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• Unsolicited Scares: St Eva from Breath of Fire II Loves You Thiiis Much

  Circumstances beyond my control got me thinking the other day about Breath of Fire II, Capcom's SNES RPG for totally buff men (unless the US box art is lying to me). Breath of Fire II was my first experience with a God-slaying JRPG, and it stuck with me for a few reasons. Reason one: it nearly made me crap my pants. Every good Messiah hunt includes a foray into the Master's den of cultists, and Breath of Fire predictably sends the hero Ryu and his pals into the heart of St Eva's town towards the end of the game. St Eva is God, but he's not benevolent. What a twist! The story makes it obvious that St Eva stinks of corruption and rancid food (flowing robes are catch-alls for cheese and salsa drippings), so Ryu is a bit put off when he walks into St Eva's town and finds it a bustling, happy place. Revelers comment on the beautiful weather, the lame can walk, the blind can see, and every dog has a wagging tail. Ryu thinks, “Well, maybe I had this Eva fellow pegged wrong,” and decides he needs to reconsider his options. He exits the town-- --and finds himself back inside the town gates. Suddenly, the warm air is icy, and the friendly townspeople have transformed into cackling, shambling husks. I'm making the event sound especially chilly because it had a personal effect on me. See, there was this time I was in a death cult, and—just kidding. But there is a specific reason I never, ever forgot my trip to St Eva's Land. Read More... Posted Apr 13 2009, 11:02 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: snes, rpg, retro, super nintendo, 16-bit, jrpg, nadia oxford, unsolicited scares, breath of fire ii

• Behold The Half-Assed Review That Steered Me Away From Earthbound

  Gather around, ladies and gentlemen. It's time to share my secret shame. Come for the story, stay for the punch, the pie, and a chance to wallow in the lingering stink of failure. When I was young enough to believe in honesty, I relied on game magazine reviews to tell me whether or not a game was worth a purchase. I've already gone over how many Great Canadian Funbux typically went into the purchase of one cartridge game, so you can probably forgive me for doing my research. Unfortunately, I kind of put myself at a disadvantage by taking to heart the opinions of only one magazine: Gamepro. To be fair, I have to admit that I wasn't steered wrong too often. If not for the rave review I read in the November 1994 issue of the magazine, I would have bypassed the majesty of Final Fantasy VI. But it was my faith in Gamepro that made me turn up my nose at Earthbound until just last year. While bypassing Earthbound because of a magazine review was a big mistake on my part, it wasn't like I'd boiled a puppy or cast an unforgivable curse on a baby. Earthbound's genius was snubbed by a lot of SNES owners; that's why the fandom has since been driven half-mad with regret. No, my problem is that Earthbound Central has scanned and archived the review that kept me away from Itoi's masterpiece...and I can't believe that I was swayed by such an impotent clump of...assumptions. Read More... Posted Mar 09 2009, 11:31 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: review, snes, rpg, earthbound, retro, super nintendo, 16-bit, writing, gamepro, nadia oxford, games journalism

• Realize the Futility of Life with The Linear RPG

  Being a serious RPG gamer involves a certain amount of lying to yourself--especially if you happen to be a fan of traditional, linear RPGs. I'm currently in the middle of Dragon Quest V (review forthcoming, I swear), and for as much fun as it is, if I were to view the game solely based on its most essential elements, I'd be rather disillusioned. For what is the Japanese RPG but a place to do nothing but sink one's time? Sorry for the formality--my mind has been blown apart by the subject of this post, and all I can do is think back to my high school English classes to form cogent sentences. The reason my world has been rendered to rubble is primarily because of Sophie Houlden's Flash game, The Linear RPG. As I stated before, there's nothing more shameful for an RPG gamer than to have his (or her) genre revealed to be a total sham, and that's what The Linear RPG is all about. The game breaks the genre down into its most simple components; you control a stick figure who wanders from town to town as the game's story scrolls by in the background, completely dependent on your progress. It's not technically a game, per se, but that's exactly the point it's trying to make; all of your traditional RPGs are essentially The Linear RPG, except dressed up with bells and whistles. Read More... Posted Mar 09 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, fan projects, jrpg, bob mackey, grinding

