Just wanted your thoughts on a couple of things:

1)What are you expecting from this new Sony RPG? Is this one going to be good, or will it be as villified and hated as Legend of Dragoon seems to be?

ANDREW Well, to hear the boardies tell it, this game is already going to suck, no matter what information Sony brings out about it, and it's clearly just a ripoff of Drakengard. Fortunately, what boardies say tends to be of the profoundest disinterest to me, and so I'm willing to wait and see (although those screen captures in that propaganda piece we posted didn't look particularly great.)

2)This isn't necessarily RPG related, but have you had a chance to pick up the new Mega Man Collection yet? I thought it was really good, and I really think more companies should take a cue from this and release similar compilations. How does a Castlevania compilation sound? Or Contra? Ninja Gaiden perhaps? Ah...FINAL FANTASY! SEIKEN DENSETSU! DRAGON WARRIOR! SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOG!

Robust Stu
Gold Reviewer/Swell Guy

ANDREW Well, I went to EB today to gaze longingly at it, but in the end, I just couldn't justify spending money on it, for the simple reason that I'm broke-ass poor. Otherwise, it would be safely within my GameCube, whirring gloriously as we speak.

But now I have a predicament. The last RPG I played through was FFX-2, when it was still rather new. Now I have choices. I've owned Xenosaga and Suikoden 3 for a while now and have not brushed the surface of either of them. Which would be the best to tackle first? Which do you think is more enjoyable? Or should I just go back and replay some old PS1 RPGs like Xenogears... so many choices.

ANDREW As I currently rate the enjoyability of Xenosaga somewhere on par with having red-hot bamboo jammed under my fingernails, I'm going to go with Suikoden 3, although I am admittedly biased in the matter.

On another note, I'm considering buying a Gamecube just to play Tales of Symphonia. It looks really really nice and colorful. And what else do you need in an RPG than nice and colorful?

Well... hopefully this e-mail of reentry into the world of RPGamer wasn't too needy.

Grumm

ANDREW Not at all, my dear Grumm, not at all. You should definitely buy that GameCube, and not just because my soul is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nintendo, but because in addition to ToS, there are also a number of fine games including Metroid Prime, Wind Waker, and of course the aforementioned Mega Man Collection. Well, you can get that for the PS2, but as I said, my soul is already spoken for.

As of lately i noticed that there has a big down fall of incoming letters. It pains me to see that people are running out of things to Ask. I remember a time that each new column was home of about 10 to 12 letters now its aroud 5 or 6 tops plus a few quickies*Sighs the good old days* well on to my question

What is your opinion on Star Wars Knights of the old Republic 2?

Do you think that KOTOR 2 Will be better then its previous installment? or do you think it will be same s**t diffrent day?

thanks for reading my letter

-Tonberryking

ANDREW I haven't really heard too much about KotOR 2, and while it's well beyond the "glimmer in George Lucas's gravy-encrusted eye" stage of the proceedings, there really haven't been all that many details that I can sink my teeth into. I'd have to assume it will be fairly similar to its predecessor, at least in terms of mechanics; KotOR was pretty standard D&D stuff, so I can't see LucasArts messing around with the classics (although this is the company that was responsible for Episode 1, so I suppose you can never be sure.)

Make cell phones do more things? I say, yes! I was looking at the new cell phone that’s already out in Japan and featured in the Final Fantasy VII sequel, and I’ve got to say: WHAT THE HELL (heck? I’m not sure if I should censor myself)!?!? Honestly, what the hell. A TWO mega-pixel camera that takes video with a competent flash? Whyyy… why must cell phones that won’t be available here for forever be so much better than the camera I own, let alone my crappy-ass cmos enabled cell phone. I don’t even give a crap about cell phone games, why am I being charged extra for text messages? You’d think they’d take up much, much, much less network traffic than an conversation would… I hate US cell phone companies… with an undying passion.

ANDREW Ah, take up much less network traffic they may, but expecting logic when price gouging can take place is fool's folly at best. I agree, though, that having a 2.0 megapixel camera in my phone would be pretty cool, but then again, I already have a nice digital camera that takes up pretty much the same amount of space as my cellphone, so really, I'm pretty covered as it is (and like you, couldn't give a flying puck about cellphone games.)

By the way, what FFVII rumors?

- Feep "NES, GB, SNES, N64, GBA, GCN, NDS..."

