CN:
Well Gary,
My thoughts on the matter are,
...
I haven't really given it much thought. I've been playing RPGs for such a long time, that I tend to ignore bad translations, its just part of what you get. ( Or maybe my grammar and punctuation is so bad I don't notice it. -_-; ) Maybe its just me, but I've never really heard of people comment on bad translations. Of course there is Star Ocean 2... The first hour of that game is physically painful to me. "Mr. Claude! Mr. Claude!" Go to hell Rena. Gary, if you don't like the translations that much, send the companies a letter. It'll take up 2 freak'in minutes of your time, and it'll get results. Look what Working Designs does for all its games. But then again, they have a more liberal view on translations. Star Ocean 2 got the literal translation, and look what happened there. But then again, maybe the story was told better. In the end, I'll stick with my Lunar 2's translation. Still, I thought FF9 story was told very well, and Square did a fine job with it.

Googleshng:
Many people have been mentioning how good FF9's translation is. Quite frankly I don't see it myself. Sure, it's error free, but so were FF8 and Xenogears. Honestly the translation if FF9 seems really dry to me. On the other hand, I'm comparing to Skies of Arcadia and Lunar 2 here, which are both translated in EXTREMELY lively manners. I'll have to play some more things with bland translations so I don't get spoiled. 8)

CN:
Wow Jax, thats a really, really long letter. Well, here I go! I used to feel like that, but I only think it happened to me because the RPGs I was getting were, well, sub-par. But with games like CC, FF9, and Lunar 2 out, I've been tearing through them. I wouldn't worry to much about it though. Just play the ones you enjoy.
1. No. I grew out of the Transformers when I was like 8. Sorry. Though I do have a bunch of their toys lying about... (CN had to pause for break while he enacted a epic battle between the Autobots and a bunch of cheesy Dino Rider toys, complete with cheesy explosions sounds.)
10. Not really, since I don't buy them. No, I pick spend all my free cash, (Read, None.), on gaming magazines. Really. I know I should just get a subscriptions but...
11. I listen to everything. EVERYTHING. Its kinda strange. Right now I'm alternating between my Lunar 2 soundtrack and Orbital''s CD, Middle of Nowhere. My favorite style is just singing. Not words mind you, but when its just kind of a background La la la.
100, 101. D&D. I mean, it was bad, but it was so bad that me and my friends laughed all the way through it. Say it with me everyone, NOooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooOOOOOOO!!!
110. Never heard of him. But I've never really like British comedy. 111. This question alone just doubled the size of the column. Woohoo. And I'm not going to rate them, gods no, that would require some thought, and my Lunar 2 is calling to me. Instead, I'll just tell you what I thought of it. 00000 Alundra- Like death by the metric ton? Go for it.
00001 Alundra 2- Haven't played.
00010 Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain- Groovy game, confusing maps.
00011 Brave Fencer Musashi- People with no noses rule.
00100 Breath of Fire III- Got a free summer? Spend it on this one.
00101 Chocobo's Dungeon 2- Its...its...go play Diablo instead. Trust me.
00110 Chrono Cross- Good game, go beat it!
00111 Discworld II: Mortality Bytes!- They made games?! I just started reading Jingo for gods sakes!
01000 Final Fantasy VII- Just beat it. Its not THAT bad.
01001 Final Fantasy VIII- Throw this away. I hate this game. Hate hate hate it.
01010 Final Fantasy IX- The ending renews my faith in Square.
01011 Front Mission 3-Haven't played.
01100 Grandia- Looooooong. But fun!
01101 Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu-Go set fire to your hair. It'll be more entertaining.
01110 Legend of Mana- My rabite bit me. Its all good.
01111 Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete- Excellent, go play now!
10000 Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete- I'm playing it now. Its top notch.
10001 Parasite Eve- Its no FF, but I enjoyed it.
10010 SaGa Frontier- Its not THAT bad. Try it!
10011 SaGa Frontier 2- Ugh. Just ugh.
10100 Shadow Madness- Its like hitting yourself with a wrench. And that hurts.
10101 Star Ocean: The Second Story- Get past the first hour, and this game is very cool.
10110 Suikoden- Unless you race through it, this is another summer taker.
10111 Tales of Destiny- Fun and insanely hard.
11000 Valkyrie Profile- Haven't played. Time limits scare me.
11001 Xenogears- Summer taker, but deep!
There, are you happy?! My fingers are bleeding!

Googleshng:
That is an AWFULLY long letter, and CN really covered it all... so, I'll just say I don't have a DVD player, DO have the remastered uncut version of The Movie, don't have any post-series transformers, and haven't seen a new movie in about a year.