• Retro Horror: Canadian Game Prices

  The reign of the SNES was a troubling time for me. The deluge of great games was seemingly never-ending, but I wasn't quite old enough to buy my own crack (that would come with the next generation of systems). With my family, video games were very much a Sometimes treat. Here's the main reason why: The Canadian dollar has never been a strongman—except for a brief stretch of time last year when the US dollar finally tanked entirely and the Loonie vaulted over the Greenback. The US dollar has since recovered (and I've put away the noose I wove for myself; most of my employers are American, and my bank thought I was the butt of a cruel joke), but it's not as powerful as it was in 1995. So I dished out a lot of money for SNES games. God look back on the day when Nintendo announced it was sticking to cartridges for the N64, and have pity on my broken soul. Read More... Posted Mar 05 2009, 11:22 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: snes, rpg, final fantasy vi, retro, super nintendo, retail, nadia oxford, game prices, canada

• The Things We Do For Levels

  It all started about 10 years ago with a little game called Final Fantasy VII--actually, it started many years before that, but in my head the origin of this particular issue starts with Square's world-changing blockbuster. You see, as a teenager with a lot of time on his hands and no real income to speak of, I felt obligated to get the most out of every game I purchased; and with Final Fantasy VII, this meant I eventually invested hours and hours in the delightful field of Chocobo breeding. But there was just one problem: the racing necessary to beef up your breeding Chocobo's stats was extremely boring, and, if I remember correctly, only required the mashing of a single button. My solution to combat this boredom? Whenever a race started, I would entertain myself by hitting "play" on the nearest VCR remote control--usually with a recent episode of The Simpsons--and come back to my game minutes later, already in progress. But the problem of needing backup entertainment to entertain me when my regular entertainment wasn't cutting the mustard didn't really dawn on me until later in life. Let's just say that I'm happy I never played video games on a picture-in-picture set; it probably would have corrupted my gaming habits permanently. Read More... Posted Feb 23 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, jrpg, gaming habits, dragon quest iv: chapters of the chosen, grinding

• Chrono Trigger's Box Art Still Makes My Head Buzz

  I've never been a big fan of Chrono Trigger's box art. I love the game to pieces. I love its story, its music and its character designs. “Akira Toriyama” will be the last words to burst from my mouth in a bubble of blood when Mouseketeer revolutionaries, seeking to empower western animation, unsuccessfully try to force me to renounce my love for the manga-ka. But I just don't dig on Chrono Trigger's cover illustration. It certainly doesn't rank anywhere in Mega Man's Hall of Box Art Horrors, but it's too busy, there's an inflated sense of intensity, and it was a jarring change from the quiet RPG labels I was used to in the 16-bit era. The boxes for Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III on the SNES weren't as stylish as their Super Famicom counterparts, but they were recognisable. The “T” styled as a sword in the American Final FantTasy logo, though not especially creative, was iconic. Square RPGs outside of Final Fantasy still featured calm box art that carried a hint of mystery about the contents within. Secret of Mana, for instance. Chrono Trigger's box art, on the other hand, is bold and loud. Though it's obviously a finished piece of work, it feels like a piece of concept art that was randomly selected to represent the entire game. I look at it and I'm helpless to stop my mind from wandering into Geekville. I start thinking, “Why is Heckran on Death Peak? Why is Crono alive on Death Peak? Wait, maybe that's 12,000,000 BC? Those winter clothes are actually kind of badass, but we never see anything like them. Why would Frog even bother to look for a contact lens that's buried in two feet of snow?” (I know, I know, it's the Arc Impulse Triple Tech—for which Marle is incorrectly casting a Fire spell). Read More... Posted Feb 20 2009, 10:07 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo ds, snes, rpg, chrono trigger, final fantasy II, retro, 16-bit, nadia oxford, box art, final fantasy III

