You know with all this talk about Nobu and Amano returing for Final Fantasy 9 everyone has forgotten to ask if the three most import people of all are returning. Has everyone forgot about Cid and more importantly Vicks and Wedge?

-Tiny Dustin

Brad:
As far as I know, there's been a Cid in every FF game since FF4j/2a, though I haven't played 3j, so I don't know for sure. I believe the first appearance of Vicks and Wedge was in 6, but I can't recall if there was one earlier than that or not. And for the life of me, I can't remember if Vicks and Wedge were in FF7 or not. You'd think so, with all the Shinra soldiers.. but.. OH YEAH.. they were members of Avalanche.. duhbrad.. and thanks to BrianS for reminding me.

--The Geek

Brad:
Well, to put it bluntly, it's because it's their opinion, and they have every right to have it. I mean, your parents your friends like you, and even though you're not an emaciated stick figure, you've still got a long way to go before you're the Mona Lisa yourself, I'm sure.. heh. On a personal note, I'm not much a fan of Amano art myself, but hey, everyone's got their thing.. I mean, I like doing Q&A, for some odd reason.

What ever happened to the 64-DD. Is Nintendo coming out with it, or have they decided to trash the idea like they have with so many of their other products. I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere that they weren't going to bring it out but I just wanted to find out for sure.

Thank you oh Brad of great knowledge.

-psuedo-link =o

Brad:
As far as I know, most of Nintendo's resources are going into making the Dolphin. Then again, I lost the rights to sit in Nintendo's marketing strategy meetings, due to the fact that I couldn't control my laughter when they brought out the expected sales figures for Quest64. I don't know for sure, that is, and if I were to put some money in a bettin' fashion, I'd say, "Don't bet on it".

Don't you agree the stories in "Particle Man" aren't complete? I mean, we all know Triangle Man beets Particle Man and Person Man. Well, those two were both wimps. I want to know what would happen in a fight between Triangle Man and Universe Man. Sure, Universe Man has the great size and awesome power, not to mention the coolest watch, but Triangle Man has that extreme Hate for everything. So Brad, who do you think would win? Universe man or Triangle man? Thanks for your help in this dire predicament!

~Final "when he's underwater does he get wet?" Heven

Brad:
Well, I think Triangle Man would win. Why? Because that's just how Triangle Man does things. Universe Man is in happy land way too often... he's probably a crack fiend. Triangle Man just has infinite teenage angst. And if you've ever seen/been an angsty teenager on the road, you know the meaning of fear. The only person capable of beating Triangle Man is Nobody Man. o/` They have a fight.. Nobody wins..!

Hey Brad-

I have had Lunar since the day it came out, but I was too caught up in many games, so I am just gettin around to finishing it. I was wondering if you could clear something up. In the scene where Dyne and Ghaleon are arguing over whether or not to bring Althena back to life, who is for what choice? I seemed to have been lost in it all- from what I gather, Dyne wants her back on Earth, but Ghaleon wants her to stay where she is. And if I am right, why does Ghaleon then decide to team up with her? It is all very confusing to me. Please help clear this up.

Scott Hedrick

Brad:
Well, here's my take (and not the authorized 'correct' version, but hey, you asked me, therefore, you get my idea. Ghaleon thinks that Althena should stay up in the sky and not come down, regardless of the shopping mall opportunities. Dyne thinks it'd be cool to nail a goddess, (okay, who doesn't), so he's all for her comin' down and partying with him. Little does he realize that she's going to be 2 months old, and him in his 30's at least. So he decides to go to the one spot in the world where fornication with minors is not only allowed, but regularly practiced. Alex's village. But she dumps him on the way, and he leaves her butt in the town and takes off, grows a beard, and decides come around only when kids need his help beating up tons of monsters. Ghaleon gets pissed off, and decides that Althena should be restored to her goddess state, and since he's pissed off, he decides that he should control her, as well. Ruling the world sounded fun to him, I guess. Althena's motives on coming to the planet was more to let people live their own lives, I think. I dunno, specifically. But Dyne was all for the freedom and stuff, and I guess Ghaleon wanted to just have more power.

Also (gratuituos question) why is Digimon allowed to rip off everything? And instead of just limiting themselves to Pokemon, why do they get Cloud, Aeris and Cactuar lookalikes, as well as another monster that looks like FF8's Snow Lion?

