Matt Demers - 13:53 EST

WELCOME BACK to another week full of RPG-talk and me moaning about my scholastic life. Yes, it's Ask Matt, everybody's favourite Tuesday-through-Friday Q&A column. If you've got an itch to vent your opinion or share something remotely game related, this is the place to be! I accept donations, but none are necessary.

I didn't get through Final Fantasy XII this weekend after all, on account of me being too damn busy. What a loser, eh? "What are you doing Saturday night?" "Working... on school stuff." The sad thing is that I'm so thirsty for gaming that even if I wasn't busy, I'd probably lie and turn down offers to go out with people just so that I could have a night in. Yes, I guess that makes a hermit. Not quite a "crotchety old man," but close: Give it fifteen years. Yay!

OK, enough. Time to begin!

I see your inbox is in need of letters! But I don't know what to ask! Hey, did you know there are random question generators online? What will they think of next? So, I guess I ask you...

With whom did that motor torpedo boat count the road?

Ok, that was... nonsensical.

I suppose in order to make this letter not entirely useless, I'll address your first hot topic: my excuse is I don't have the funds. But I guess I'll add DQH:RS to my "list of games to buy someday." How long do you think it'll be readily available for purchase, anyway? (Ooh! That's an actual question! I knew if I wrote long enough I'd stumble across one.)

Joshua

Not forever. Maybe through this summer or so, but I've heard it's not selling terribly well, which is a crime. This awful Wario: Master of Disguise will probably sell ten times as many copies in North America, despite its putridity. What a sad world we live in!

Dragon Quest Heroes is a lot of fun for RPG and non-RPG lovers alike. It's light-hearted, and while it's easy, it's fun to just pick up and play. At least, that's what I found. I was pleasantly surprised.

And there you go! Thanks Mr. Joshua, and write back again soon, possibly with more randomness.

I would agree with you on that point, but I'm not sure most 14-year-olds can afford to regularly keep up with the gaming industry these days. Looking back, that would be the single reason that I'm thankful that the release of games was fewer and more far between when we were that age. Imagine the games we'd miss nowadays because we'd mostly be relying on our parents to get them for us! That's a scary thought!

=^)
Laurie

True. Very true.

Funny thing. I remember back in my youth, when I went shopping with my parents at Toys 'R' Us for my seventh or eighth birthday. I had my heart set on it: I wanted Super Mario Brothers 3. But, when I walked past and saw Dragon Warrior III and IV both on the wall, my heart skipped a beat. I wanted those instead! Then I saw the prices: $89.99 and $99.99 respectively. My heart sank, because I just didn't DARE asking for something that was that expensive. I never saw the games again... for years, and years. Talk about a disappointed little boy! I just hid my sadness and went with Mario Bros 3 as planned, though my heart secretly ached for these others that I didn't have the courage to even ask for.

So yeah. I'm glad I have my own money now. Unfortunately, with the money comes, well, no time. So, "life," in the end, is a bad time to be a gamer. *grumble*

Matt,

I've been reading to ol' QnA for quite sometime and with nothing to do at work tonight I thought I should probably finally write in.

As far as Squenix goes they definitely need to go with a Chrono Trigger rerelease. I have the PSX version but the load times greatly hurt my feelings. But a rerelease on GBA would be great, with a little more back story on Janus and Schala it could be all I would ever hope for. Also it would be great to see Super Mario RPG rereleased also.

Definitey I would have to say GRAAAAWK, it sounds tougher, GRUUUUUU sounds like purring or something.

I'm very excited for Pokemon, I have Pearl reserved already. I'm working on catching the legendaries from the GBA games, or the Cube games what ever I can get them from easier.

Also I'm hoping that Pokemon Revolution will have a nice story mode like both Cube games had.

As far as GDC goes, this is where my question for you comes in. I was browsing IGN's new stories and found this.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/771/771051p1.html

To me people like Chris Hecker are the people that are making gaming as expensive and not as much fun as they could be. Sure games can be and in some instances are works of art. On the other hand sometimes it seems that some developers are so concerned about making their games look nice that they don't spend enough time on making it fun. What do you think.

Well hopefully I'll find time to write in again soon.

~Toma

Oh, I read that too. And it put me in a foul mood for awhile, too.

It irritates me so much when people like this loon go on about the Wii being underpowered. First of all, some of those claims can't even be true; if you can't program AI, then you're just inept as a game designer; it doesn't directly have anything to do with system power. The NES had games that featured artificial intelligence, for heaven's sakes. What a loser.

I think that games don't have to look ridiculously true-to-life to be works of art. In fact, I'd be quicker to argue the opposite. Obviously, Mr. Dickwad hasn't seen the screens for No More Heroes, because damn, those look more like art than anything I've seen out of Sony's big bad PS3. And from what I've played of Zelda, I'd say the same. Yeah.

His comments reek of a cheap hire, enlisted to try and erode at the popularity of a company that's beating another. Not a conspiracy theory. OK, maybe it is. Irritation, either way.

Hey Matt!

I think I've figured out your secret. You disappear for a couple weeks to work on your thesis, and suddenly you come back with a bunch of new tidbits on Sock 2. Thus, your thesis is actually a series of giant mathematical calculations to enable Sock 2. We all will be astonished by its depth and complexity, and thoroughly intimidated by the math necessary to survive.

Anyway, on to more serious matters, I have to agree with you about the lack of good upcoming games on next-gen systems, but I have to take it further and say I'm not that hyped about XBox360 either. As much as Mistwalker should interest me, I get no personal buzz yet from their two announced games. Plus, there's nothing else that truly has me waiting. Sony, well, they're just a mess right now. FFXIII would be nice, but I'm not dropping $600 for a system. Meanwhile, as cool as Wii could be, Nintendo seems to be following their GameCube plan of "Hey, one or two good games a year is enough, right?" I'm just thoroughly uninspired overall. It's cheap PS2 and GameCube games for me.

To JeePee73: Ironically, -40 Celsius happens to also be -40 Fahrenheit, if I'm remember the conversion correctly. It's the one temperature where they are both the same number. Odd coincidence. Anyway, I truly hope that is -40 windchill, not temp, I don't want to think how much lower that could go.

BigWook

Yes, that's right. -40 F = -40 C. And you've just hit on one of my absolute strangest pet peeves, BigWook! Congratulations! People around here have the habit of taking the wind chill in the winter or the humidex in the summer and just calling that "the temperature." Well, the stickler for fact that I am, my blood nearly boils when stupid people say "AHH, it's forty-five degrees out today!" ...because it never has been forty-five outside, and it never will be until the days that the sun turns into a red giant and consumes us all. Or at least until 2015, when global warming has scathed the earth irreversibly like the final boss it is.

Thanks much, sir! I'll hear from you again soon, I trust.