• Unsolicited Scares: Threed, Zombie Central

  All this talk about Earthbound and related disappointments made me hungry for a Skip Sandwich DX. I ate the sandwich with a mayo packet and began remembering what parts of Earthbound I liked best. Earthbound is an unsettling game for a number of reasons. First, the party consists entirely of kids, and even though kids have a deserved reputation for never shutting up, Ness and his pals are quiet, stoic and very much focused on the task at hand. Second, the threat they're up against is ethereal, but Giygas' influence on the grown-up world is unmistakable: adults' greed is amplified, corruption amongst authorities is rampant, and there's that one town with the whole cult thing going on. The third and possibly most potent reason for Earthbound's dark humour is its masterful blending of innocent colour and mood-setting music. If something bad is going down in a scenario, the sound will tell you before the visuals do. Any game that starts you off investigating an unidentified falling object in the dead of night with disjointed alien percussion as background music is a game that's not going to deliver warm fuzzies if it doesn't bloody well feel like it. Obviously, Earthbound isn't meant to make your heart stop at any one moment—final battle excluded, maybe—but I've come to think of the party's visit to the town of Threed as Resident Evil Crayola.. Zombies and ghosts have taken over the city, but they're pretty goofy looking critters (less so with Handsome Tom and Smilin' Sam; sorry, I hate puppets). Even so, the darkness surrounding the town is oppressive, and the background music hardly indicates that Ness and Paula are attending a kids' Halloween party. Read More... Posted Feb 19 2009, 05:26 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: snes, rpg, earthbound, game music, retro, 16-bit, nadia oxford, virtual console, unsolicited scares, threed

• The Earthbound Legal Conundrum In-Depth

  The recent news about Earthbound never coming to the Virtual Console because of legal reasons has struck up a chorus of “But--” and “How come--”. People are understandably upset that Ness's adventure is going to remain in eBay Hell forever, and they want solid answers about why this wretched thing is happening. There still aren't any solid answers, but the good man in charge of Mother 3's recent fan translation, Tomato, has put together an incredibly in-depth list of reasons why Nintendo is erring on the side of caution. Put in simplest terms, the Internet has made it easier than ever to conjure reasons for an IP lawsuit, and Nintendo already has numerous lawsuits hanging off it at any one time like parasitic fish on the belly of a whale. Even a company like Capcom likely doesn't see half the number of lawsuits Nintendo does, thus explaining why it shrugged off the release of Mega Man and Mega Man 2 on the Virtual Console, despite numerous musical “tributes” in both games. As Tomato put it: To avoid crap lawsuits, Nintendo has a team of legal people who have to go through everything Nintendo plans to release and look for anything that can cause potential lawsuits. Then these things are fixed if necessary. The point is: they’re trying to avoid lawsuits in the first place. It doesn’t matter if they could clearly successfully win lawsuits brought against them; they’d still lose money in the process. Having this team of legal people is cheaper than putting up with every lawsuit that every crazy money-hungry company hits them with. Remember Star Tropics, an 8-bit RPG by Nintendo? When we were kids, Mike pelted his enemies with a Yo-Yo. On the Virtual Console, his Yo-Yo became a “Star” because some Canadian company owns the rights to the Yo-Yo name. Likely said Canadians are too busy drinking and racing moose to care about an old Nintendo game, but Nintendo figures, why take the risk? Read More... Posted Feb 17 2009, 11:13 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: snes, rpg, mega man, earthbound, mother 2, fan stuff, nadia oxford, mother, legal issues

• Abandon All Hope: No Earthbound for the Virtual Console

  The Mother/Earthbound fandom is the loudest on the Internet. It's also the unluckiest. Earthbound was a commercial failure on the SNES. Mother 3 just ain't never gonna doggy-paddle its way here (officially). The first Mother game was dressed up for America, but was pulled at the last minute. And now it's looking like Earthbound won't be granted its long-awaited heroes' rest on the Virtual Console. “Oh God. What now?” The problem is beautiful in its irony: because it's such a thorough, loving tribute to the best and most creative bits of pop culture, Earthbound is also a fat target for copyright lawyers, IP theft paranoia and the bureaucracy bred by the same culture (that's irony, right? Right?). Earthbound's soundtrack alone uses a lot of samples from other songs, from The Who to the Monty Python theme. Shigesato Itoi makes no secret about his love for the Beatles, with John Lennon's “Mother” being not only the series' namesake, but its very foundations. Unfortunately, Apple Corps' sense of humour is about as sharp and attractive as a wet dish rag. Every IP lawyer in the world carries a list in his or her pocket that's titled, “I'm Just Not Going To Fuck With This,” and Apple Corps is on the top of each list. Read More... Posted Feb 16 2009, 11:14 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: nintendo, wii, snes, rpg, earthbound, mother 3, nadia oxford, mother, virtual console, pop culture, shigesato itoi

