I have noticed a tendency for people to point out certain scenes in Final Fantasy 7 which could be regarded unkindly by 'concerned citizens,' pointing them out as proof that Square's games are gradually reorienting to 'Mature Audiences.' Certainly it does have those scenes, but by no means was this disturbing trend started in FF7.

Case in point: FF3/6j. Want a list? Tough, you've got one anyway.

• Teen pregnancy in the village of children.
• The insinuation that Kefka um, 'used' Terra while she wore the Slave Crown during the flashback sequence.
• Relm hitting on Edgar. Clearly indicates Square's views on pedophilia.
• Cyan sending love letters posing as a dead man. Clearly indicates Square's views on necrophilia.
• Setzer's love for Daryl. She's dead too...
• The fact that you are given an 'Offering' from KatanaSoul, who wields a large phallic weapon. Self-explanatory
• All those moogles shacking up with that yeti. Self-explanatory.
• Cid is clearly wearing an enormous condom.
• Shadow's dog is named 'Interceptor'. It better not be a pointer.
• Ziekfried. (OK, he's no Milich, but still...)
• Ultros and 'Mr.' Chupon. The two are inseparable! Just what are we supposed to infer from their relationship?
• Interspecies dating between Maduin and Madonna.
• The fact that Madonna's even *in* the game...

Regarding rpgrob's letter, I don't think the main character is gay. I also doubt the main character is straight. He goes through the entire game without "getting his groove on." While this may seem like it could be a good example for your 'loveless RPG' theory, it's actually somewhat more disturbing.

Y'see, not only is there the aforementioned Gremio thing, but everyone's favorite little ninja in mind-numbingly bright pink, Kasumi, seems to have a raging thing for our nameless hero as well. She drops hints all over the places, but heroboy doesn't ever seem to notice.

Conclusion: After causing so much death, and being forced to lead an army against his former country, the main character has become a pathetic shell of a human being, with the libido of a lima bean. The moral of the story? Mama, don't let your sons grow up to be Rebels (take THAT, Skywalker!)

I think that would be pretty neat. Anyone, who says that every video game character isn't gay anyway. I think what we have here, is that rpgrob is gay. I believe he is unsure of his own sexual preferences though, and so he pretends that he is against that. I think that rpgrob should respond again, telling Thor all of his problems and coming out with the truth. That is the only way that he will ever accept who he is.

Check this out

Main Entry: popápet
Pronunciation: 'pŠ-p&t
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English popet -- more at PUPPET
Date: 15th century
1 a Midland : DOLL b obsolete : MARIONETTE
2 chiefly British : DEAR
3 a : an upright support or guide of a machine that is fastened at the
bottom only b : a valve that rises perpendicularly to or from its seat 

You know the profile of the standard type of the wannabe Japanese person: American or Canadian, always refer to RPGs by their Japanese name, and often do the same with the characters names as well. To them is is sacrilege to ever rename a character in an RPG. They also love anime, and are trying to learn Japanese. This breed is harmless, but the next type I will speak about is not.

The second type of wannabe Japanese person has all or most of the above qualities, but, there is a small, but important difference. These people are the ones who complain about translations. I am not the people who are sick of dry dialogue and grammatical errors, that group includes just about everyone. I am talking about the people who say "I am sick of WD butchering RPGs, I am sick of 'Localization', I want a direct word for word translation with Japanese cultural references that I will not understand, so maybe I will be more Japanese." Their complaints are completely out of laziness. Their thinking is "I don't want to learn Japanese, but I want to play the same exact game the Japanese play, so I can be more like the cool Japanese players." They are the minority, but they are loud, especially on the internet.

Do you agree with my view? Or do you think these people are in the right in their expectations of the translators?

Jaba, the main character, is a heartless mercenary that prefers to kill people rather than capturing them. This makes him the most feared mercenary in the land of S'Presso, a kingdom that has already conquered half the world. His girlfriend, a ditzy, airhead, blonde and pink polka-dotted colored hair, who's name is S'Prtzr, was kidnapped by the emporer of S'Presso, Emperor Mo'Kha, to be his wife. Jaba is happy by this turn of events, because it was S'Prtzr who decided to be his girlfriend. Not him. This prevented Jaba from having to brutally murder S'Prtzr because of how annoying she is to him. Unfortunately, after S'Prtzr was taken away, and to the great shame of Jaba, she publicly told the world during the announcement of her wedding to the Emperor that she and Jaba were in love. It was also at that time that the Emperor Mo'Kha announced to the world that coffee, and all of it's variant, is now the sacred and can only be drunk by the Emperial family of S'Presso. Angered by this turn of events, actually angry because of the new rule about coffee and the fact that S'Presso will soon conquer the world, thus depriving the world's population from all forms of coffee, Jaba has taken it upon himself to kill the Emperor, and hopefully S'prtzr along with him, and allow the rest of the world to crink coffee. OK, so he wants to kill the Emperor so HE can drink coffee again, and S'Prtzr because now everyone thinks that they are in love.

And so, this is where the story begins, as an epic quest of epic proportions about a middle-aged man (OK, so he's 50 years old, there's nothing wrong with that!) that will go against an entire empire just so he can save the woman of his dreams, and allow the rest of the world to finally gain peace from the oppressive and wicked Kingdom of S'Presso! It is this that everyone in the world believes, but in truth Jaba is just about ready to kill himself because that is what everyone thinks. All he wants to do is just kill the Emperor, and S'Prtzr as a bonus, and finally be able to sit back and just relax with a nice cup of coffee and enjoy his retirement from mercenary work. Hey what do you expect, he's 50 years old?!

As he go about his quest, actually his personal vendetta and revenge, he will meet many new friends, acquaintences actually (he's really anti-social, comes with being a mercenary ever since he was 8 years old and having everyone but him die), who shall help him defeat the Emporer, and hopefully brutally murder S'Prtzr, unless she latches onto someone else, and allow him to finally drink coffee in relative piece.

This is for the guy who asked about Final Fantasy sheet music. I know I'm a bit late and someone (BioHazard) gave some URL's with sheet music, but I have some additional info, so hear me out. One of BioHazard's links was to Final Fantasy Square at http://bigsun.wbs.net/homepages/c/h/i/chiba1/ which contains scores for Final Fantasy III through VI. This site also has scores from Final Fantasy Piano Collections but I'll get to that later.

The scores from FFIII - FFVI come from piano books published by Doremi Publishing, a Japan-based music publisher. Doremi publishes books which contain sheet music for the OSV's of various games, including FF1-7, Chrono Trigger, some Seiken Densetsu, and even some non-RPG's such as Super Mario, and Super Metroid. However, the above link does not have nearly the number of songs on that the book by Doremi has. I located the FFVI OSV sheet music book at a Japanese book store called Kinokuniya, and am pretty sure they still have them in stock (not only FFVI, but all Doremi books, of course you can always special order) . There is a listing of US store locations with addresses, and phone numbers here at http://www.kinokuniya.com/store.html

However, there is one problem with these music books. Since the OSV's were written for entire orchestras the songs must be simplified in order to be able to play with your two hands on the piano :-). However, Doremi made a big mistake in that they simplified it WAY too much. Not only are they way too simple but certain subtleties that defined Uematsu's wonderful style were lost. I guess they were aimed towards children, so unless youre a beginner at the piano, you'll be bored quite easily.

However, you can always get the Final Fantasy Piano Collections. Much easier said than done, but then you can obviously "illegally" download from the FInal Fantasy Square site :-) If you do happen to find one in a store, I congratulate you. But this is actually a cd bundled with a music book with piano sheet music specially arranged by Square (I think by Uematsu himself). But, this means that only certain songs were chosen to be arranged for piano, and they are changed slightly, they don't sound exactly like the songs in the OSV. Some are pretty close, but others.... well, just don't cut it IMO. Oh and by the way, all of the sheet music from Final Fantasy in the BioHazard's first two links (I couldn't connect to the third) are from either Doremi, or the Piano Collections, but I'm sure Kinokuniya would have the other books listed at BioHazard's second site.

So here you go Thor, and all of you RPG music enthusiasts. I know I've thrown at you a lot of info, but keep in mind that it took me about 3 months of wildly searching on the Internet, in Newsgroups, and at local music stores for all of this information. (I purchased my FFVI music book about a year ago) So I hope you guys print this letter.

Thank you,

I cannot apologize enough for this delay. What I initially planned on delivering to you in two weeks or less, has doubled. With my computer deciding to dispose of it's Windows directory (Normally, I'd applaud such initiative.) , it managed to wreak havok with all of my computer-related endevours and put a serious crimp in my scheduling plans.

But here, at long last, is a legible copy of the 6th Revision rules for your enjoyment. What I've sent you is a smattering of the actual rules document; enough should be contained within that anyone can make a character from one of about 8 classes, and play to about the 10th level of experience. Although I've tried to send a complete workable set of the rules, in removing some things (Like the Range & Area rules, Engineering Designs & Contstruction, etc.) I may have inadvertantly made the game seem more like "Final Fantasy Paper-based Emulation" rather than an actual RPG.

Also, since the game was initially built upon Final Fantasy IV's campaign scenario, you will notice throwbacks to earlier revision days in the form of FFIV referrences, especially in the instances of the Pig, Toad, Hummingway & Lunarian.

I suppose I should just stop rambling, especially about any inadiquacies this beta may have. This is the first release of the game beyond my personal circle of friends, so I guess I'm just jittery about it's reception by the masses. I hate this feeling.

Uh, it's also in Wordpad format. (*.doc) I should have simply sent it in a text format, but I found that it's a little easier to decipher with the bolds and italics that Wordpad offered. I dunno if you'll wanna ship it as is, convert it to a txt file, or htmlize it. I'll leave those decisions in your hands. The real 6th Revision is for WordPerfect 8, and I figured that *.doc would be a little more commonplace.

Also, I don't have stats for a Moogle race (There were no Moogles in FFIV) ; as you alluded to wanting to play in your response to the initial letter. But if I were to make some up off the top of my head, I'd have to say:

Moogle
Statistical Maximums: Str.:99, Agil.:80, Vit.:99, Wis.:80, Will:99
Abilities: +10 to Hit% w/Spear. GM Discretion: Limited Flight (1 round/min in air for 5 rounds/mins of being grounded immediately afterwards.)

Anyways, I am thinking that this letter itself is best left addressed to you alone. Most everything I have to say to people who might want to DL it can be found in the first few pages of the file anyways. Lastly, thanks for correcting my day of the week blunder in my previous letter. ^_^ Have a nice night, Mr.Antrim.

Respectfully,