Heee, heeee.. I got a lot of mail saying how much you guys don't like me for doing that. That's okay. I found it rather funny, myself. :)

If you're STILL so dense as not to get it, that was an April Fool's Joke, the only one which I played, and well, the only one that even happened around me, (except for Stom trying to convince someone that he was going to be a father.. which none of us believed, because, well, Stom's been on the pill for years now).

Anyway, hope I didn't ruin your day TOO much. But I thought it was funny, soooo.. anyway. Got a good amount of email, but a lot of it was "OOOH I HATE YOU" or "Hahahah that was funny!" .. so not a lot to actually print today.

But I'm not sorry. It your own damn fault. :)

I was at my local Hollywood Video and Blockbuster, and Wherehouse, and I can't figure out how you get a hold of Front Mission 3. Where can you find a copy to rent? I don't really like to go off and buy games right when they come out without really knowing much about them and how they're played.

-Xenochick

Brad:
Heh, heh, "Thor". Anyway, I'm pretty sure Blockbuster gets things day of release, if not before, in some cases. You may have to ask to get on a waiting list or some other form of nasty ritual in order to get the game, however. Of course, I don't know, because I always just end up going out and buying it.. renting it would mean I'd have to play it right then! Oh the horror!

Anyway, to answer the question about the survival battle, the thing with 100000HP is a WierdAvid, and they're uncommon but extant in Fienal tower. Develop your characters and you'll have no problem with it. I mean, I beat one with RENA once. Anything's possible. (It's complex, but it involved LOTS of Star Flares and Gravity Presses)

Also, as to the characters in the Walkthrough:

I LOVE THE ART. It's beautiful. But it's confusing. I highly doubt that the blonde man was an early scetch of Ernest. It's been rumored that these may be scetches from the manual of Star Ocean, but there are two discrepencies.

1. OPERA. Now, we have no idea of tetragene longevity, so it may be possible that Opera has a lifespan of, say, 200 years and she ages at only half the normal rate. This MAY be true, but it's a stretch.

2. CLAUDE. Now this is impossible. If this was in fact Star Ocean art, we'd be seeing RONIXIS Kenni, not Claude. And since Ronixis has blueish hair, there's no way Ronixis may have looked like Claude in his youth. So I'm guessing that it's just original art or prelim. scetches.

Next: You want females in leads in RPGs? RENA LANFORD.

Do you like my helmet? - Jogurt ^_^;;;

And finally, there was said that there are two helmets in Star Ocean 2, one for each of Ashton's dragons. One of them is obvious (the Sacknoth's Helmet in the False Gallery), but the second is tougher to get. You have to:

1. Have Ashton (duh)
2. Go into Virtual Expel
3. In Arlia, do a PA
4. Talk to Ashton in Hearn's General Store
5. Ashton's dragons will want the hemlet, which will cost approx. 4/5 of your cash on hand! DON'T GET IT UNLESS YOU REALLY WANT IT!!!

Your Resident Star Ocean Guru, Tj "LeonGeste" Condon

Brad:
Precis isn't cute.. and god, that voice IS annoying. Not much to say here, other than "thanks for the info"!

I was stunned to see in the column yesterday that you hadn't played Earthbound. Allow me a moment to spew.... What is wrong with you?!? You play 'em all, but missed little old EB? Well, buster, dig out the old SNES, dust it off, find a cheesy video store that still rents SNES games, and get it! EB was one of the coolest SNES RPGs there is (believe me, I've played them all). The great thing about it is that while there are no inovations made over any other game, EB has incredible atmosphere, and the well written dialouge can be (honestly) funny. Play it, in the name of God!!

Ok, done spewing...

Man, all this talk, is making me put Grandia (which rocks, by the way) down, and dust off MY SNES. Damn you.

rockydil

Brad:
Honestly, I didn't have a SNES for the vast majority of the time that it was out there. I got one shortly before the PSX came out, and spent a lot of time (and my then g/f's money hee hee) on SNES RPGs, but didn't get so far as to play Earthbound. My mother wouldn't let me get a SNES back when they first came out.. so basically I was on my own, and well, I got one when I moved out for the first time, way back then. Nowadays, my SNES has this ugly green line it puts out to the screen and is highly annoying to play. I keep meaning to go down to the place that trades you a broken SNES console and $30 for a working one.. but I just never get down there.

Bradman, after owning Final Fantasy II for a year and a half, I finally beat it today. Why so long? Well, a FAQ said I only needed to be at level 27 to beat Zeromus, but by the time I got to him... level 65... eek. Well, anyway, my question. After you defeat Zeromus he has a few last words that try to scare the crap out of Cecil and co. Now... why was the last of these words quote "GRAAAM!"? Did he finally become enlightened with all of the knowledge present in the universe, which allowed him to know how they crammed all that gram into Golden Grams? The world could have benefitted from that information! Also, his brain could have intepretted the feeling of death in the same way as the feeling of making love, thus causing him to shout out the name of the person who did it best with him, but that's just disturbing... Maybe he became anorexic in the afterlife and was concerned that his entity weighed so much as a gram.... do you have any insight on this? And don't give me that "It was a sucky translation..." crap! You and I both know there's a conspiracy going on that the supposed "government" doesn't want us to know about...

~The "Insurance? He's got money coming out the wazoo!" Sack~

Brad:
The answer is easy: Zeromus is a chick. You know how concerned with their weight they always are. "Does this ultimate rod of destruction make me look fat?" "I should go on a Spoon Dagger only diet". Quite simple, really. As for that FAQ, I don't know anyone who's been down there at level 27.. I don't know anyone who could beat the Giant of Bab-il at anything lower than like 35.. whoever wrote that is on crack. You have to be level 50ish just to get DOWN to Zeromus, and then he opens you up like a bad can of tuna. I'd say 60's about the lowest you'd want to try him at.

I am currently playing Tactics Ogre and I am fairly well into Chapter 3 and have hit a very nasty snag. In the track of the game that I am following, I have just invaded Corintani Castle again and after winning the battle outside, I am forced to fight a solo battle of Denim against Leonard. The problem arises in the fact that Leonard is able to slaughter me in to attacks. Any suggestions of how to bring divine retribution against this misguided miscreant.

Thank you,
lewsteran

Brad:
The thing is that you may have chosen a bad class to start yourself out as. If you chose like a wizard for Denim, you're going to have some bad .. physical attack resistivity issues. And Leonard can really sting pretty hard with his hits. Other than that, you may just be at too low a level to survive this.. you may want to consider training a bit more. Or perhaps the opposite is true, (though I don't think boss charcters maintain a similar level) but oftentimes if you train TOO MUCH, higher level enemies can really whip ya around, because they'll have higher level equipment, and you won't. Which sucks. And I'm not a mutant. :P