• Roundtable Discussion: The Relevance of Japanese RPGs

  Roundtable Discussion takes the intrepid 61FPS blogging team and pits it against itself in the search for deeper truth. The moderator for today is Bob Mackey. This week’s conversation deals with the mythical and possibly endangered beast known as the Japanese RPG. The genre really seems to be suffering during this generation, for two major reasons: 1.) escalating development costs due to the new necessity of high-polygon, HD resources and 2.) developers’ inability to combat the most damning problems of the genre. Over the past few years, we’ve seen quite a few JRPGs hitting the shelves that feel half-finished at best; and even when a fully-realized JRPG comes along, I worry that the absolutely abysmal pacing the genre is infamous for will end up sucking all the fun out of what could be a fantastic game. To start us off, I have two basic questions: 1.) What does the genre need to do to become interesting again, and 2.) what do you think it will do? On a side note, the only RPGs I’ve been interested in lately have been ports of remakes of classics. Is this a sign that the genre is becoming antiquated and only accessible to those (admittedly, quite a few at this point) with an understanding of its unique grammar? Read More... Posted Feb 13 2009, 03:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, final fantasy, rpg, japan, chrono trigger, cole stryker, square-enix, dragon quest, square, jrpg, bob mackey, mother, squaresoft, joe keiser, roundtable discussion

• Dragon Quest IV: Re-Reading the Chapters of the Chosen

  Keeping true to my reputation as the Fastest Gamer in the West, I'm still playing through Dragon Quest IV. I played the NES original, though I never finished it. I was put off by the fact a Dragon Warrior game had a story, and I just never got into it. I was a very dull child, as you can imagine. Dragon Quest IV's branching story isn't anything that would throw Stephen King into a jealous rage, but it's fun and ambitious, and I appreciate it very much. Jumping from the flat-rate story in Dragon Warrior III (“Save the world because your father fucked the mission up”) to a headstrong cast of warriors with their own thoughts and feelings just kind of knocked me for a loop back then. The Loto Saga was effectively over with Dragon Warrior III, and I had decided to be a pouting child about Square-Enix's decision to move on. Read More... Posted Feb 11 2009, 11:22 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: nintendo ds, rpg, nes, square-enix, 8-bit, retro, dragon warrior, nadia oxford, dragon quest iv, game stories, dragon quest iiii

• On the Importance of World Maps

  One of the major reasons JRPGs lost me a little during the last generation was the stripping away of one of the genre's most defining features: the explorable world map, which was taken out of many games in favor of less resource-intensive travel options. Now, I'm still a little conflicted about this; on one hand, I do like the intuitive menu-based exploration of games like Persona, and I've repeatedly learned (especially this fall with Opoona) that making a player traverse large expanses of land is an excellent way to pointlessly stretch out a game for dozens of hours. On the other hand, including a Super Mario World-ish map in an RPG always felt a little cheap and cop-outey to me; when I saw this choice show up in Final Fantasy X, I assumed that Square had signed some sort of contract with The Devil himself (little did I know they had done this a few months prior with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within). It seems that the whole world map issue is entirely about fooling players into thinking your game world is more than a bunch of "rooms" stuck together, all while making sure not to bore them with interminable traveling. It's a tricky balance. Read More... Posted Feb 09 2009, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, dragon quest, earthbound, jrpg, bob mackey, square enix, design