CN:
Thanks for the LoM help, and to answer your name question, I pulled out my FF art book, (Go buy it kiddies! Its groovy!) and they the answer is, they DON'T. Amarant's last name is Coral, and Eikos is Carol. It even says so in the booklet that comes with the game. Sorry, unless you read it in the actual game, you mistaked it, and made an ass of yourself in front of 6000 people. Though I hope that doesn't stop you from sending more letters in Christoph. =p

Googleshng:
Hey, play nice. Anyway, thanks a lot for the LoM info, and for that matter, what the heck Amarant means. I'd been wondering on that. Speaking of Amarant, I find it VERY odd that someone can have all the abilities of a monk, a ninja, and even some samurai thrown in, yet be so unappealing. Maybe it's the lack of character development.

CN:
1. To be honest, I would have rather played Lunar 2 WITHOUT playing Lunar 1. One of the only problems with the game is that they reuse old enemy graphics and such for the battles, and its really a downer. You'll enjoy Lunar 2 without playing Lunar 1, just some moments won't be as surprising for you.
2. Healer, when used on someone, causes there attacks to HEAL what ever they attack. I had this when Dagger was going through her "Quiet Stage" and I thought she was just screwed up. So I stopped using her till the end of the game. Oh well, I know better know. Reflect-Null makes spells that bounce off non-elemental, that way if you reflect a fire spell back on a fire boss, he won't get healed from it. Pretty pointless to have though, I never used it.
3. Jiggypuff all the way. No one can touch that little guy, and I've won countless battles by simply floating to far away, and having my opponent jump to his doom. I love fighting as a wad of gum.
4. I liked Trigger best, if only because, at the time, it was one of the best among such a horrible selection. Nothing will ever beat the Glen Magus face off!

Googleshng:
Healer is really handy to have when everyone's sitting around with Auto-Reflect. Everything else I see has been pretty much covered, except the Smash Bros. bit. I personally tend to use Samus for Stock (REALLY hard to kill, long distance moves), and Luigi for Time (That uppercut move is NICE if you're good at it).

CN:
Um...well you see...uh... I guess to avoid having to decide how much you should get for it. I really have no clue, but it really didn't bug me in FF9. Here, have a tilde, maybe it'll stop you from asking such bizarre questions. ...Damn, I forgot I ripped that button off my keyboard. Have a sweatdrop instead. ;

Googleshng:
That's actually a long standing tradition. In all the odd numbered FFs since 3, bosses give you no EXP, but a lot of AP/JP/whatever. 7 and 8 flip that for some reason though. Anyway, if nothing else, it makes it possible to try and win on level 1, which you have to admit is an interesting challenge.

CN:
CN stands for, ***************. Happy?
My favorite would have to be...Thor, Brad, and Google. And no, I'm not trying to suck up.
...
Much.
...
Oh hell, is it wrong to love a genderless slimes? Hell yes, but that won't stop me from being the president of its fan-club.

Googleshng:
Hmm... considering that I'm on really good terms with a lot of Q&A hosts, I'm going to disqualify myself from answering this one. I'm surprised neither of you mentioned C.C. though... or at least I would be if I hadn't left him out when I was going over everyone in my head, what with him being current and all. Anyway, since I can't answer your question, I think I'll spend this time giving C.C. a huge ego boost by pointing out that everyone I've talked to who's ever run this column thinks he's been doing a great job so far, myself included.

CN:
One word. Freya. A kick ass Dragon Knight, who doesn't need her man by her side to hold her up, (Hell, she drags Fratley even after his...mental problem.) Shes not a romantic lead, and shes IMO the coolest character in FF9. Shes not cold to anyone, but shes a knight, through and through.

Googleshng:
Yes, Freya is definately a good example, and a real spiffy character... who also has the least dialog of anyone on your party it seems... even Quina and Amarant talk more. Then there's Valkyrie Profile. Plenty there. Come to think of it, there's a truckload hiding out on Sega systems. The biggest one though is the original Phantasy Star. Main character's a girl. Motivation is quite simply revenge against the person who had her brother killed. No romance anywhere... pink miniskirt though.

CN:
Well, can't help you with your VP question, but probably no reason, they just wanted to give you a choice. And the EQ bashing is all in good fun, but if it really pains you, I'll make fun of UO for a while. UO suks! i ned regs u gona hep mes?!
Also, never sit in Lord British's chair. It makes the locals very mad. Though one guy asked for a fishing pole, and I gave it to him! He was all like "Thank you oh powerful one is a straw hat" It was groovy.

Googleshng:
It's not from nearly killing something, it's from getting the combo meter past 100. Having everyone attack at once works with most parties. Anyway, the only drawback to using those special moves are that they bring up your CT gauge, which decreases every round and has to be empty to use specials again... so really, no drawback. Oh, and if you think it's impressive now, try it with a mage using an Ether Scepter.

