Josh - 9:07 EST

Been one hell of a busy day today. You'd think that when you get a day off, you would get to...you know, have the day off. But nooooo, I have an enormous paper to write by Monday. Ah well. This is as good enough a time as any to take a break!

As for all of you...you all managed to dodge Roulette...sorta. Lucky punks.

I'm implementing a new rule in THONG. You may not cast Merton more than twice, as this game may take forever. :P

One more: STOP only halts your movement for a day. You will roll for the day after, no extra letter required. (You still need to send the letter to get the normal roll, though).

Hey, Ouro!

Having just completed Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, and wondering what things I missed along the way, an interesting question popped into my head last night. How much of a completionist are you? I know that my sister is so bad that she'll reset a game if she knows she missed a single treasure chest somewhere, and she keeps as many as six or ten save files scattered throughout the game in case she ever needs to return to a moment in particular. Is that over the top? Where do you fall in the scheme of things?

Thanks!
--
Matt, the (other) moderately-evil Q&A host

PS. What was that last letter in yesterday's column about? It sounded like total nonsense.

Hi there Ouro

You do realize it is getting harder and harder to write new and engaging letters in, it seems like the same 3 or 4 topics get recycled every month or so(DS vs PSP, which FF game is better/more overated, Sony's increasingly bad business moves etc), occasionally a hot button issue throws everyone into a frenzy of letter-writing, but honestly I feel guilty writing in for no reason other than to attempt to advance my gamepiece so here's my attempt to spice things up

Anyway here's my semi-new topic to add to the growing list, however this is an old topic I asked Matt about awhile back, hopefully this'll spur some good and weird letters

If you were to classify the people(as in police, teachers, doctors, streetpunks, brokenhearted bums, sports players, emo kids etc also for the love of god this is not a racial thing more of an occupation thing) living in modern times under some new funky class system and throw them into an RPG, which groups would be more likely to be heroes, and what kind of skills would those groups have

I think some should be obvious doctors/nurses would have domain over life and healing and status ailments and death etc depending on which side of the good and evil spectrum they chose, I also think regardless of sides brokenhearted bums should attack with badly written/sung songs and broken bottles but I just thought I'd toss that out there

Now for an unrelated question: I personally don't think the cast of DDS falls under transforming characters simply because they don't start as humans and have to do something to morph like other characters do they start out battle already transformed into their Atma, now if they start all battles in human form and had to pull off some special prestiquit(sp?) to transform into Atma then that would make them fall under the category i made up, it would also make the game alot harder, what do you think if anything?

Arros Raikou
*Has sadly not gotten arround to DDS2*
*Longs for the day when "You stole my wife you -----------!" is a valid attack in some game*
*Has also sadly had no sleep*

Anyways, Chrono’s theme from Chrono Trigger is one of the greatest emotionally inspiring pieces of music I can think of, especially when you’re listening to it going through the time warp for the first time. It gives you this incredible sense of “Now, it is the beginning of a fantastic journey!” (pat on the back to whoever gets this reference.) Some other favorites of mine include the FF7 boss theme, the music that plays when Cid dies in FF6, and this one piece of music in FF Adventure (the predecessor to Sword of Mana) that plays right before the endgame, after you’ve left Marcy on the Tower and are just about to ride the waterfall up to the place of the final battle. Even though it was only for the Game Boy, it still gave me goosebumps.

Dear Hot Ma..., er, Dear Strong B..., er, Hey you,

So you finally got a PSP? First off, happy birthday. Second, tell your parents you would have rather had cash. Ok, just kidding, but I still find it hard to justify getting a PSP. Yeah LocoRoco looks really fun and MGS Portable Ops does as well, but it still just has a crap fest of RPGs. Not to hate on the PSP or anything, but I had such high expectations for the RPGs that could have reached us, yet no. Nothing. Nadda. Let's Count Sand. Remake IV. YAY!

So, what RPGs or RPG series would you like to see on the PSP? Right now the DS is kicking its tail majorly, so it needs something to refresh it. It is up to you to decide.

On your topic of discussion, has the music in a game ever moved me? Yes. I'm not afraid to say that music in general can cause very emotional responses for me, so if a moment is touching and the music draws that out, then of course it will have an effect on me. The classic Aeris vs. Sephi scene is a no brainer. If you have not played through FFX, then stop right now, go out, buy the game, and don't return until you have because this would be a bit of a spoiler for you. The one scene that gets me more than anything is the ending of FFX with Tidus and Yuna's hug. I can listen to the Ending Theme all by itself and get emotional, but the part where Yuna runs toward Tidus and falls with the music added to it is just really wonderful. I love RPG music that sets a mood like that.

Macstorm

Hey Ouro. What RPG actions (apart from Harvest Moon and Zelda type ones) do you think the Wii remote will be able to use. Ohh imagine Baulders Gate 2 on the Wii. Yay

Bainick has been hit in the head far too many times to not cause brain disfunctionability!

12 pages down, probably another 20 or so to go.

So, while I listen to the new Red Hot Chili Peppers CD, what do you think of making hybrid games? What kinds of elements from other genres would you like to see brought to RPGs? More sports games? More Action elements? What?

I'll see you all tomorrow!

***Josh doesn't want to drive tomorrow...