• Phantasy Star: My Upcoming Maiden Voyage

  When I was a young SNES fangirl, and I was up to my knees (okay, ankles) in great Squaresoft RPGs like Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger, I made sure I took time out of my playing to point and laugh at Genesis owners. Said Genesis owners would clutch their Sonic dolls to their chests and say, “Well...well we have the Phantasy Star games!” And then their lower lips would start to tremble, and I would laugh harder. Now that I'm older, wiser, and too boring to taunt people about the video games they don't own, I know that was an unfair reaction on my part. I regret never getting to know Phantasy Star. Maybe it wasn't as pretty as Final Fantasy III, but it often went far beyond the realm of fantasy and presented a technological-storybook mix that defines the series to this day. I haven't played the games, but even I know what a Numan is. Recent journeys through old RPGs like Secret of Mana cemented my resolve to finally experience Phantasy Star. I had intended to download the games on Virtual Console; I rolled up my sleeves, when hark! I got word about Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. The compilation will reportedly include all four Phantasy Star games in one convenient, emulated package. Well! If it has Sonic's name on it, I know I won't be steered wrong. Read More... Posted Jan 27 2009, 09:33 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, retro, phantasy star, nadia oxford, sonic's ultimate genesis collection

• Chrono Trigger Musical: A Lovelorn Frog

  It's not easy being green, amigos. Especially when you're valiant Mr Frog from Chrono Trigger, and you don't want to risk offending your beloved Queen Leanne with suggestions of romantic bogs and external fertilization. What do frogs naturally do when they're troubled and/or horny? They sing, of course. They sing their hearts out. They lament their fate (“Oh God, so slippery!”). In this animated Chrono Trigger musical, Frog does just that. He doesn't expand his throat though, so don't get too excited. Read More... Posted Dec 18 2008, 10:44 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, chrono trigger, square-enix, nadia oxford, frog, musical

• Hey, RPG Hero: Go Home and Be a Family Man

  So on Saturday I indulged in my weekly Mother 3 play session-- ("Oh God, she's talking about Mother 3 again, you sneak up behind her with this piano wire while I slip this cyanide into Mackey's coffee.") Please let me live. I don't know when I'm going to be so motivated to pick a game's brain ever again. Mother 3 is unlike any RPG I've ever played--and for the simplest reasons. This, more than anything, is what fascinates me about the game. Shigesato Itoi realises that the easiest way to get people to love your characters is to treat them like human beings. For some reason, woefully few of his fellow RPG designers have picked that up. It's rare to find an RPG cast that everyone can relate to on a human level. Mother 3's world-saving brigade casts ground-shaking magic and racks up experience points and throws giant staples at enemies like any other JRPG (okay, the staples, not so much), but Itoi wants us to feel close to them. So he draws us in by being realstic about the one thing that unites even Superman with the common Earthling: family. Here there be spoilers. (Oh and don't feed Mackey any cyanide. Thank you. His parents appreciate your restraint.) Read More... Posted Nov 24 2008, 07:35 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, earthbound, mother 3, gba, jrpg, nadia oxford, shigesato itoi, famly

• On Renaming Characters: My Own Naughty Experience

  Mackey's post about re-naming RPG characters took me back to a special place. I admit I'm lazy about re-naming my characters these days, but there was a time when my habits made my parents fear for the monikers of their grandchildren. Actually, thinking about it, my mother mostly egged me on. I think there's some kind of karma going on for people who gave game characters swear-names. Recently I needed a video of Cloud in the Mako reactor at the start of Final Fantasy VII for a whimsical, memory-heavy blog post elsewhere. The only appropriate video had Cloud branded as "El Boner." Secret of Mana was my first Super Nintendo RPG. I named the girl "Bitch" because I'm creative and hilarious. After that, the the fate of each female character in subsequent RPGs was sealed. Nothing against the characters themselves. It was just tradition. Read More... Posted Oct 28 2008, 06:40 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, final fantasy vi, final fantasy iv, final fantasy vii, nadia oxford, secret of mana, characters, naming

• WTFriday: The Chrono Trigger Anime

  Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week. We're all excited about Chrono Trigger again--and why shouldn't we be? This November, we'll finally have the chance to pay $40 for a game we could've plunked down $70 for back in 1995. I'm such an unabashed Trigger fan that I actually unlocked all of the bonus content on the terrible PSX port of the game. Hey, it was new, and it was Chrono Trigger, so I was all over it. So when the Chrono Trigger anime surfaced just a handful of years ago, of course I wanted to see it. It felt like some sort of crime that an animated version of one of my favorite games could be made and hidden from the world for so long. Only after watching it did I learn that the real crime was the making of the Chrono Trigger anime. But you don't have to take my word for it: Insightful criticism after the cut. Read More... Posted Oct 17 2008, 10:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: snes, rpg, chrono trigger, square, anime, bob mackey, wtfriday, chrono trigger ds

• Persona 2: Innocent Sin Translation Complete

  With the Mother 3 translation looming on the horizon that is Friday (or Saturday), this is looking to be a great week for the fan translation scene. But Mother 3 isn't the only Japanese game to receive obsessive attention from devoted fans; yesterday marked the release of the translation patch for Persona 2: Innocent Sin. Due to their general size and complexity, very few PSX games are fan-translated (the most notable one being Tales of Phantasia), so this is quite a feat. But I'll let the trailer say more than my words ever could: The story behind Persona 2 is an interesting one; we actually got one of the Persona 2 games, Eternal Punishment, in the States back in 2000. For whatever reason--probably the low profits involved in localizing a niche RPG on a dying system--Atlus opted to bring out the second Persona 2 game, leaving Innocent Sin to the same fate as the last two chapters in the Shining Force 3 trilogy. Now, thanks to the work of a few devoted fans, we'll finally get to play one of the missing chapters in a series that's really picked up steam in the US since Persona 2's release. Read More... Posted Oct 16 2008, 12:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, mother 3, translation, bob mackey, rom hacks, psx, persona 2

• Secret of Mana is Bug-Tastic

  If you're like me, then you're probably playing Monday's Virtual Console release of Secret of Mana. The only excuse I'll accept is massive head trauma--and we're talking brains-leaking-from-a-gaping-wound trauma. That's the only way you can explain not playing Secret of Mana for the low, low price of eight bucks. Why, in 1993 I had to do some hardcore begging to get my parents to drop 60 dollars on this game, and that's back when American money had value! But I digress. After playing Secret of Mana, you've probably recognized two distinct facts: 1.) The game is awesome as hell, and 2.) It's also buggy as all get-out. I've never been privy to any real game-destroying antics, but the general weird glitchyness of Secret of Mana always made the game feel like its programming was held together by bubble gum and string. We can't exactly blame Square's Iranian super-programmer Nasir Gebelli, though; while originally designed to take advantage of the doomed SNES CD add-on (which eventually became the Playstation), Secret of Mana was hastily transformed into a regular-old SNES game once Nintendo washed their hands of CD-ROM technology. This change left some unfortunate problems in its wake. Read More... Posted Oct 15 2008, 08:30 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: wii, rpg, square, bob mackey, virtual console, secret of mana, glitches

• RPGs Make Me OCD

  Playing Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen has unleashed my inner demons--but luckily for me, these demons are neat, orderly, and keep everything in nice little piles. Now, I'm normally just a neat freak, and I try to keep my OCD tendencies to a minimum; but there's just something about RPGs that turns me into a hand-washing, tile-counting, light-switch-flicking freak, and I'm not sure if I can help it. On the brighter side of things, this behavior of mine makes certain games last, much, much longer than they should. For the darker side of things, please see my last point. When playing console RPGs, there are certain things I just have to do no matter what--and whether or not I need to be on prescription medication should be decided by you, dear reader. What follows is a list of my RPG compulsions: - Talking to everyone in town, then talking to everyone again once an event changes their dialogue. - Checking every desk/drawer/lamp/treasure nook in every possible location. - Not being able to leave or move on from an area until I have the best possible weapons/armor available from said area. - Making sure my status-ailment curing items are always in totals divisible by 5 (this worries me) - Never, ever using my uber-powerful items, even when I need them. You want elixirs? I've got 'em. Read More... Posted Sep 29 2008, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, ds, final fantasy xii, dragon quest iv, ocd

• The Dividing RPG: Secret of Mana

  Squaresoft's Secret of Mana will be coming to Virtual Console this September, probably as Seiken Densetsu 2. It's probably a good thing Square-Enix didn't try to reshuffle the Mana titles when they came to America. Re-numbering Final Fantasy already requires more math than I want to do outside a school setting. (Yes, I was a dunce, and I still am according to expert testimony.) Secret of Mana's VC revival got people a-muttering on message boards and IRC. And I was shocked and appalled to learn that there are people out there who care not for Randi's pastel-coloured adventure to find a giant tree. They called it dated. They called it boring. They called it buggy, and "buggy" is actually being generous. By all programming logic, every copy of Secret of Mana should have imploded on the store shelves. I might be biased. Secret of Mana was my first RPG outside of the Dragon Warrior/DragonQuest series, so it wasn't too hard for me to be blown away by the harrowing story of an orphan who was fathered by a sword. Read More... Posted Sep 02 2008, 04:00 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: snes, rpg, japan, square-enix, 16-bit, nostalgia, nadia oxford, virtual console, computer ai, seiken densetsu 3, seiken densetsu 2, secret of mana

• Ys and You

  Monday saw the release of Ys Book I & II for the Wii's Virtual Console, making it the first time since mid-May I was remotely interested in anything on the service.  Standard VC bitchery: Nintendo, I am willing to buy digital versions of games I already own.  The save battery on my Earthbound cart still worked in 2005, but in the horrible year of 2008, who knows? If you weren't too aware of gaming in the early 90s, Ys Book I & II was basically the Halo of the ill-fated TurboGrafx-CD--not in how it was treasured by millions of gamers, but by what a showpiece it was for the hardware.  In 1990, CD-ROM technology was still astoundingly new, and NEC knew it could impress the pants off of prospective console buyers; hence, the showing of promotional videos featuring footage of Ys in gaming stores across the country (and I should know, because for some reason NEC also sent a handful of copies to my house). Read More... Posted Aug 26 2008, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: wii, rpg, bob mackey, ys, virtual console

• Time Investment

  Nerve, that monolithic purveyor of literary sex and cultural commentary that spawned 61 Frames Per Second from its lurid brain, has, broadly speaking, a pretty open mind about everything. We are free wheeling folks accepting of both things that are not stupid and many, many things that are stupid but still fun. Great cultural criticism and stunning new fiction? We love that heady stuff. Brainless celebrity gossip? We love that too (well, some of us. Frankly celebrity culture confounds me. That is, unless the celebrities in question are, like, Brenda Brathwaite. Or Prince. Or Optimus Prime.) What I am trying to express is that we are not easily shocked. Earlier today, videogames managed to shock our fearless editorial leader, Will Doig. He stumbled upon a story that’s been making the internet rounds of late concerning the discovery of a boss in MMORPG Final Fantasy XI that takes close to a full day of constant play to beat. Not just one player, mind you, but an entire team. The intrepid adventures in Beyond the Limitation, the name of the FFXI crew in question, spent eighteen hours straight fighting the Pandemonium Warden, stopping only because, according to one member, “People were passing out and getting physically ill.” They also apparently vomited later on. They didn’t even win the fight. This staggered Commandant Doig to the point where his only comment about the story was, “Physically! Ill!” I’m right there with him. But it concerns me that I can imagine spending that kind of time playing a game. Read More... Posted Aug 20 2008, 05:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, final fantasy, rpg, brenda brathwaite, dragon quest, will doig

• Gaming on a Train: Final Fantasy IV

  Before I start, let me officially state that DAYUM Rydia is smokin' hot. There, I said it; I'd say it again if I had to. Let's move on, averting our attention to the right only when hormones deem it necessary. One benefit of taking a mass transit vacation--aside from inexplicably being surrounded by Amish people--is that you can kill most of your travel time by playing video games, instead of waiting for stop signs or the odd empty stretch of highway to squeeze in a quick few turns of Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (I have never done this).  On my most recent trip, I had initially planned on dabbling in quite a few different games I'd picked up over the summer, but ended up devoting all of my time to the Final Fantasy IV remake for reasons that say a lot about the decisions I make in life. Read More... Posted Aug 18 2008, 04:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: rpg, ds, nostalgia, final fantasy iv ds

• Are You Buying Final Fantasy IV DS? Huh? Huh? Huh??