CN:
You got yourself in a Catch 22 there, buddy. Square is going to keep using these plot twists because, (and I hate to say this) we like predictability. Yes its been used, but as long as the villain is fresh, we still love. Look at the ending, we all knew who was on stage but, didn't you just jump from your chair, when he made that announcement? Sorry, your stuck with your predictable plot twists till everyone gets bored of them, and even then, I'm sure some people were surprised with Kuja.

Googleshng:
I agree with CN up to a point. Nostalgia is all well and good, but FF9 seems like some weird attempt at making a "by the book" FF. It's not so much that I know what every plot twist is going to be, but I know WHEN every plot twist is going to be, and the exact degree of shock they'll be designed to provoke. Then there's the fact that every single scene in the game stirs up memories of some of the coolest scenes in earlier FFs. Simply put, I'd rather see something as fresh and exciting as the Opera Scene was when I first saw it than a cute little hat-tip to the Opera Scene.

CN:
1.Yes. That's it. She's Sailor Pluto. -_-;
2. The hammer will trigger a hidden scene at the ending, or can be used to make some groovy armor from Hades. Save the Queen? No idea. But I bought it anyways.
3. You see Freya's face in the ending, and shes kind of a rat-human mix. ...hell, maybe she really is a giant rat. Still cool though. Amarant never made it through one damn boss battle without dying on me. I hate him, even though his throw attack is pretty neat.
4. Can't help you. Regular RPGs are about 60 hours.
5. I hear March, but you know Working Designs. Just play Lunar 2 for now!
6. Yes, and I still have to get a copy. I'm hearing good things about it.
7.Okay, listen to me. Buy all the cool rare items at the Treno auction, sell them to the different buyers. ALL OF THEM. I think theres 4, but I'm not sure. Head back to the auction house, make sure your in disc 4, or it won't work. Magical Finger Nails and now being auctioned, at a really high price. Now just give it that old dude in Dag, and you have yourself the Excalibur!
8. Yes. Lucky us. Considering how I don't have cable, this doesn't include me.
...Damn.
9. A friend of mine bought it and returned it, saying it was awful. So, uh...staaaaaaaay awwwwwaaaay.
10. First of all, don't question what you can't comprehend, mortal. =p
I'm 16, and I make RPGs on OHR, and other RPG Makers, review games constantly, (Though never posted, I'm always trashing them.) write, and play lots of RPGs. And I love Guest hosting! Its so much fun!
11. This dates back to the summons in FF6, where Square liked to mess with people by having the most powerful spell in the game kill you. Um...just don't use it.
12. Well, you don't have to get to Hades, just the balcony in Memoria, and frankly, I don't know if it is possible. Care to try?
13. Level up, weakling. =p
Its probably just an all-purpose healing spell, taken from another enemy.
14. No, hes not. How the hell would I know?! Oh wait, its not for me... -_-;
15. Worst: Parasite Eve 2. I really dislike this game. But Saga Frontier 2 is a close second. FF9, for now. Lunar 2 may beat it...
16. Of course it COULD happen. But it probably won't. Just pick the new system you like best and hang on.

Nice try for the most letters, but you have to ask youself, who the hell would care?

Googleshng:
OK... that's a lot of questions, and it's 5 AM... good thing CN took out most of them. Nobody on the RPGamer staff has BoF4... it's just not a very popular series with us... maybe you'll get your answer tomorrow though. Vanguard Bandits was released way way back when, like a month after FM3. For the record, it's a great game. If Parasite Eve 2 is a valid choice, it is hands down the worst RPG of the year... but then it's not really an RPG at all, just a terrible Survival Horror game, which I normally love may I add. Otherwise, I think I'll actually have to say LoD. It was just so unbelievably generic... still fun though. I actually loved SaGa Frontier 2... up to the end of the game when it becomes impossible and makes you very very bitter. Besides, I'm pretty sure that was actually last year... too lazy to check the date. Best RPG of the year by the way is Skies of Arcadia. Every single person I know of who's played it agrees... and that's quite a few people... I can be pretty persuasive with the guys I hang around with.

Are slimes carbon or silicon based?
-Balbanes Beoulve, the Inquisitive Knight

Dear Google,
You're still alive? Well, I guess you are if you're reading this. I'd just like to say that you're such a cute little sexless slimy thing and that present, as much as I hate to admit it, was really REALLY sweet of you, to let me have a shot at Q&A and all of that.
[And I think we can stop picking on him now, I think we had enough fun tweaking his slimy nose. :)]
Just a thought
Mistress Nightshadow

The Last Laugh: