Matt Demers - 13:31 EST

AHAHAHAHAHAHA...

There is nothing nature can do now! Winter's icy grip is slowly losing its grasp, and the snow and rain of months prior is finally giving way to sunshine and warmer breezes! Today, I even walked partway back from campus just because I had the opportunity to. With the temperature increasing by 11 additional degrees C over the next few days (that's almost 20 extra Fahrenheit degrees!!), winter has virtually no chance at all! The end result is that I'm a very happy host, and as such, I'm going to most generously grant everyone who has already entered the SOCK one additional point!! Feel honoured, all ye. The rest of you readers who feel excluded... well, you should have written in, hmm? NO SOUP FOR YOU, in the words of a certain notorious Seinfeld character. Send me some mail!

With the conclusion of my monologue comes the beginning of the part that isn't my introductory monologue. That part was up to you guys... let's see what you've had to contribute for this day, shall we?

Matt,

Been reading the lastest columns, and decided I needed to chime in.

First off, I noticed you mentioning that you don't play any games that are rated mature. This sparked curiousity. Any particular reason why? Religion? Weak stomach? Haven't found any that are interesting?

I can see how you might not like random street crime games or cookie-cutter first-person shooters, but as a huge Capcom fan, I'm just shocked when someone doesn't like series such as Resident Evil, Onimusha, or Devil May Cry. Especially so because these games feature great stories, a staple in the requirements of most RPGamers.

Second, violence in games. Personally, I don't think it influences people in any significant ways. I played the Mortal Kombat games when I was younger and I never once went out and ripped someone's spine from their body. Nor did the film Terminator 2: Judgement Day cause me to stab everyone around me. If a parent does their job right, a child will learn not only the difference between right and wrong, but the difference between the real world and a game.

Video games have become the new rock and roll or television of yesteryear. Parent groups are looking for a scapegoat to blame the world's problems on, and games are the "in" thing. In a few years, they'll have a new target, and we can forget we ever even had these discussions.

And honestly, have you ever jumped on a group of turtles or slaughtered lizards in your back year with a broadsword? "Violent" games indeed...

Point the third, I have to ask what you people are doing to your consoles and games to not make them work anymore? I have seven different consoles hooked up in my home ranging from the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the Playstation 2, and they all work as well as the day they were bought. I know the "cool" thing to do is to bash Sony for bad craftsmanship, but I've never once had anything break down on me. No flashing screen, no disc read errors, no bad carts.

Maybe it's just me. Have I gotten lucky? Or am I just too careful with my equipment? The loading slots are always closed when not in use, and my games are kept in cases to keep them dust and/or scratch free. I assume everyone uses common sense when dealing with electronics, but I hear so many stories that I wonder sometimes. All I know is that with a little love and care, your games can last a long time, and you won't have any need for...

Emulation! Which happens to be point the fourth. I will admit to playing a few unreleased games here and there, but as a serious game collector, not just player, I usually feel that if you don't care enough about a game to actually own it, you shouldn't be playing it.

I know it sounds a bit harsh, but I'm very passionate about my hobbies, and it really gets under my skin when people download the newest Gameboy Advance game, ot just can't wait to modify their Xbox to play burned games.

A lot of people will argue that older games are hard to find, but they really aren't. You just need to look for them if you want it that bad. They're out there.

The company isn't losing any money? It's still stealing, stop trying to justify it. If you loved Contra so much, you shouldn't have sold it.

For me, it's not about money, it's about being a serious gamer.

Lastly, the theme that's usually in my head is "Matoya's Cave," particulary the Black Mages' rendition. That's good stuff right there.

Thanks for the time,
~ J

That IS a good theme, and it always causes upwellings of warm, loving feelings for games of old. Then, I always accidentally recall other less-pleasurable musics, which causes me to remember the horrors of the famous Marsh Cave, which helped greatly to contribute to the terrible, wonderful love/hate relationship I had with Final Fantasy 1. Getting through those dungeons was quite the trial, back when you were still limited by single-digit-MP-per-spell-level. Didn't they change the system entirely for the GBA remake? The FF Origins easifications were pitiful enough!!

Anyway, thanks for your letter, J. Hopefully the many topics you've touched on will inspire some other readers to send in their own thoughts and feelings!

Hi Matt.

Since you wrote about your latest dream I figured I'd write in mine - yesterday I dreamed that my consciousness went back in time to 10 years ago. And obviously, I excelled in everything I did right from the start and there was some stuff I knew in advance which was pretty cool. The day before yesterday I dreamed I was on some kind of ship in a weird iceberg-filled sea, playing some kind of card game. Eventually a huge gust of wind passed through the ship and to escape it I walked through a door, finding myself by a fountain in Rome...

My question is, do you ever have gaming-related dreams? If you could control your dreams (lucid-dreaming), what game moment would you like to relive? And in general, which character would you like to actually take the place of in a game? That's not an easy choice, most of them don't have very fun lives, at least not during the game.

Lastly, an unrelated thought - did you ever think how instead of trying to kill/stop villains, you could just give them what they want? I don't mean actual power but maybe create somehow the illusion of control, maybe using some kind of hallucination... Seems to me that it'd be much simpler to give them what they want or to mentally change what they want (suddenly Sephiroth isn't so interested in the reunion as much as he is interested in gardening...). Might make a more boring game, though.

Zohar Gilboa

90% of the time, villains have a strange ability to know when they're being screwed over, one way or another. Whether they sense it immediately, or they receive help from underlings, they always seem to have the one-up on the hero's party. It'd be interesting to see a game featuring a truly intelligent bunch of souls tackle the evils of the world... but truly intelligent souls don't tend to waste their time finding random turtle dolls for random girls, etc., and thus might not be "hero material" in the traditional sense.

It would be funny to be able to contain the MASTER OF DOOM of a game in particular by capturing him/her and sticking his/her brain in a jar forevermore, as he/she perceives ultimate greatness but doesn't actually have any power at all. Then again, Tellah also perceives ultimate greatness but doesn't actually have any power at all. Too bad Square Enix doesn't have any plans to "re-envision" Final Fantasy IV with Tellah being the ultimate villain!

This response seems to be the most random of all. I should conclude it now before I spin off into another galaxy or something. Thanks for writing in!

Dear Mattka,

Ok, so you're not really a Thief class, so what are you? Or what do you really think you are?

I'm going to label you as a Ranger/Hunter. You sit back from a distance and pick things off with great accuracy. Eh, maybe not, but it's a good start.

I think I'm more of a Warrior, charging forward with little thought of what might happen to me. Sometimes I get a good strike in, but most of the time I just fall on my face.

What are some of your favorite job classes? I generically refer to FF classes, but please, don't limit yourself.

- Warrior Macstorm

It's easiest to refer to Final Fantasy classes, because there are so many covering such a broad range of possibilities. Other series fail to capture a certain "je ne sais quoi" that Final Fantasy does so well.

Anyway, I love the "special knights" a lot- for example, the "Sorcerer" in FFV, or the Dark Knight and Paladin in FFIV. They're a neat twist on the boring old blah-blah-brawn. I also have a special fondness for Red Mages, even if they are of debatable usefulness in the long run; they wield swords and are just all-around cool.

M.A.T.T.

(Main Answering Talking Tech)

As a gamer, I think about getting the most out of my games, and, well, decidedly, I would like to, at some point, find a means to hook up my PS2 (and it's RPGs of epic goodness) up to my PC Monitor through some means such as Scart Input or RGB, even Progressive would be nice...however, I don't know of many RPGs that support Progressive display, and usually I have to settle for Component/S-Video for picture quality. I personally do not like S-Video scanlines, so I thought I'd ask the folks at RPGamer what they recommend for a PS2/Gamecube gamer such as myself with a Flatpanel 20" Monitor and how it might be possible to put that baby to work in service of the King (so to speak). I know most gamers hardly ever think about the quality of their displays, but I do, and I need advice, particularly for PS2 which seems to have a problem in the ways of VGA, YUV, and Scart.

