Thanks! It's an honor to see my name put among the likes of other past Q&A columnists. I try my best to make sure this goes out every week. I think it's important not to let letters linger too long in the backlog. After-all, who wants to ask a question about some burning topic only to see it answered long after you've stopped caring? I hope I can continue to keep this column consistent, and I'm glad you enjoy it. As I'm sure you know, I am a Suikoden fan, so this should be fun.

Absolutely! What's sad is I almost completely missed the original game. I picked it up on a whim after seeing it for cheap at the closing sale for a video rental place. It took a while before I really gave it a fair shot, but I quickly discovered it to be one of the best games on the PS1. The combat system especially shines. You get a huge six person party, and yet the battles are blazingly fast. You won't find any lengthy summon animations here. The other battle types don't shine quite as brightly as the party-based combat, but they aren't as frequent either. They serve as nice ways to break up the action, and nicely emphasize the conflict the game's story explores. I loved it. The second game? The second game, I am going to come out and say this, is the best game the PS1 ever produced.

It's interesting, Suikoden III is the critical darling of the series, yet seems to be the most divisive game for Suikoden's biggest fans. I haven't gotten to it myself,  but it sounds like they weren't quite able to reproduce the simple and effective 2D sprites of the originals in a nice looking 3D game. I think you should give it another shot! I believe this is the last game involving the series main creator, so I refuse to believe that there is no value in it given how good I and II are. I mean, how could something with this stunning intro be bad? I think that its crime may be changing the gameplay systems too much.

IV is interesting. I haven't gotten to it myself, but despite being regarded as the worst in the series, it seems to have many fans. Could it just be a bad Suikoden game, but a fine RPG when you don't compare it to the high standards of the series? Who knows. It did seem to kill the forward momentum of the series.

V is absolutely a return to form for the series. Play it at your earliest convenience! I most warn you that the game has some long loading times, and gets off to a very slow start. If you have a fast enough computer you can get around the long loading times by playing it through an Emulator. If you do get around to it, please write back in! I would love to hear your thoughts on the game.

I'll tell you the honest truth. I paid more than a hundred dollars for Suikoden II, and I don't regret it in the slightest. That game was worth every penny! Of course you're probably wondering why I didn't just get it back in the day since I had enjoyed the first game. Well, in my foolish youth, I thought the game too expensive for the $25-30 price range I saw it for because it didn't get stellar reviews. Whoops? Oh well, at least it was cheaper than Panzer Dragoon Saga!  It really needs to get on PSN given that the first has been there for ages. More people need a way to play this masterpiece. Also I agree, I want a new Suikoden on PS3!

Now, onto the latest games in the series. Tierkris actually got a sequel of sorts for the PSP in the same style. While I don't think Tierkris is bad by any stretch, it completely throws out most of what made the series so unique, and turns the series to the realm of run-of-the-mill JRPG. Despite the issues with Suikoden IV I would have to say this right here is the low point (I'm sure you can tell what I think the high point is). Suikoden V sold just fine, so I don't get the radical shift away from the series proper. It is clearly a lower budget series so an HD game seems a hard sell. Still, if you're going to do a portable game, why change it so much? Why not just remove the Suikoden name at that point? I need to write in to our resident man in Japan to try and get a tap on what Japanese Suikoden fans think of all this. Rumours of a new main title have been scarce since I heard some about a possible Suikoden VI on Wii, so for now it seems the series will remain dormant.  This displeases me more than I can say.

I actually had a different experience on my first playthrough. I couldn't really get into it! The music was great, combat was fun, but it just didn't have the same spark that Chrono Trigger did. No one can deny the quality of the music!

Again, the opposite for me. I hated the element system the first time through, but loved it when I went back to the game. Go figure? Anyway, more Chrono is certainly a must. Let's talk about a sequel.

Major Brownie points for mentioning Fringe. I adore that show! There are so many weird and wonderful things they could explore in a sequel to this. Just reading a bit on quantum physics, there's many weird multidimensional angles they could take. I think people often think of time travel as the go to story idea for a sequel, but I find the dimensional aspect much more interesting. What if all that time traveling is causing the fabric of space and time to unravel, and the barrier between dimensions becomes very weak? Imagine what they could do.

I haven't played much of it, it is on my very long to do list. I know it follows the same basic story that Chrono Cross does, but not to the same depth. Also Lynx is not a cat in Radical Dreamers! I'm not big on text adventures anymore so it will be tough to dig into that one. Thanks for the great questions! Please right in about Suikoden again some time. It set off some great reminiscing on twitter!

Excellent, it is always cool to find new gaming friends!

I always go for the magical route. Since getting into fantasy games I've always thought wizards were simply the coolest. So many cool things that you can do with magic. I can't say a particular game or book made me latch onto wizards, but the black mage design in Final Fantasy helped.

I would have to say the coolest item I've gotten in a game would be the Excalibur in the original SaGa (aka Final Fantasy Legend). After going through the whole game with degrading weapons it was an incredible experience to find one with essentially unlimited uses. I can't really think of a cooler item discovery in a game.

I would be all over this. The fast paced and challenging gameplay of the Ninja Gaiden series with added customization and other RPG features? That could be something truly amazing. It would have to be better than the mediocre game they produced for the third entry in the series. Come on Tecmo Koei, give it a try!

I have played some Phantasy Star, finishing III and IV. Phantasy Star IV is a brilliant game, but the others are harder to go back to. Phantasy Star I & II really need a visual update like we've seen done with the Final Fantasy series so many times. Stick with the game, and then play IV if you can. Despite the very dated graphics I believe you'll find the story is worth it in the end. Good luck!

Easy! RKO Pictures distributed The Silver Horde -> RKO Pictures also distributed King Kong -> Konami made several King Kong video games -> Konami ported and published Ys VI on PS2 and PSP -> Falcom owns the Ys series -> Falcom developed and published Ys V for Super Famicom

Well seeing as I bought the first one for a very cheap price, it shouldn't take much to get me to at least give that one a try. Then again I do have a huge backlog, so perhaps it will still be a challenge. Have at it!

With all that it sounds quite possible I'll be spending just as much time customizing as I will in actual combat. This is not a bad thing.

This is interesting. I suppose I should track down an Original Generation 2 cart as well. With GBA games selling for 75% off at Gamestop right now, I have little excuse not to!

This is not good sir, not good at all. Do you have any idea how dangerous this could be to my free time? I have other games to finish! I have a review to write! I still have to finish Lunar Sega CD. This is not good.

Sounds like an interesting system, and not something typically done in these games. You know I love challenge, so I'm looking forward to how these battles with fewer grunts play out.

Well, that right there is enough to make me take the plunge. I love difficult bosses and it sounds like these games are filled to the brim with them. I'm going to fire up the first game over the weekend and play a few battles. We'll see how much I like it! If for someone reason I hate the games, I'll give them away on Q&A or something. I have a worrying feeling I may be importing some of the games eventually...

Absolutely, I would say it has by far the best main story in the series. Despite this, I think what the Dragon Quest does best as far as story goes, is the various mini-stories in the various locals. They don't typically have the best main plot, but I have yet to play a Dragon Quest game (after III) that didn't have some touching story along the way.

I don't think so. Sega seems content to only port the first two games to various platforms, given the popularity of retro-genesis collections. You should go ahead and play it on a Game Gear though, you can get an AC adapter for it so that you don't need to use batteries at all. Granted that means it is less portable, but that's OK. It is an interesting entry in the series, but as the Game Gear games pale in comparison to the main series, it is not a big loss if you never play it.

Thank you as always for the great questions!