-Toni, the ancient one

Brad:
Heh.. I'll be 22 before too long.. and yikes. I've been playing video games for a long ol' time myself. Since I was about 2. Though I was no good at them when I was 2. My mom was just telling me a story about how I first discovered the function of the joystick when I was like 2 years old.. my first game... Space Invaders as well. "Radiaters, Radiaters" as I'm told I used to call it. As for Digimon, well, that's just how stuff goes, I guess. I mean, look at Manilli Vanilli... :)

Aoshi19

Brad:
Unfortunately, there isn't. You have to walk down each time... and as I hear, once you get down far enough, you have to split into a smaller group and go all the way back down again, though I've not made it that far down myself.. (maybe floor 5 or 6 is the lowest I've been). Anyhow, it's good for you! Lots of experience! ... level 255 is a possibility ...

Sadd

Brad:
What happens is if you use a weapon that the person isn't like ultimately attuned to, then they have to expend more attackbarpointhings in order to use it. Unequip the weapon that Vahn has on, and put a more natural weapon for him in its place, and you'll get more mobility back. By the way, some of the moves in that game, (especially for the chick) were just cool to watch. Super Flying Combo Lizard High Kick Attack! HEEYAH!

I seek knowledge and help for Star Ocean 2. I'm going nuts here! I'm playing through with Rena, I picked up Ashton, and now I want to save that sick little girl in Herlie. Problem is I have no idea where to find that um.. Metox herb or whatever..

Please help me out!! I'll give you a shiny box of nothing!

-Silence, that chick in the corner stalking any cute anime type guys-

"One thing I've learned about vampires Ð they keep pulling new rabbits out of their cloaks. Big, fanged, carnivorous bunnies that'll eat your eyeballs if you're not paying attention."

Brad:
I'm pretty sure you need Bowman to do this.. and I'm pretty sure it's at the top of the mountain that's near Cross. You'll know you found the right one if you start going up it, and find yourself confronting monsters that have no business being in that area. At the top is some nastybird guy, (which you also fight in Ashton's Subquest) .. and I believe that Bowman can find the Metox at some point around here. Er, now looking through other information, it depends on who your main character is. Seems if you're using Claude, it'll be Bowman, or if Rena, it'll be Ashton.

The scenario:
FF FREAK is stuck in the battle in FF6 that's Sabin vs. Vargas and can't get the LEFT RIGHT LEFT blitz to execute. (I'm so ashamed, I can't remember what the name of the blitz is...I think it's pummel, but I defintely have room to be wrong.)

The mistake:
Being told to hit LEFT RIGHT LEFT X because the PSX doesn't have the A button. (Probably...Never played the PSX versions of FF5 or 6, so you may want to verify this.) There is a slight mismapping of SNES to PSX buttons here.

The solution:
The SNES pad has the buttons Y X B A on it. Those correspond to the buttons Square Triangle X Circle on the PSX. If I remember correctly, left right left x will put in the blitz, but cancel it, and that's what the problem is really is.

Q: I don't get it. Nomatter how many woodland critters I beat up, not one of them leaves any cash behind! What gives?

A: Well, first of all, you have to beat up the RIGHT KIND of woodland critters. Chipmunks and other Disney-esque critters are usually a bad idea, and no one's gonna' think very much of you if you step on tiny little spiders and slugs all day. They need to be at least a foot long before it makes a difference at all. Also, it's very possible that the critters you're picking on don't HAVE any money! Yes, it's shocking, I know, but not all critters carry their wallets with them, and even if they do, they might not have any money on them at the time. My reccomendation is this: Try to make the best of the situation. If the critter doesn't drop any money, see if they drop any credit cards, movie tickets, or subway tokens.

Q: How can I scrape together enough cash to buy a decent evil-proof vest?

A: Well, if you don't have the patence to to get your cash killing various critters, there are a few other easy ways to make cash. The next time you visit a town or city or something, just run into every single house, and start digging through everyone's junk looking for spare change. Don't worry, no one will mind. No one will even find it unusual that you're invading little Timmy's piggy bank, and they'll just go on with what they're doing. Now this might seem like stealing to you, but you have to understand, this stuff is MEANT for you. The people in these houses are the same people that are going around forests, leaving behind 'treasure chests' full of valuables for you to pocket at your leisure (Another way to make easy money). You can even find these chests in the world-threatening evil-of-the-day's forts. "Why would complete strangers and world-threatening evil-of-the-days want to just give me all their stuff?" you ask? Oddly enough, they all see you as the reverse of the Tooth Fairy, so the next time you swing around, you'd better bring enough dentures to go around...

Q: Well, if that's the case, can I take things directly out of complete strangers' pockets?

A: Yes, but you need to be sure to do two things. First, NEVER call it 'stealing'. 'Accepting a gift of generosity', 'Gathering money for save-the-world fund', and 'Treasure Hunting' are all acceptable alternatives. Second, don't do anything else funny while your hands are in their pockets.

