Renidragon:
1) I, for one, was never terribly wild about Earthbound. I liked some of the things about it, but modern-day RPGs generally don't grab me.

Googleshng:
Hey, a letter from someone I've actually met! That's a pretty darn rare occurance! Earthbound actually got quite a bit of press when it first came out as I recall. The press it got was really weird though, emphasizing the fact that it came with a scratch and sniff strategy guide, and the... unique... graphical style. So while people heard about it, they stayed the heck away.

Renidragon:
2) Because Nintendo isn't the most BRILLIANT of companies... always.

Googleshng:
Well, first it was going to be a 64DD game, then they scrapped the 64DD. Then they started to retool it to work as a standard cart, and evidently, it was either taking so long or coming out too big that they just said to heck with it.

Renidragon:
3) Can't answer that one for ya.

Googleshng:
Well, as I recall, they left Ness in Super Smash Bros. Melee, which strikes me as reason enough to hope that the aborted sequel will get retooled into a Gamecube game. Here's hoping at least. I for one could REALLY use another dose of that sort of insanity.

Renidragon:
1) It's pretty different. In the original DW, the A button would bring up the menu (not a menu... THE menu), from which you would select Talk, Item, Spell, Search, Stair, Door, Status and Take. Following DW games took out Door, Stair and Take, and added an Equip option. The first DW didn't have that because you carried one weapon, one armor and one weapon - the ones you had equipped.

Googleshng:
I believe he meant helmet for one of those, and I believe you meant GBC vs. NES. To my understanding, the interface was brought to the GBC in all it's cumbersome glory. The big difference is that they tweaked all the numbers so you don't have to walk in tight circles killing 150 slimes before you can really do anything and such... just, like, 75 slimes.

Renidragon:
2) I don't know what to think about DW 7, really. I had never actually owned any DW games except for the first, until recently, when I got DW 1 and 2. I want to get DW 3 as soon as it comes out. I played it on NES, ALMOST got to Baramos, and had to return it to the friend I had borrowed it from.

Googleshng:
The DW series is seriously rooted in tradition, so es, 7 should have pretty much the same feel as the rest.

Renidragon:
3) Well, DW4 was also NES, but as far as I know, it wasn't as popular as the others. I could be wrong, though. If it is re-released for a Game Boy system, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the GBC. Since 5 and 6 were never released stateside, the current DW games will have to sell pretty well in order to convince Enix to translate them and send them stateside.

Googleshng:
Here's the funny thing. Chances are, right now, I could get ahold of someone at Enix and find out the answer to this question. However, if I did so, I'd be sworn to secrecy and have to give a less informative answer than I can by just using simple deduction. You can pretty much assume that DW4 will be ported to the GBC, since it would just be kind of sick to port over the first 3 NES games and then skip the last. 5 and 6 will most likely then be ported to the GBA, since again, why stop just short of everything? If so, you can be sure they'll come out in the US too. The current GBC ports all have completely redone translations, so it wouldn't be any more work for them.

Renidragon:
These are things you never really say, you only type them out. I'd probably stumble pronouncing MY name. Ren-ee-drag-on, Ren-ih-drag-on... OK, it's actually the latter, this is only an excuse to get out of the question.

I just looked it up today. DW3 on GBC is due out July 17th. The 18th if you live in New Jersey (like me) unfortunately...

I don't know answers to the rest of your questions... although I don't think Crave was part of Square. For some reason I'm associating them with Tomb Raider. I don't know why.

Googleshng:
Yes, this week's title quotes have been commandeered in order to subtley promote the rerelease of DW3. Anyway though, as for my name, well, I've never been in a position where I've had to pronounce my own name, so I couldn't really tell you. Finally, I don't know why Reni associates Crave with Tomb Raider either. Tomb Raider is made by Eidos. Crave is composed primarily of Square's US employees that all quit around the time work on FF7 started. This is why FF7's translation sucks.

Renidragon:
ROMs are not bad, in and of themselves. However, downloading them can be illegal. The rule is, so I understand, that you may NOT download any ROM that you do not own the original game for. That also means that if you bought FFA, and thought, "Hey, I've got FF5 now, it's OK to grab the Japanese SNES ROM and play the translated version of that!" you're wrong. For the FF5 ROM to be legal, you'd have to import it. However, there are all sorts of freeware ROMs out there.