ANDREW If you can't make your way through Shin Megami Tensei, I dunno if you're gonna be able to handle two screens, my friend. Even so, the SMT titles that have made it over here have been dubbed Persona in some cases, so perhaps your prayers will be answered. Even so, it appears "Atlus" is stymying you too, so maybe I'm just kidding myself... Anyway, the rumours I speak of are the ones concerning an FFVII game featuring everyone's favorite broody vampire wannabe, Vincent. At this point, the rumours are limited to some highly dicey speculation based on VJump reporting that since S-E apparently has plans to release the "FFVII Perfect Collection" or something, that it stands to reason that there must be yet another game. I'm not so sure why they'd make this logical leap; after all, Square IS the company that spat on the word Anthology by including a paltry two games under its heady auspices, and then made a mockery of the term Collection by collecting only one Final Fantasy title; but then again, all that was a North American phenomenon, so perhaps they just haven't seen how grubby Square Enix can be.

Moving on, I read in the Playstation Magazine that Squeenix scrapped the Final Fantasy PS1 remakes. Have they changed there minds? That would be sooooo awesome but unlikely. Squeenix has a nasty habit of getting my hopes up, then crushing, burning, spitting, breaking, beating, flushing them down the swirling vortex of pain, bringing back the remains, freezing them in my cold frig of depression, throwing them through my window, and smashing them against my shakey walls of dismay all the while taunting my bleeding heart. Case and point, Final Fantasy X-2. But I digress.

ANDREW Consider your heart crushed; so far as I know, the PS1 remakes are in permanent limbo.

Next topic, I was reading something very interesting the other day. It was basically the same old conversation of how games aren't the way they used to be and whine whine whine. But the dude did make a point that I agreed with. Ahem, "...But recent RPG's have been seriously missing the traditional fundamental things about them. World maps, exploration - all the small things are suddenly being replaced for glamorous and glossy graphics..." I thought about that for a moment and realized that there have been some games lately that don't have that exploration feel or world maps. Whether that's a bad thing, I'm not so sure. I like good graphics. Exploring a continent wouldn't be so much fun if all the pixals were meshed together. Final Fantasy X, for example, doesn't have the world map that you can walk or fly the airship around manually but if you walk through the places, it does have a sense of exploration it's just very limited. The path is sort of set for you. You can't veer off into the trees or anthing like that, which does take away the exploration feel of the game. But that is just how linear RPG's are, especially now in days. Yet the more I think about it the more I think that would be pretty cool. Kind of that go anywhere, do anything feeling of exploration would be neat. I'm sure there are plenty of rencently released Rpgs out there that have the exploration feel to it but I can't think of any. Is there a RECENT RPG that has both an involving story and also the ability to scope a map and search for the next place you were directed to go?

-The Lizard

ANDREW Most recently? Tales of Symphonia, which is a classic RPG right down to its fingertips. I think that's probably one of the reasons I was enjoying it so much before I had to bring it back (one day late, mind you!): while it wasn't anything particularly special, RPGs have been missing all the traditional elements lately, and so it was nice to play a game that was so... familiar. I highly recommend it.

MMORPG: Stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

People frequently abbreviate this as MMO. They are saying, in effect, Massively Multiplayer Online. Let me quote a recent Email you got, from Eggman, who has a very good point, if his abbreviations DO make me want to chank him in the neck. Only in this, I will replace his use of MMO with the spelled out version:

"With an Massively Multiplayer Online, you are dealing with hundreds to thousands of players, and a persistant world. How much fun would the Massively Multiplayer Online be if everytime you logged on, you had to start the world fresh all over again? Remember, in an Massively Multiplayer Online, the character data, property, changes to the world etc are all persistant. In an FPS they are not. This means that in the Massively Multiplayer Online you have hundreds or thousands of characters..." etc, etc.

See how damn stupid he sounds? I know that Mortis already did this, but he was RIGHT. I mean, is it really so freaking difficult to add the RPG after the first three letters? Crap, just do it already! It saves me aggravation, and keeps YOU from looking like some jackass who wants to seem on top of the abbreviation market. Now, Eggman, since I've already insulted you, I'd like to say that I do agree completely that you should get the expansions for free, since chances are I've already paid you 15 bucks a month or more, for over a year, for the game. Though, of course, I will be pimped by World of Warcraft, as soon as it's released. So while I wish I didn't have to, I will. It's like being a whore! A whore for Azeroth! Well, Castomel, take care. And if anyone writes in talking about MMOs, kick him in the nuts for me, okay? Thanks.

Aggravatedly yours, Kenny the C.

ANDREW I gotta tell you, Kenny - I tend to use the ol' MMO myself, and while you could kick the "a MMO" vs "an MMO" debate around a while to no real good use, I really don't think it's all that galling; I mean, you know it means MMORPG, I know it means MMORPG, and anyone who plays games and reads this column is likely to know that there's an invisible RPG tacked on the end there. Just pretend it's there and stop worrying about it.