Here is some RPG News I have researched...
by -
AtmaWeapon~
45/7 source -
The GIA release -
January,
(USA) platform -
Playstation, Playstation 2��
Youve been waiting to hear it and check it all out so here it is: a preview of Chrono Cross. Now I know that sites are all ripping this same information off from other sites as we speak, so rather than just be a fool repeating the same things under all the pics everyone and their brothers downloaded Im going to analyze this game in a more creative way. Mwahaha..ha ha. ha-ACK...hack, hack...ughhhhhh.... Anyway...� Hype City: When I first heard the rumors that there would be a sequel to the ever-so-awesome SNES Chrono Trigger that we all knew and loved, I was like "HELL YEAH! THIS IS GONNA KICK SOME ASS! I?VE WAITED SO LONG FOR A SEQUEL TO CHRONO TRIGGER! WEEEE! I?LL TELL ALL MY FRIENDS!"...now I?m just sitting in front of the computer and scoffing what I see for the upcoming addition to CT series. WHY!? Hmmm..... let me count the ways...�� Totally new cast of characters:� All the old school crew is gone� New cast (as youll see in the screenshots) is either bizarre or retarded in concept and design� A few too many playable characters� With so many characters you may wonder if the old school CT single, double, and triple techs will return with the same in terms of concept or will it just be like FF8: take a cool idea like the MP system and just mar it in the name of convenience?� Plot:� The original CT is hard to duplicate or top� Youve got Serge and his arch nemesis Yamaneco which is essentially the base equivalent to the plots in FF7 and FF8 with a good guy and a pal who turns into an arch nemesis later. This results in most of the plot centering around your party being interrupted at least 50% of the game by the nemesis who hinders your progress somehow. Damn.... I?m sick of it. Cloud & Sephiroth, Squall & Seifer, Alex & Luna, Serge & Yamaneco..... Ugh....� You can only imagine what they?ll come up with.....� Character development! A MUST! FF8 had little to none (cept for Rinoa and Squally boy-OOOOOH! LOL)� Multiple Endings:� Will they have as many or as many interesting ones as CT that corollate with the plot like the first one? That?s as questionable as the plot....� Design Crew:� Thank god the SOE writer from the first CT is back otherwise the plot would suck.� The original CT artist has been booted out and replaced with the guy who drew frames for the Japnese animated movie: Record of Lodoss War (which was a pretty cool movie) which is good and bad. Good because it provides a unique new look from a respected artist. Bad in that you just can?t beat the orginal CT art.� "Chrono Trigger's Dream Team If there was ever a hard act to follow, it's Chrono Trigger. Created by a "Dream Team" of Final Fantasy's Hironobu Sakaguchi, Dragon Quest mastermind Yuji Horii, manga artist Akira Toriyama, and composer Nobuo Uematsu (though Uematsu only composed a few of CT's tracks; most were done by Yasunori Mitsuda), the SNES classic ranks high atop nearly everyone's favorites list. With Horii and Toriyama busy on the frequently delayed Dragon Quest VII, it seemed the act never would be followed, despite the strong demand for a sequel." - the GIA� Frankly I assume this will be like what happened with FF7 when it hit a newer, faster system. FF3 (or FF6 in Japan) was one of the top RPG?s and is much like the first Chrono Trigger: a cult classic to judge all future "improvemnets" like FF7, FF8, and Chrono Cross on. Not only will Chrono Cross get the same treatment in terms of reviews as FF7 and 8 did, but it will still never cover the same nostalgic and classic gameplay the first one did. Never. Not with better graphics and new twists. It may be new and good on itself, but Chrono Cross may not bear the same standards that games like FF2, 3, Xenogears, and Chrono Trigger had and have already done. I could be wrong, but FF7 and 8 proved me right when they came out. Oh well...�� First Impression(s): I took this new information like a X-Mas present. I was eager to open it and check it out (just like everyone else) so I did. To be blunt I just about S**T when I saw the character designs. Not that I was shocked by means of being impressed, but more shocked and asking WHYYYYYYY!? I loved the first CT artwork. I drew off that and developed my own style off of some of it and now we just get this.....this mockery. You even have a mockery of Ayla which is Leea. LuckyDan? Uhhhhhhh.... That looks like a Cactrot that tripped, fell in tar and rolled down a hill covered with straw and hit a tree in which a candle holder crashed down on his head. In other words: WHAT THE $@%@^^%^#&@*^&*(^&!?!??! Ugh... I knew fresh character designs were getting scarce in new RPGs, but they are milking the divine RPG cow for all it?s worth with this. Load up the 16-bit CT if you want your cgood pals like Marle, Ayla, Robo, Magus and Frog cause they really arent in this one (cept for Frog aka Glenn). The battle pics looked alright, but Id rather see something like Xenogears with CT slapped all over it.��� "Surprisingly, Square's new title isn't quite so new -- Chrono Cross is a complete remake of an obscure Super Famicom title named Radical Dreamers. Released for the Sattelaview peripheral add-on in Japan, Radical Dreamers "eventually ended up as a sort of sequel to one of the subplots in Chrono Trigger which we weren't able to tie up in Chrono Trigger itself," according to Kato. In it, Serge, Kid, and another character known as "Gill" infiltrated Yamaneko's gloomy manor to filch a mystical item known as the "Freezing Flame." Radical Dreamers' storyline has been adopted and greatly expanded upon for Chrono Cross: Serge is a spunky lad who eventually becomes lost in parallel dimensions -- a shift from Chrono Trigger's time travel. Taking place about 20 years after Chrono Trigger, Serge meets up with Kid, who shares a Deep Dark Secret with Yamaneko from their mutual past. Like the nonsensical cult-hit "Sliders" TV series, Serge and Kid embark in adventures across multiple variations of the same world. Best of all, the world itself isn't new either -- Chrono Cross takes place mostly in an unexplored area of Chrono Trigger's world, but visits several familiar locations, such as Guardia castle and Lucca's house. Even Frog joins your party at one point in his non-amphibian form, Glenn." - the GIA� In Conlusion: To top it off, I have no idea how this game will come out. Obviously, it may never completely top CT and could very well end up dividing the RPG community in half by those who hate it and those who love it. The traditionalists vs. the hype chasers. We saw it in FF7 and now we just saw it in FF8 and FF Anthologies, so exect the same to roll around in Chrono Cross vs. Chrono Trigger in the not to distant future. Mwahahahahahaahaha! *evil cackles and laughter while rolling around hysterically in a mound of easy cheese*� Oh yeah..... The rerelease of the original CT is on its way to the PSX soon with added anime sequences, so you can get a double taste of CT if youve never before played it and wonder whats going on here.����
Also...