If all that is way over your head Matt, sorry, but at the very least pass this one around to some folks who might know.

Yow!! I'm certainly not up on the latest in hardware gadgetry, and the best-graphics-evar aren't really my focus in RPGs. Your question, though, is surely a valid one, and I don't want your letter to go ignored! Thus, I send an official cry out to the seven-or-so other people that read the column: Does anyone have an idea of how to help this guy out? If so, please don't hesitate to write in! As long as you don't lace your message with F-bombs, I guarantee you your letter will make it in, to any willing parties!

Hopefully, someone will take notice and help you out, good sir. Thanks for using your neighbourhood Q&A column for your everyday needs!

I strongly beleive that video game violence provides strong contributory factors to the decline of morality in this country today. Though I am a product of divorce, my nightly bloodlust is further reinforced by the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Frankly, I murdered Paul Allen with a hatchet largely in part to the homicidal and dehumanizing behavior this game elicits. Then again, he was into that whole Yale thing.

Did you know I am completely insane?

...and man, I'll tell you; after playing Earthbound for a solid week in my early adolescence, I just couldn't stop myself from going out and buying a heavy, leaden yo-yo in order to beat people over the head. Once I learned that "around the world" trick with it, I was able to cause some serious multiple concussions, but of course, that was only before I'd grab the nearest aluminum baseball bat and SMAAAAAAASH! them halfway to Jupiter. Violence in video games is a dangerous phenomenon, and the two of us are living proof!

By the way, I didn't realize that you were completely insane, but I sure as sugar know that I am! Why? Because I can abuse my Q&A hosting position by saying "moo" repeatedly! Moo moo moo! MOO.

Hey Matt, I'm here to ask for your all-reaching wisdom on this subject.

It is very often that I hear people measuring the games today by the games of yesteryear, and proclaiming that games were better "back in the day." I don't believe that is true at all. I firmly believe that, as a whole, games have only improved over time, and not just technologically. As the franchise has grown bigger, it is also taken more seriously. Because of this, games today are more intelligent, deeper, more complex, and more polished products overall. The quality of writing in games has improved dramatically, and in RPG's particularly, we are given stories that oftentimes put modern fantasy novelists to shame. And yes, there are the technological advancements as well. While I don't praise them as the be-all end-all, they do enhance the experience. RPG's can now tell their stories visually with cutscenes and CGI that can rival animated films. Improved technology h as also allowed developers to include voice acting, which can greatly enhance the experience. (It can, although I admit it's sometimes more of a detriment.)

And yet, people cling to the games of old. Take, for example, The Legend of Zelda franchise. It started twenty years ago, and even now we are looking forward to the next entry. (God knows when we'll actually get it.) Now, the original Legend of Zelda was an amazing achievment for it's time, and the amount of popularity it received back then is why it's still going now. However, as gaming itself has evolved, so has Zelda. If The Legend of Zelda was released today, would it be nearly as well accepted? No, it wouldn't be accepted at all. It would be rejected and critisized, because by today's standards, the game simply does not stack up. It is incoherent and confusing, the gameplay is simplistic and minimal, and the story is non-existant. I have tried again and again to play through this game, only to give up every single time. It simply will not hold my interest. It's the same with other game franchises such as FF1, the original Metroid, and Mario. What keeps them alive today, and why do people frequently claim that they were better back in the 80's? Well, in my opinion, the answer is nostalgia. For a lot of people, the games of today will never live up to the memories they have of playing games back in the "glory days." Because of this, they completely disregard the vast improvements that have been made to franchises such as The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. Nostalgia is a dangerous thing; it can seriously cloud judgement.