Still, I think it's a question of conscience. If you think it's wrong to disobey the law in any way, shape or form, stay away from this stuff. I personally think that the NES and SNES are dead. No new games are in production, no new games will be developed by major companies. No one will lose money if I download NES or SNES ROMs. Still, I keep it down to hard-to-find or translated games.

Whew. Favorite NES game... I'm going to have to go with Crystalis. I liked it even more than the first Zelda.

Long letters are NOT a bad thing, buddy. No worries.

Googleshng:
90% of all things emulation related are illegal. Fan translations aren't, under certain conditions. Anyone can take a game (or movie, or TV series) that has never been translated, write their own translation, and pass it around willy-nilly. What they can't pass around is the actual translated work. So, while a big long text file with the translated text of, say, SD3, is all well and good. Downloading a patched translated ROM is illegal. It is however legal to make and distribute the patch itself, and if you actually own the Japanese cart of SD3, you can take the rom of it, slap that patch on, and play it all you want, just as long as no roms of SD3 are being sent to anyone who doesn't own the physical cart. Once something has been officially translated however, as I understand it, it's no longer legal for fans to do their own translations. I'm fairly certain that official translations don't retroactively make earlier fan translations illegal though, so if you imported FF5 and slapped on a translation patch, that would still be kosher. I should point out thought that my whole schpiel here is getting into the nasty specifics of international copyright law, so unless anyone reading this is a lawyer who specializes in the field and is bored enough to verify all this, bear in mind I might be wrong on a couple points. Anyway though, if I had to pick a top 3 NES games, I'd have to say in no particular order, Crystalis, Zelda, and Metroid. I realize I should list SMB3 also, but at least on the NES I had at the time, SMB3 quite frankly was longer than the ammount of time it took my NES to freeze from being on too long. It was definately the longest NES game without a battery.

Renidragon:
I plan to keep my games until I die. But that's just my plans right now.

Googleshng:
Actually, we AREN'T the first generation to collect anime and RPGs... if you count paper RPGs at least. AD&D came out in the 70s, and there was something of an underground anime following in the US back then too. So, it's entirely possible to meet someone in their 40s or 50s who has been playing RPGs and/or collecting anime since they were a teenager. In fact, I personally have met a few. Their habits are still going strong. Throwing another generation into the mix is dicier I suppose, and I can tell you right now I personally am never going to be in the situation of having a kid of my own. Still, I have a new year old cousin, and a friend of mine just became an uncle, and those two babies are young enough to be my kids. When they're old enough to appreciate this sort of thing, assuming by some sick twist of fate they turn out interested in dull stuff like sports and TV, I'm going to be sure they both play and watch all the classics, and fully intend to debate the merits of said classics vs. new stuff. I think I speak for at least a thin majority of people on the matter too.

Renidragon:
This also applies to the GBC Dragon Warrior games. Nice formatting.

Googleshng:
If the GBC remakes use that same handy feature, I suppose that makes my reply up there a few letters slightly wrong. I'd just go correct it but it's 4:30 AM and I still have a lot of letters to get through before I pass out. Anyway though, it's good to know I won't have to pull up a menu and pick stairs if I ever get around to playing DW7. Thanks for the info.

Renidragon:
I don't have a PS2, but Orphen was one of the games that I would have wanted to get if I ever got one. Then I heard bad reviews. I've heard nothing but bad things in general about PS2 RPGs. I'm sad. I've got a bunch of great PSX RPGs, and my system is on the fritz. Would be nice if I had more reason to buy a PS2.

Googleshng:
I can't help but wonder how my birthday came up, oh wait. Mentioned in a rant, linked to rants recently. Anyway, I have yet to hear of any PSX2 game that isn't really short and fairly shallow... not that's out now at least... actually I hear Dark Cloud has SOME length to it, so I guess there's one. Still, at this point it's pretty much all flash and no meat. As far as checking out the anime of Orphen goes, that'd probably be a good bet in your situation yeah.