wheels
Dang
straight you will! That really
sucks, and makes me wonder what
the heck the point of region
locking things is to begin with.
It's not like importing (to my
knowledge) is massive business,
so why punish the few customers
that want to do it? I've never
really seen a great explanation.
Anyway, please for the love of
all that is holy find the time
to finish Final
Fantasy VI, and I'm not
just saying that because it's my
favorite game (yes I am).
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The only good things that came out of me
living here compared to the US, game-wise,
were Terranigma,
perhaps the second best action RPG ever,
after Secret
of Mana, and the prettier box art
for Suikoden.
HA! Sometimes we get cool stuff.
Sorry, where was I?
Wheels
You
do! Just look at the current Xenoblade
situation and the
Europe-exclusive special
editions for Final
Fantasy XIII and Final
Fantasy XIII-2. Though
I've imported the first two, and
plan to do so for the latter, Xenoblade
obviously required extra work to
play in the US! I've heard great
things about Terranigma
but have yet to play it for
obvious reasons. I should
probably get on that while
you're busy finishing FFVI.
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Ah yes, Chronicles.
Indeed, it is going to be a tabletop version
of console Tactics games. Story is, like all
tabletop RPGs, something that can be
affected by the player, but to a much lesser
(and different) extent than with D&D.
Indeed, Shining
Force, Fire Emblem, those are the
types of games and, more importantly,
stories I want to emulate with this game.
For example, there is also no character
creation. You pick a character, and you can
choose which skill you gain at intervals
from a kind of “talent tree”. You can't
equip weapons or armour, only upgrade them,
but you can equip things like rings,
necklaces and that stuff. So very different
from other tabletop RPGs. This will
ultimately be to console RPGs what D&D
is to PC RPGs. Does that make sense? Your
interest spurs me on to continue though. I
hit walls every now and then and need some
motivation to keep going. So thank you!
Wheels
Please,
keep it up! I feel like D&D
can be too complex at times,
just like some PC RPGs, so a
tactics-based game
with fewer complexities could
find a larger audience. I think
a lot of older RPGamers with
less time available would
appreciate a game that is easier
to pick up and play. Please keep
me updated on your progress!
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Anyways, I came to a shocking conclusion,
but I am glad I did. You have probably seen
the pattern of my RPG interest. They are all
SNES and PSX era. At first I thought it was
just nostalgia, but I know now it is not
just that.
I believe the reason I do not care much for
modern day RPGs is the fact that many of
them make mistakes that I now find
unforgivable. They are the same mistakes the
old school RPGs made. I don't like these
mistakes in my favourite old RPGs, but I can
forgive them for being older, pioneers
perhaps, and many of the mistakes probably
(possibly) had an element of technical
boundaries,
Wheels
Even
before sneaking peeks at your
following paragraph I can see
where you're headed, and I
perfectly understand. It's
almost like some of these
mistakes get so ingrained in the
style of these games, that they
become features and people don't
get that they aren't very good.
I could go into a list, but I'll
let you do the talking.
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Things like small world maps with only a
handful of towns, a general world population
of which approximately 50% are the heroes
and villains, shops that sell items that
scale with the level of the heroes, all that
stuff. I don't really mind playing a young
village boy turning legendary hero for the
hundredth time, having to defeat yet another
evil emperor. That stuff is why I love RPGs.
I think developers need to concentrate on
changing the silly tropes of RPGs. I loved Suikoden
for having a “country” map instead of a
“world” map, for having characters that kept
their weapons and only upgraded them. I
loved Final
Fantasy Tactics for having a map
that made you FEEL like your party actually
took several days to travel from one place
to the next. Also, I don't really care for
fancy graphics as long as the story is
strong. Of course, these feelings come from
a person that enjoys Dwarf Fortress,
so graphic junkie is not something I am, but
for some reason I feel that I am not alone.
I probably had a reason for writing this,
but I kind of forgot.
Wheels
You
are far from alone on not caring
about advanced graphics. I think
this is kind of the norm for the
RPG genre actually. While I love
graphically-great RPGs as much
as the next person, I have no
issues playing games like Etrian
Odyssey that focus on
making the gameplay brilliant
and do not worry as much about
graphics. I'm not quite sure why
more RPGs haven't gone the route
of Suikoden to be
honest. I mean, aren't
developers as bored with save
the world stories as we are?
Also even though I have some
friends that love Dwarf
Fortress, I could never
figure the thing out myself.
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You know what you should do? Check out the
following songs:
Dune – Hardcore Vibes (original)
Dune – Rainbow to the Stars (just don't
listen to the lyrics)
Dune – Are you Ready to Fly
Dune – One Day in Glencoe (something
completely different from them)
Dune – Can't Stop Raving (Club Mix)
And just to round off your happy hardcore
101 education:
Charly Lownoise and Mental Theo – Wonderfull
Days (yes, with double l)
Charly Lownoise and Mental Theo – Stars
(original)
Rave Nation – Going Crazy
Scooter – Friends (original)
Party Animals – Have you ever been Mellow
That should keep you busy, and make you
happy at the same time.
Wheels
That
should keep me busy. I'll give
you an update the next time you
write in about what I think.
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Dave A. stated he would like to see a sequel
or remake of Secret of Mana. You know
what, of all the RPG games, that one is
probably one of the easier ones to A:
program and B: recreate graphics wise. I
smell an indie project coming up! I just
hope that they won't make those silly
mistakes too many RPGs make. Just make it
episodic without any upgrades. Yeah!
Wheels
You'd
think so, but I dunno. I'd love
to see an indie project like
this, but I have a feeling they
may stick too closely to Secret
of Mana if they do. Secret
of Mana was a great
game, but it certainly wasn't
perfect. There's plenty that an
indie project looking to be like
it could fix, such as quicker
access to spells. I'd be up for
anything that plays like it.
It'd be cool if Square-Enix
reached out to indie developers
and got them to make Mana
games (unlikely).
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I promise next time I will actually have a
point to make, or a quesiton to ask, with my
letter.
Yours truly,
Other Daniel X – also known as D-Bro X
(the X just makes it cooler)
Wheels
Ha,
you had plenty of points and
questions hidden in this one, so
no worries! Look forward to
hearing from you again.
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I'm looking for an old school style
RPG. I used to really enjoy Baldur's Gate
and Icewind
Dale and the like. Everything
these days seems to have gone to first
person and hack-n-slash. I like the
idea of going on missions/quests,
controlling multiple characters, finding and
upgrading weapons, etc. I don't need
the movie quality video, and top down point
of view doesn't bother me. Any
ideas? Or am I just stuck in the
past?
-Chris
Wheels
Well you are stuck in the past a
little bit, but luckily I can help
you out regardless. For starters I
would check out the games by
Spiderweb Software, as they are
likely exactly what you're looking
for, especially the Avernum series.
I would of course recommend Dragon
Age Origins as it is close
in many ways to the Baldur's
Gate games. I think Drakensang
is also similar to those
titles of old, though probably not
as good. Other than that, try some
newer titles too! They won't bite!
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That's it for this week! I'll see you all in
two weeks, and don't forget to send some
questions to ocelot@rpgamer.com
for the guest column next week. I'll
probably still use twitter while away, so
feel free to bug me there!
-Wheels
P.S. Those connection challenges original
intended for this week, along with a great
question from TwinBahamut, have been delayed
till next time.
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