  (Pant pant pant, eager tail wag.) Square-Enix's remake of its SNES classic is garnering good reviews, though I've seen more than one make mention about how it's a bit early for yet another Final Fantasy IV remake. For those of you at home keeping count, Final Fantasy IV has been released on the SNES, the PSOne, the Wonderswan (I think?), the GBA and now the Nintendo DS. I'm going to go ahead and offer myself up for blame: I buy every remake Square-Enix throws at me, except for the WonderSwan remake because that would just be wack. I can't help it; Final Fantasy IV, when it was known as the dumbed-down Final Fantasy II was a cornerstone of my awkward teenage years. I actually played it after getting through Final Fantasy III/VI, but I enjoyed it for its simple story and gorgeous music. I also played it while recovering from major surgery and I was pretty high, so there might be a bit of bias there. I'm pretty sure it's okay to love a game because it reminds you of your youth or the carefree summer days you should've spent outside, but it's less okay to love a game because it reminds you of a codeine daze. Read More... Posted Jul 23 2008, 05:24 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: remake, review, nintendo ds, rpg, square-enix, nostalgia, final fantasy iv ds

• Sega CD on iPhone: I Like Where This Is Going

  The iPhone is new and exciting. Sega CD games are pretty old, but still kind of exciting. What happens when you put the two together? I often wish I could go back in time and torment my younger self. I think we'd have some really cool conversations about video games. I mean, who cares about the fact that we've made major medical advancements or that we can travel in space buses (oh shit wait no we can't)? I want my younger self to hear all about how we can play the coveted games of our childhood on our telephones. Not that I have an iPhone. It's totally because I'm not into that useless capitalist waste. It's not like my mom's the only person who ever calls me. Sniff. You know I've never played a Lunar game? I know what I want to see next in the iPhone, thank you. Oh and it must retain the bizarre Working Designs "translation." Read More... Posted Jul 18 2008, 07:10 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with no comments Filed under: rpg, working designs, sega, retro, iphone, lunar, sega cd, vay

• The Chrono Trigger Port: Are You Excited or Disappointed?

  Though the 16-bit console wars were savage in the early '90s, the end was in sight by 1995 and the Super Nintendo was crowned the obvious winner. (Except by pouty Genesis fanboys who feebly compared Phantasy Star IV to Final Fantasy VI. I mean, it's a good try, but...nah.) The Genesis was panting and dry-heaving at the finish line, but the Super Nintendo barely broke a sweat. In fact, it looked healthier than ever thanks to an injection of A+ games at the end of its life. One such title was Chrono Trigger, a now-legendary RPG by Square(-Enix). We should all hope for the dignified hero's death that the Super Nintendo recieved thanks to Chrono Trigger's legacy. Read More... Posted Jul 02 2008, 07:30 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: remake, nintendo ds, rpg, chrono trigger, Playstation, square-enix, genesis, chrono cross, luca, port, marle, robo, super nintendo, phantasy star, crono, 16-bit, final fantasy iv, console wars

• Earthbound 2/Mother 3 Fan Translation Nears Completion

  Shigesato Itoi's brainchild was known in the West as Earthbound, a quirky RPG that eschewed every role playing convention. Like L. Frank Baum and Lewis Carrol before him, Itoi lured ordinary children into a world of bizarre fantasy. Itoi realized the limitations of his technology and the infancy of his medium, opting for a breezy, existentialist humor. Deconstructing the console RPG into its fundamental parts, Itoi was able to bring RPG mechanics outside of Tolkien-esque storyboards and into a world closely resembling modern-day suburbia. Its hero wasn't a muscled he-man nor a femme half-elf, but an ordinary adolescent kid. Ness saved the world with a cracked baseball bat and a t-shirt rather than a broadsword and chain mail. Read More... Posted Jun 12 2008, 10:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: rpg, earthbound, mother 3

• Where is Victor Ireland?

  As with any art form, videogames have their share of notable people and subjects that fall through the cracks of time. Trends fade, voices go quiet, and games that were seemingly complete disappear entirely. 61 FPS’ Where Is? feature asks where the lost have gone. Anime-styled Japanese games, particularly RPGs, are a dime a dozen on store shelves these days. Though they’ve been a staple of gaming in the United States since the mid-‘80s, there was a time when only a select few of them made the Pacific jump and even fewer of them made it over without being heavily censored and altered to suit more western tastes. Working Designs was one of the few companies out there devoted to faithfully localizing quirky Japanese titles and was a fan-favorite throughout the 1990s. Read More... Posted May 15 2008, 11:00 AM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, where is, rpg, victor ireland, working designs