by AtmaWeapon~45/7
possible release: Summer 2000
sources: The GIA, RPGamer, FF Online
Check this out! Interview with Sakaguchi You'll find this to be a great source of information as to what kind of theme FF9 has as well as tid-bits on the characters and why FF9 is the one FF game to revert back to old-school gameplay.�� It's time once again for Square to take the challenge of providing the RPG community with a Final Fantasy game that will top the last one in the series. After FF7 and FF8, most RPG players and devoted old-school wanted Square to go back to the good old knights and mages setup of the old school FF's, so now, Square is going to do it and they're hoping that this whole scheme is going to work. If it doesn't then that's going to show a lot about how picky the players are, but oh well. On with the preview!�� "Final Fantasy 9 represents a shift back to the style of older Final Fantasy titles. The characters are shorter and less realistic, and the party will be composed of four characters, not just three. Final Fantasy 9 will have wizards and knights and many other old-school elements that have not been present in the last few Final Fantasies." - RPGamer Plot & Characters: Currently, there is little known about the story or the characters themselves. About all we have specifically are the few screenshots available (Square likes to tease us if you don't already know). So far, only the eight playable characters characters are known: Steiner, Vivi and Zitan, Garnet, Kuina, Flyer, Salamander, and Eiko. Most of the looks of these pics are major hints as to what you're going to see: deformed characters, mages, castles, airships, and hopefully summons, moogles and chocobos and some characters recycling the names "Cid", "Wedge", "Vicks", "Biggs", etc...... Then again, we should be expecting those things, shouldn't we?�� "In-depth details are of course extremely scarce so soon after FF IX's announcement. But such question marks will be largely irrelevant to most RPG fans -- Final Fantasy IX is real, Final Fantasy IX is here at last, and Final Fantasy IX features super-deformed medieval characters. Let the flame wars commence." - The GIA It's apparent that the flame wars and bitch rants will be up in full force after the release of the game because it's not what some people wanted or just general dissatisfaction. I'm pretty positive this will happen. Ugh. We can't really escape it, but I'd like to add my comments on this issue of gamer displeasure with every new game that comes out: "SHUT UP". If you don't like it that much then just ignore the whole situation. I mean, Square is trying to please the needs of the people complaining and right now, they're working hard to make it right and if it's still not "good enough" then you, the gamer, not Squaresoft is the problem. I just thought I'd mention that, though it's rather hypocritical coming from someone who compares most FF's to FF3 just because I love it so much.�� >Visual Impressions: After looking over the screenshots, I must say that I'm pretty well stumped as to how to effectively rate them. Some of these are very well detailed as far as environments go which is good, but I question the appearance of Steiner (who looks un-FF-ish and more Earthbound in style). Other than that, I like what I've seen so far, despite there not being a whole lot of it. Obviously, what will matter the most is the gameplay, but we need to actually play it yet. Man...�� Gameplay System (This Just In!): Okay...I know you'll say: "Damnit man! Everyone's either scamped this news and used it in their FF9 pages, or everyone's seen it already!". Okay... you know me.... I may use trite information that everyone else already has, but I'm incorporating it a little more efficiently, so...understand that if you will.�� "In the latest addition to the Final Fantasy series, characters gain abilities by equipping items. Each character has their own unique specialties, and only by equipping items will they be able to use them. Although abilities will be lost once the item is unequipped from the character, if a character uses that ability for a long time, it will become part of the character, and he or she will be able to use it without the item equipped. Furthermore, depending on the character, same items will bring out different abilities.�� No longer will the choice of which weapon to use be by power alone. Instead players will have to balance power with the special abilities the weapon brings to the characters. This is quite possible, as Yoshiyuki Ito, the director of Final Fantasy IX has stated that he may include quirky scenes in which the player will have to make a decision on which item to take, and the better choice may rely on intuition more than analysis." - RPGamer About all I can really say in response to this is that it sounds like it could bring forth some thinking on the gamer's part as to how they should go about equipping weapons/armor, etc. As I've seen it, most equipping systems in RPGs have been pretty "dumb". You can take time to sort through your list and equip something that's might be helpful in a later date, or you can just opt to use the auto-equip function (FF3) or in the case of FF8, all you have to do is save up goods (and $) to buy the optimal weapons you need. In other words, I'm glad there's a little strategy being brought back and applied to areas that are usually overlooked.� In conclusion 'd have to say that you should keep a good eye on the progress of this. It's definitely going to be interesting to see what develops out of it's release. Most likely a lot of people outraged and some people still discontented. It shouldn't matter, but it does.����
CG
Movies
Fanart
Tips and Tricks
GameHack Key
GameHack Tables
GameShark Codes
Weapon Locations
Materia List
Subquests
Frequently Asked Questions
Links
Legend_of_Dragoon
Sajin Realm 2000