Make checks payable to -CaspianX

Well, I have something on my chest and I can't think of a better person to talk to this about. Heh heh. I don't know how you feel about 'em, but I recently bought a Gameshark because I have a bunch of games I want to beat without spending millions of hours leveling up and whatnot (no time anymore). I usually try my darnest before resorting to this, but sometimes I'm not sure how some bits in games are even _possible_ to beat (like the last battle in SaGa II). Anyway, I've tried craploads of codes for various games like SaGa Frontier II and Final Fantasy V, but they never work! I know I enter them right, I check. Once in a while, one of them _may_ work, but this is a rarity. Can you ask the readers about this, because I want to know if I'm trying the few codes that don't work or if I really did waste my money on this piece of junk. Thanks heaps, Brad,

Ben

Hello, again.

I just wanted to announce that getting Lancelot/Lans in the party doesn't appear to work in Tactics Ogre. I was rather sceptical at the hint at GameSages, but since I was playing through it a second time, I thought, what the heck, might as well try it (Playing Chaos, BTW... My first time was Neutral, which is annoying, because Aloser leaves you and Guildus doesn't join either, and my friend played Lawful, were you get a lot of cool characters, including Zapan and Vice.). Well, I did exactly what the hint said, and nothing happened... well, their description sounded juicy anyway.

Oh, and in case you didn't play far enough yet... if any Lancelot would join you, It'd have to be Tartaros/Tartare... you'll see what I mean. But since I think Tartaros is cool, I'd still like to be corrected about getting him to join :-P

P.S. I like Dragon Quest 1 better than FF1... sure, it is really primitive, but FF1 was just too annoying. You never knew wether you would encounter one enemy of a kind, or eight of them. And two out of three encounters appeared to be some sort of ambush... Well, anyway, I just thought DQ went much more smoothly.

---
Gilgamesh.

[Editor's Comment: Perhaps it only worked in the SNES version of the game...]

Please tell me if you guys know anything about a prequel or sequel for xenogears. All my friends that played it love the whole entire game. Please let me know as soon as possible.

Brad: As always, I'm only as knowledgeable as the news staff here at RPGamer.. if you don't see it in the news, then I probably don't have much more insight into the future. It's a possibility, of course, but honestly, I don't see much sequel/prequel possibility left in the storyline.. maybe a new installment that isn't related story-wise, but has similar game mechanics, (like the FF series is right now).. who knows.

Dear Brad,

What does the Infinity Ring in Star Ocean 2 do? I can't seem to figure out what the heck it does, if anything.

- Dav

Brad:
The Infinity Ring gives whomever is wearing it more experience after each battle... I thought this item said its function... do you know how to see the description of items?

Just thought you should know that in Netscape 6 PR1 you cant see the Hiden text, Dont know if this is HTML or Netscape's problem (probaly Netscape as Mozilla so far has been a pile of crud)

Thanks for your time

Kuro

Brad: What hidden text? I see no hidden text Â_Â

I love your column
I learned something very nice
How to make haikus

Xeros

Brad:
Inspiration Comes
From the Oracle named Brad
English teachers swoon.

I have nothing to say. Will you put me in the Quickies anyway?

- sorbie

Brad: I guess I'm just feeling nice today..

http://bastilleweb.techhouse.org/movies/game.mov

Kevin

Brad: Yes kids.. you too can play Tetris on the sides of buildings. <LinuxPlug> they wrote the software to do that in Linux, btw</LinuxPlug>

Hi Brad!

Which one do you like better, Final Fantasy Tactics or Front Mission 3? And why?

Brad: Haven't gotten to FM3 yet.. let ya know when I do. :)

Well, that's it for today.. sorry it's up so late.. I may only do two Q&A's this weekend due to all this, but I'll hopefully pull something together for tomorrow instead of putting it off until Sunday, (even though it's like 10pm over on the East Coast already.. doh!) .. anyhow, I like the new look, but the only question in my mind is.. look at the quickies. Half are horizontally laid out, and half are vertically (vertical is when my answer is below theirs, horizontal is when my comments are on the side). Vote and tell me which is better. Or maybe I'll alternate them, that's somewhat interesting at least. And how do you like the general look of things now? Give me an email, lemmie know what's up, let me know how much you love/hate the new look, just .. do somethin'. Anyhow, see you next time! Oh yeah, and now that you see that Shade has fininshed the Blinkey Heather.. though after the transparenting of it, it's still a bit jaggy.. if anyone can fix that, yo, free plug for you, or something.

Brad "The longer I make my ending quote, the further she goes away, hee hee hee.." Lohr