I'm not saying that all the games back then were crap and that all the games today are perfect. Final Fantasy in particular was arguably just as good, if not better, back in the SNES era. Games like FF4 and FF6 are among my all-time favorites. But Final Fantasy is an exception, and even so, it has improved aesthetically if nothing else. And on the subject of games today, I don't think I have to list all the trash that clogs the shelves these days.

So I guess my question is what do you think of games today vs. the games of yesteryear? Do you agree with me that nostalgia for the past can make a person unreasonably biased? Or am I the one who is biased?

Oliver.

In all honesty, I think that there always have been, and always will be, crappy games and good games in ALL genres- not just RPGs. Over time, of course things will get better and better from an aesthetic standpoint: Graphical splendours will improve, and sound quality will increase (not necessarily the music itself, of course). New features will be added, bigger and better backstories will be written, and production quality will grow (as will the money pumped into producing them). What is missing from the equation, though? Entirely independent is what makes the game a game: gameplay! When it comes down to it, graphics might draw someone TO a game, but how fun that game is in actuality is what will get that someone to come back and buy the sequel. Great gameplay has been done well and not-so-well in the past, and it has been done well and not-so-well in the present as well.

Thus, is there bias against old games? Sure, nostalgia can play a big part of the love people have for games; but perhaps there is an equal bias against old games due to their inherent inferiority on a superficial level. Then again, if you aren't like me and you play RPGs *JUST* for the plotlines, then I could understand why you feel the way you do!

Anyway, I hope this wasn't too much too digest. I think my head is gonna start spinning unless I take a break for a drink of water. Thanks much for writing in, Oliver!

I just randomly recalled the flying fortress' music from Secret of Mana, "Leave Time for Love". I dare say that that is one of my all-time favourite location musics out of any game, ever. Yes, it's old... but there's just something about it that makes it a truly incredible way to finish off that game. MAN, I miss it!! It's been... definitely five years or more since I last played through SoM, after all.

Ugh, NOW look at the nostalgia, huh? Now I'm going to be thinking about this in my sleep.

Now, I get to slap you ALL on the wrist for getting #131 wrong! I know that the lot of you go cruising the Internet to resourcefully come up with the answers, but this time, it burned you all! The question wasn't actually my own; my brother gave it to me to ask. I was mystified when more and more people kept mailing in saying "e" as their answer. Thus, I went on a Google search and found a script to the game, in which at the food town, it sounds as if Jerin alone tastes some strained slime. If you had actually played the game, you would know that there is another mini-event that takes place in the town where the whole party tastes a little bit of a chef's dish. Aguro's reaction? "No texture. 2." Thus, the correct answer was a) 2, and no one got any points. You guys should find and play this game... it's so good.

#132 was a question from FinalDelerium, and while you might debate exactly how sentient they really are, the clear answer was c) Gargant, the giant insectoids from Final Fantasy IX that pull carts underground. 90 points to correct-guessers, and 180 for FinalDelerium!

Question #133:
With this column, I've posted exactly how many as an official RPGamer staff member? (100 points)

a) 65
b) 70
c) 75
d) 80
e) 0

Question #134:
Ask Erika!-->Making a pact with Galf will earn you which tarot card at the end of the game? (110 points)

a) IV
b) XII
c) XV
d) XVI
e) XX

So, we talked about some interesting topics today; why don't I open the floor to the lot of you? Tell me about your game-related dreams! Are you really THAT into your RPGs/other games that they won't even leave your subconscious mind alone? Also, what games from the past do you want to re-play soon... and why? Believe it or not, it's already been five years since Final Fantasy X was released, and next year will be the tenth anniversary of FFVII, to use a central series as a benchmark. There are a lot of PS2 titles, even, that are quickly becoming "old classics"! Man, I feel old. Anyway, do write in... I'm a-waiting like always!

***Matt didn't change this little witty blurb yesterday...