Strange Phenomena....Out of time...No intro....Sorry....
Forgive me. :)

JD:
Over the past few months after so many quotes, I simply ran out of them. I should go ask one of the kind readers in our Lunar board for a larger list.

When is Lunar 2: EB coming out in North America?

Hopefully some time before 2005. (Yeah Right!)
Working Designs is sticking with the date Dec 99 - March 2000.

You said Lunar 2: EB was better than Lunar: SSSC?? HOW! Lunar: SSSC is the best game ever made. Ok, it's equal to Chrono Trigger and Suikoden. But those are the 3 best RPG's i've ever played. (not saying they are the best as I haven't played every RPG) Thanks. Your animation just came up...it's the xoom logo just turning around in a circle. Was that what it was supposed to be??

-Tek

For one thing, Lunar EB's story line is much more complex. The game is much longer too, great music too boot. That's all I can really say without giving away spoilers. As far as the animation, xoom was crapping out. (Surprise!)
I put it on our server so, it worked fine about an hour or two after I updated last friday.

JD,
I have thought up a few questions I would like you to answer.
1. Is there any idea as to when Lunar 3 will be out?

JD:
Nothing has been announced. My guess is late 2000. Game Arts usually is very slow, both in announcements or development. Quality..Quality..Quality..That's their motto, and it pays off too.

2. Speaking of Kris-Kross, What ever happened to Snow? You know the guy who looked like a Vanilla Ice clone and sang that song "Informer" which nobody could understand.

I think the government forced him to take remedial english courses. I heard he flunked the past 5 times.

3. Have you heard if Diablo 2 is scheduled to be released this holiday season?

I asked my PC aficionado friend, Malakhov as I'm not really clued in the PC game world. He told me that Diablo 2 has not been given an official date but blizzard is maintaining "sometime in 99." Though he wanted to say "his guts tell him December" is the month.

4. Lastly (this is more of an idea than a question) why doesn't Working Designs acquire the rights to FF2 and rerelease it here in the US? I think they could do an outstanding job, (better than Square infact) and adding some cool anime (like that of Lunar) would really set it apart from all other games in the series. I can already imagine Golbez in all his dark glory anime style :)

-Adam Buckallew

Square would never sell their crown jewels. From what I understand Victor Ireland doesn't think much of the Final Fantasy series anyway. WD only publishes games Victor likes.

You adorable little music conasuire you! *pinch* *pinch* Ahem.

Now, it's time for my first serious letter.

'Dear JD Realizing that you love videogame music (among other things...heheh...funny...Madame Palm and her five sisters...but naturally, I'm just joking...or are I?), I must insist upon you a question: What do you think of FFT's music? In my humble opinion, FFT outshines most of the other Final Fantasy games, and will hopefully be rivaled by Crono Cross and Vagrant Story, due to the excellent composers on both of those teams (Crono Trigger's team on Crono Cross, and FFT's team on Vagrant Story).

The sheer (legs, anyone?) grandness of it and its epic scope just draws people into the music, and is one of the best works of music anywhere. Seriously. Then again... But I digress.

Now, I must call upon you to deliver a favor for me. Will you take this...uh...carpet (points to a rolled up carpet in the vague shape of a person) and dispose of it? Preferably in a resivoir, but please, no shallow grave--er...dumps... Could you do that favor for me? Nevermind that the carpet appears in good shape...uh...my dogs stained it...many, MANY times...Yeah... Sincerely Yours,

-Kirin

JD:
Adorable and me? LOL.

Final Fantasy Tactics, clearly is one of Square's best. Certainly more complex variations of tune and instruments than former square titles. I love the music in-game, however just last week I tested listening to the soundtrack by itself. I did nothing else but listen to the music. It did not move me, nor did I find it of interest to listen to, while not playing the game. Great music, but not something I'd listen to on the road.

J.D.

Does RPGamer pay you anything or do you just do it for fun? Oh, and what Launch Titles are you going to buy with Dreamcast? I'm low on cash, so I'll probably get Sonic Adventure and maybe Soul Calibur. Wait a minute.. This isn't RPG related so it won't get printed. Oh well. I already wrote it so I might as well send it.

-Flame (The possible name of FFIX's hero)

JD:
I am paid millions, via swiss wire transfer. :)
With so many games coming out in September: FF8, Suikoden 2, Thousand Arms, sadly I am relegated to just Sonic Adventure for starters. I'm not sure yet, perhaps Soul Calibur too. I'll keep you all posted.

Oh, vey. What, do you print letters from Kadamose just to make yourself look reasonable by comparison? I hope to God that you don't imagine -he- makes sense. Anyway, I'll just pick every moronic thing he said apart bit-by-bit.

1) "the Final Fantasy series has the most widely used story in almost every RPG out there - in other words, It's always some bad guy is going to take over the world and destroy it"
That plot certainly is in a lot of games. For instance:
Ys 1 - Dark Fact wants to take over the world and destroy it.
Ys 2 - The same, with Darm.
Ys 3 - The same, with Galbalan or Demanicus
Ys 4 - The same, with Arem or Eldiel.
Ys 5 - The same, with Jabir.

2) "and the hero always gets into some love triangle with one of the big breasted ladies in the party."
He's right, this does happen in every Final Fantasy. Except for FF 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Still, it's not like Adol Christin ever has girls falling for him left and right in every Ys game. Except for Ys 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

3) "Final Fantasy is not a TRUE series because it's a whole different story everytime"
This would be a good point, except that he's failed to actually demonstrate that not having continuity between the games is a bad thing. As it is, it's just a straw man he's attacking to try and hide the fact that he doesn't actually have any real arguments.

4) "Sure, there are NEW characters in every new installment of Final Fantasy, but none of them are well developed"
Gee, Kadamose, I'm so glad you decided to actually give us some -arguments- to support your -opinions- this time.

5) "To top that off, Final Fantasy has very poor music - most people would not agree, but who gives a crap about them, anyway?"
To sum it up, "Final Fantasy is bad because that's my opinion." Thanks for sharing, Kadamose, but we figured that out already. But what the hell, since I know ten times more about Ys than the both of you putzes put together, I'll respond to the other half of his message.
1) "Ys is about a 'communist' city which after many generations of happiness and prosperity, suddenly disappears from the face of the planet because of the evil which was slowly engulfing the rest of the world (democracy and capitalism)"
No, the historical Ys was destroyed because the people in it were evil. The Ys of the games suffered because the Black Pearl on which their prosperity was built was evil (how can you so much have -looked- at a copy of Ys II and not know this?). As a matter of fact, according to the anime continuity, the Black Pearl was good, and the people of Ys just -used- it for evil. Sorry, Travis, but your Marxist allegory is as imagined as the PSX release of Ys Eternal that you made up. And the planned Ys VI for the Dreamcast that you made up. And the copy of Ys II Eternal you claimed to have a year ago, despite the fact that it has yet to be released even now. Is anybody beginning to get the idea here that Kadamose is full of shit?
2) "Also, the Ys series is just as the name implies - Ys is like a book series" Of course, the word "book"
doesn't -actually- appear in the title of any Ys game. But if ignorance was a problem for Kadamose, I don't think I'd have this message to respond to...
3) "the characters you begin to know and love continue on throughout the entire series" Except that by Ys 5, Adol is the only member of the original cast left.
4) "The music is so incredible and moving, it's almost impossible to think that someone could actually make music so beautiful." And, once again, "Ys is good because that's my opinion."

If you really ARE an Ys fan, J.D., can you PLEASE stop making the rest of us look bad with this fanboy's rantings?

- Kuno Christoffel (For the record, probably at least in the top 100 of Ys fans)

JD:
You certainly brought all the issues to the fore front. Albeit a lengthy letter, it was by far the best retort on the subject and would be the best way to put a close on the subject. I will agree on everything you said except for a few issues. Yes Kadamose is extreme at times, but aren't we all? Thousands of extreme Final Fantasy fans are out there and indeed here, one more extreme won't hurt (Especially for YS). From reader response, it has actually been quite positive. In general the readers would like to know more about YS. The readers can distinguish one's opinion and separating it from the actual context of any game. In that sense Kadamose didn't make us YS fans look bad, he did however bring curiosity.

The other issue is, you won't get anywhere by calling me a putz (I have been called much worse :D). I never have claimed to know everything about YS or be a fanatic. I do love their music and their games, and have been since the early 90's. I don't know what your intention was, but with the addition of saying you know "I know ten times more about Ys than the both of you putzes put together,"it seemed arrogant. Perhaps this was cynicism?

I still stand by my decision to print it. At the very least, it brought out two good letters (this and the next one). Not to mention the good/interesting exchange of ideas.

JD,

Being the insane Falcom zealot that I am (though not to Kadamose's extent...I'm actually able to play both Ys AND Final Fantasy without going into spasms), I thought I'd write in with a partial answer to the question asked by Matt regarding the PC versions of Ys.

Ys actually began as a (sort of) computer title, being originally released in 1987 for the MSX home computer, which at the time was still quite popular with Japanese gamers. It was a weird system...sort of a hybrid console/PC that played both carts and regular diskettes, but it enjoyed immense success throughout eastern Asia until the Famicom and PC-Engine finally buried it. Thought it had (obviously) limited sound capabilities, the then-tiny Falcom actually launched the game soundtrack industry as we know it with their release of Ancient Ys Vanished Omen, which contains several of the most famous tunes in the history of the industry. Beyond the music, the game itself was also quite popular, and Falcom ended up porting it to just about every medium in existence at the time (the Famicom, the Master System, and the NEC PC-88 home computer).

The second installment in the series, Ancient Ys Vanished: The Final Chapter, was released first for the aforementioned NEC PC-88 (the Japanese equivalent of our pre-Pentium IBM and all it's clones), before being paired with it's prequel a little over a year later for Falcom and Hudson's stunning release of Ys Book I & II for the PC-Engine CD-ROM2/Turbografx CD system.

That same year, much to my horror, Ys III: Wanderers from Ys was released for the NEC PC-98. For reasons not even God can explain, it was popular enough to be ported to just about every home console that ever was (the only incarnation even moderately-passable being the PCE CD2/Turbo CD version, and even then, only because of R. Yonemitsu's insane arrangements).

After that, all was quiet on the PC front for many years. Two versions of Ys IV were released for the PC-Engine Duo and Super Famicom in 1993, and Ys V was released in it's regular and "Expert" flavors in 1995, both for the Super Famicom.

Then the dreaded "remake bug" hit. It seemed as though no developer was safe from this rampant virus, and Nihon Falcom was no exception! In 1997, Ys Eternal: Ancient Ys Vanished Omen was released for Japanese Windows 95. At it's core, it's basically just Ys I with added scenes, much-improved visuals, and a new interpretation of the original score (though IMO, Ys Book I & II is still the reigning king of game soundtracks). The Ys saga is loosely based on a true story, and Ys Eternal is said to be closer to Falcom's original intent with Ys I. Finally, Ys II Eternal will be released shortly, it also being an "improved" remake of the original sequel. *phew* I think that just about covers everything. I'll go back to my cave now and continue ogling Feena.

-Erin "E-chan" Menefee

JD:
I surely could have answered this last week (the question I left hanging), but my bro Echan from RPGfan.com (no he isn't my real brother) answered it point by point. Ogling Feena? What about Lair? ;)

Did u notice all of the major video games and systems(suikoden 2,thousand arms,ff8, dreamcast) coming out in september? Do u know why they're all coming out in september? I do and its not so that companies can compete against each other. The real reason they are coming out in september is because that's when most schools in the us start. The japanese government makes them do this so that us school children will buy them and spend all thier time playing them. Then they won't do thier homework or study in turn causing them to become incredibly stupid. Then the Japanese army will just come in and takeover the us cuz our leaders will be helpless thanks to video games instead of school work. This is a long term plan to take over the us. So be careful.

-Anonymous

JD:
The Plot thickens!

JD,

I've had a question bothering me forever. In Final Fantasy 1, after you destroy the earth fiend, why does the town of Melmond never get grass in it's dead spots anymore? Also, in Final Fantasy 4, is there any way to get access to Namingway's teleporter? I mean.. that guy is everywhere. He reminds me of Laike in Lunar. Speaking of lunar, is there any way I can get into the dresser drawers in Jessica's bedroom in Meriba? I um.. want a souvenier. Thank you, and goodbye.

-256

JD:
The earth fiend wasn't really the cause of their town going downhill in looks. They're all really a bunch of lazy drunks there and Lich was an easy target to blame. You really killed that poor hermit in the earth cave for no reason.

If you were to have access to his teleporting machine he'd get in trouble when you found out that one of his preset destination was Rosa's bedroom.

No you can't, Mel guards her room day and night. He'll rip your head apart if he sees you.