Kahgani:
Err, never really heard of it, hehe.

Googleshng:
Me either. That's a band that's less than 12 years old, right?

Kahgani:
I don't have any of the DW's for the GB yet, I am dying to get them though. Just another opinion which is pushing me to go get some.

Googleshng:
I haven't gotten any of the GBC DW remakes for a number of reasons, including not having a GBC at the time, being broke, and having a major qualm with them watering down the difficulty so much. Taking the prices down is one thing, but making the monsters easier to kill removes the attrition that gave DW1 all it's challenge... and let's face it, challenge is all it had going for it. DW3 I liked the first time though, and I hear they did some really nice stuff with the remake, but I'm still holding off for now.

Kahgani:
I was sick with the stomach flu a couple weeks ago. I would have rather have rather have gone to work than get sick. That even caused me to miss my first guest hosting spot.

Googleshng:
That's where the expression comes from. Although an actual double bladed sword isn't going to cut the guy swinging it, so really it's a pretty stupid expression.

Kahgani:
I am pretty good, tired from work, but who isn't huh?

Googleshng:
I've been finishing all of this week's columns around 7 AM, then I get woken up at noon. Need to catch up on sleep this weekend.

Kahgani:
Ya, I noticed the same thing about his site, so I really don't know either. Maybe Good, being the regular staff member, will know.

Googleshng:
People type Good instead of Goog all the time... since your finger doesn't need to leave the G it must be psychological. Anyway though, to quote Thor himself "Libraries have restricted read access from the A: drive. Meaning I can't update THoR much anymore." "In between updates, I'll write grumblettes on LiveJournal." So there you have it. For the record, he's currently taking a break from the LiveJournal updating to write a short story. Presumably, he'll take a break from that to write a single e-mail to someone, thus ending the chain, and will update everything in Last In First Out order. In other words, it'll probably be a while until he touches the page again, and I still have the rules to M:tG memorized after all these years.

Kahgani:
Everclear, their music is so diverse and never fails to put a smile on my face.

Googleshng:
Favorite band? So... it can't be a single person. Good, that makes it easy. They Might Be Giants. I don't think a single runner up still exists as an interesting side note.

Kahgani:
I searched and searched, and the only site that seems to have it, is the GIA. Unfortunately, they are MIA at the moment. So until they are back up, I don't see a fair chance of finding it, maybe Goog will have better luck.

Googleshng:
I have kept a copy of the Chuchu Rocket commercial
RIGHT HERE
ever since it first surfaced. I know I've linked to it in past columns, and a rant, and never plan to yank it down. Although I did just notice that the rant link broke along with the rpguru->ask symlink when we moved to this server. I'd better fix that.

Kahgani:
ah, your my favorite letter of the week, you remembered me. :) Xenogears! Get Xenogears! With Xenosaga in the works, Xenogears will become the next Final Fantasy Tactics: $80 on eBay. It is a really great game though. Very long and a very involving story which I thought was wonderful.

Googleshng:
In these situations, you should always go with the older game. It'll be harder to get later.

Kahgani:
Game Boy Advance games all the way. The GBA is basically hosting Nintendo's greatest hits. Games like Street Fighter 2, Mario Kart, Mario Advance(plus the second Mario Advance, which is Super Mario World for the SNES), Castlevania, F-Zero, etc. You just can't beat that type of lineup, even for it's initial release, it's only going to get better from there.

Googleshng:
Really it depends on what games you want and how bad you want'em. Assuming that doesn't leave a clear victor though, considering you must have at least $300 and a GBA if those are your options. I'd say buy the cube, one game for it, and one GBA game. Then you have one game that's portable, and one game that doesn't suck batteries. Plus since GBAs can hook up to GCs, there might be a built in virtual gameboy deal... that reminds me, I need to go look at Spaceworld coverage.

Kahgani:
Can you believe I am the guest host and Google never even told me? There goes my plan to blackmail Google into letting me guesthost more.

Googleshng:
The world needs my gender? It can have it I suppose. Not like I'm doing much with it. I can't imagine what it would need it FOR though...

Kahgani:
Yah, multiple questions, I like these. Well, Fei has a three button combo(including the X) for the last two of his combo's, the rest of the characters have a four button combo. Other than giving you the button combinations, that's about all I can think of.

Googleshng:
Your problem is that you have to be less patient. Only Fei gets every possible Death Blow combination. Everyone else has only 2-4 of the 7 AP ones. General rule of thumb, if the next one doesn't appear before you master the one you're on, it's time to give up on it.

Kahgani:
Well, except for the fact that Zero was released on the NES, and Earthbound was release on the SNES(better graphics aside) not too much is different. Here is what I learned: Magicant is prominent in Zero, but in the US version it is not. Also in Zero, only three party members are allowed instead of four members. One boss, I think Gigyas, is defeated by praying in the US version. In Zero, he(named Giegue in Zero) is defeated by singing.

Googleshng:
I have absolutely no idea what Kahgani is talking about there. Here's how the Earthbound series goes: In Japan, a game called Mother came out on the Famicom, which was never released in the US.
Mother 2, on the Super Famicom, was released in the US as Earthbound.

People in the US often refer to the original Mother as Earthbound 0, since it's easier than saying "The game that Earthbound was the sequel to that we never got."

In any case, I'm reasonably certain that the two games are connected in the Final Fantasy sense. No real plot connection, but the general theme, list of monsters, and so on are the same. In any case, there was never an NES Earthbound.

Kahgani:
I never really played much of Saga Frontier II, never had the chance to pick it up and was never really interested in it. I thought Final Fantasy was hard for me, though I enjoyed it more than almost any other RPG I have played. And any of the Dragon Warrior games I thought were tough as well. hehe, just about all games on the NES seemed super hard, but I am sure if played them now I would be much better at them.

Googleshng:
I haven't had a chance to play SaGa Frontier, despite several people saying they'd mail me their copies just to be rid of them. I did play every other SaGa game released in this country at least a little (they were called the Final Fantasy Legend series here by the way), and actually finished the third, which is in most people's opinions the most fun and least sadistic. Makes me wonder how the Romancing SaGas are. As for hard old RPGs, absolutely anything released on the NES or SMS, and Phantasy Star 2.

Kahgani:
I am bad at quotes, so if you are right, have a star *. But if you are wrong, well, don't have a star. Ok, I am not that good at giving net gifts huh?

Googleshng:
I can't think of anything else it's from off hand...

Kahgani:
Well, I am a temporary staff member, hehe, so I wouldn't mind a lemonade. Though I am not going to the Con, since I am on the West Coast and have little money, hehe. Though I love Pen & Paper RPG's, I don't really have anyone to play with at the moment, but I snatch up the chance when I can.

Googleshng:
Considering I once had over half the staff as players in an AD&D campaign I was DMing at one point, I can safely say most of us like paper RPGs. As for DragonCon, the only one of us crazy enough to fly to Atlanta in the summer is the head hancho, Mikel Tidwell. Unless sleep deprivation is messing with my memory, he goes there every year.

Kahgani:
Well, once I turned 18 my parents really didn't care much about the consoles I owned. But if you are under 18, the one thing that gave me unlimited play time and as many games/consoles as I wanted was good grades in school. I learned the hard way though that bad grades get it all taken away. But once I had my grades back up, I had a NES, SNES, PSX and Gameboy. hehe, so I hate to say it, but study! Or you could put away a console you use the least and just bring it out when you want to play it. Since parents don't know much about the consoles(PS and PS2 get confused easily), I suggest putting the PSX away, since the PS2 plays most PSX games anyways.

Googleshng:
I don't quite have the right background to answer that question. My mom bought me an Atari when I was about a year or two old, and at the moment, I can see 7 consoles from this chair, and those are just the ones I have hooked up at the moment. There's 3 more behind me. I suppose you could point me out as an example. After all, I've been buying new consoles and playing games my entire life and I turned out just fine! It's not like I'm some creepy shut-in who just spends every waking moment playing and talking about ga- hmm. You know, on second thought, maybe you SHOULDN'T use me as an example. So I guess the best advice I can give you is this: Since the PSX2 is backwards compatable, you can sell your PSX, and then you'd still only have 2 consoles.

Now, as for SoA, the good news is, that was one of the hardest bosses in the game. The bad news is, a couple of the others are MUCH tougher. Just make sure you keep people learning silver and green spells, and getting those special moves, and you shouldn't break into TOO many sweats. 8)

Kahgani:
Sesame Street games? Really? Now that you mention it, I don't think I have seen that many PC games for Sesame Street, but I am sure they are out there. I wonder what the games were about though, probably teaching games more than, well, real games. Never heard of Slayers though, not that much of a Anime fan, if in fact it is anime. Guess this is geared more towards Goog.

Googleshng:
I will always be amazed at the ability of the human brain to pull out such unbelievably obscure and useless facts as that just to rub in people's faces. Thanks! As for Slayers, well, I own all 81 translated episodes and the first movie, which means that aside from taking up a disturbing amount of shelf space, Slayers comprises over half the anime I actually own. So in other words, I like it quite a bit. 8)

Kahgani:
Hmm, where did you hear that? I knew it was pushed back but I never knew why. Though I wouldn't mind for it to be dubbed instead of subbed. Plus it gives them more time to work on any minor niches in the game. I don't even own a PS2 yet, so I am in no hurry for it.

Googleshng:
Hmm... I was somewhat hoping that FF10 would give an option. On the other hand, the english voices in The Bouncer seem to fit a lot better than the Japanese ones, and most people prefer the english singer for Xenogears' ending song, so if we're stuck with one or the other, we might be better off with the dub. Of course, this December another highly anticipated game is coming out which may be more to your liking...

Kahgani:
Well, I don't care either way to be honest with you. Shen Mue was not one of my favorites, so I really changes made to the second are no big deal. I would rather have no voices in the game instead of screwed up voices in the game. Atleast that will give them time to focus on gameplay some more, and might allow for a earlier release date.

Googleshng:
First off, let me just clear up the issue since it's muddled by wording here. Shenmue 1 was dubbed for the US release, Shenmue 2 is getting subtitled instead. On the one hand, it seems odd to make a switch like that during an episode break of a single story, but on the other hand, it WAS really creepy walking around an extremely realistic Japanese suburb with everyone speaking perfect english until they hit a pronoun, then switching to seriously overpronounced Japanese. Particularly with the little kids.

By the way, I'd like to take this oppertunity to salute Sacnoth for using all english dialog in Koudelka, with subtitles in the Japanese release. I always prefer to hear the language actually spoken in the setting of a game/movie/whatnot.

A couple parting thoughts before burying this issie. First, you two should really consider checking out eachother's games, just because of the odd coincidence I got both these letters within a minute of eachother. Second, a while ago RPGamer ran a poll on whether people prefered subtitles to dubbing, and subtitles won out by a pretty wide margin.