[Locked] On RPGs

...when I was a kid, a small child of around nine or ten, a commercial appeared on the television set we had in our living room. I remember little about this commercial, except for a few facts. The commercial was about thirty seconds or so, and looked extremely cool to me at that age. I started freaking out, excited as hell about this soon-to-be show on TV. It was actually a commercial for Poke`mon, something I'm sure many are aquanted with.

...at that age, all it takes is a commercial to hook you in, a good one. I suddenly wanted the game, I wanted Poke`mon red and blue for christmas [which was quite near at that point, I think] and I stared at my Gameboy Pocket with anticipation. Well, it was purchased for me on christmas [one of the few gifts I ever got as a child that wasn't eventaully sold back to a store so my parents could use the money on.....other things] and I was hooked. The game.....I had never played anything like it. Suddenly, unspoken button mashing wasn't there....no, Poke`mon focused on numbers, and a little strategy. I knew not what excited me about this game, and I didn't even realize that what the game focused on was actual strategy. All I knew was, I would play Poke`mon forever...
...give me some credit, I was a kid. And as children, ripe in our youth and our fantasy dreams, we often make such assumptions. I continued to play that game for a few years, unaware that something was stirring inside me, something that wouldn't completely reveal itself for another seven years.

Well, The Super Nintendo was still all the noise, and I mine was sold by my parents so they could....buy things [told ya] but I did manage to find a new love, one that would spark that growing hunger inside me. To this day, I am not entirely sure where I first picked up the game, but I believe it was when I turned 11, and went over to my brand new friends' house. It was Super Mario RPG, Legend of The Seven Stars. I still didn't know what RPG's were, didn't realize that RPG's were already my game of choice. I picked it up and played. Addiction, anyone? I was amazed. Suddenly, it was Poke`mon all over again. Instead of running around mashing buttons [or jumping on people] I know had numbers. I had levels. Mario wasn't the same either; this wasn't the Mario that went around singing "Mah mah meah' and eating shrooms. No, this was a Mario that punched you in the face, that kicked shells at you. This was a Mario that, quite frankly, kicked your ass. My character's didn't really have health, persay. They GREW in strength [stay with me guys, I swear this is going somewhere] and they also had special moves. However, I couldn't just use those special moves whenever I wanted, I actually had a number of points [often called MP these days] and each special I used diminished this number. I was enthralled. It was a lot like Poke`mon....but I still didn't understand that it wasn't that the game was similar to Poke`mon, but the fact that it was an RPG that made it similar. At the time, I thought RPG was just a fancy combonation of letters they threw in the title to make it sound cool. But this game, it went beyond Poke`mon. Suddenly, I had a party of three that I could mix and match, and each one of them had many, many things I could manipulate, in order to make them stronger in certain areas. My brain was going a million miles a second. I could change armor, weapons, the works. What was more, Poke`mon had a flow chart when it came to elements, something I had never seen before. I could defeat certain enemies by using certain Poke`mon that had opposing elements in their repitoire. Well, SMPRG had taken it further. Now, I could be poisoned, I could instantly kill an enemy with a single Item, if I was smart with it [ghosts don't like it when you throw Pure Water on them] I could become a variety of things, most of which were in Poke`mon, in some form or another, and some that didn't seem to be in my eyes. Then, there was humor. I was laughing at certain dialogue. There were secrets, oh my were there secrets. Ultimately, there was more of a storyline as well. SMRPG was my second RPG, and I began to play Castlevania, Symphony of The Night that same year. Then, it all stopped. All copies of SMRPG were gone, I grew out of Poke`mon when I hit seventh grade, and I never got to finish Castlevania [it wasn't mine]. Well, I still didn't know what an RPG was, and I was 13, but I was starting to hear about them more and more.

Then, one fateful evening when I was I believe 17, I watched my younger brother as he played a game. The game....it interested me. It seemed so.....comforting and cool looking. The music was so pleasant, and the gameplay just looked amazing to me. Little did I know, this game was five years old. I picked it up. I played it. I was shocked. The game was four discs long, and I was nonplussed that a PlayStation game could be so massive. My brothers' shitty copy, which was given to him, was missing disc 4, discs 2 and 3 didn't work, and the cinematics didn't work on disc one, and actually had to be skipped, or the game would freeze. Yes, it was that shitty of a copy. But.....I was enthralled. ENTHRALLED. The game was Final Fantasy IX, and I couldn't put it down. The storyline was new to me; I didn't even know that games had storylines like that. I felt as if I was playing some kind of interactive book. The music was so comforting, and fit the game so damn well, that I'm afraid how it seemed to me at the time cannot simply be put into the confinement of tightly spaced words. The visuals, EVERYTHING appealed to me about this game. Just what was this? I had been hearing about FF games for a few years, and had even been offered to play a few, but I had politely turned the offers down. Games weren't for me anymore; there were hardly any that I liked anymore. I Liked Tony Hawk games, Zelda games, and Resident Evil. I had nothing else brand new to go on. No, video games were no longer for me....were they? And yet, as I played this game, a whole new world opened up to me, and the creature stirring inside me, the one that had been laying dormant all these years, had finally awakened, never to sleep again. Finally! There was a game that actually involved thinking and strategy, involved tactics and planning. I had front row and back row, I could have a team of four characters fighting at once [in Poke`mon, I could only use one character, and in SMRPG, I could only use three]. Suddenly, the previous to RPGs I had played were so vague and shallow when it came to the amount of strategy, of tactical ability. Scenario: I have four guys, and I'm up against two strong enemies, both of which hit exactly twice as hard as my guys can hit them. My guys have 5,000 HP, both enemies have 8,000.....now, I'm down to only one man, whom has only 1,000 HP remaining, and both enemies have 4,000 remaining.....how can I win? CAN I win? Can I pull myself out of this hole? Yes, with carefuly planned and thought out moves, moves that slowly bring back my second man, moves that slowly keep my strength, and now his as well. Suddenly, both men are somewhat healthy, and I have a second pair of hands to sling curative items around....Such scenarios fill turn-based RPGs. As stated before, I was completely in shock with the storyline. It was so complex, so built. Each character was so much more three demensional than other games, they had substance. They had emotions. I felt each character's pain. The comical tone that filled so much of the dialogue had me laughing right with the characters, and if one of them was starving in a desert, I felt pangs of hunger. I suddenly had control of insanly massive monsters, monsters that I summoned at will to help me kick an ememies ass. Could anything be better? Each of these 'Eidolons' got bigger and bigger, meaner and meaner, constantly surpassing my expectations of how badass they could possibly be. Why hadn't I played this game sooner? Monsters that I could just summon at will to do my bidding? Oh hell yeah!

...I finished Disc one of Final Fantasy IX within a few days....and then...DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN!! discs 2 and 3 were inoperable, and disc 4 was nonexistant, and for fucks' sake, this wasn't even my copy! With my next payday, I immediatly went after a copy. I started with my colleges in Tech School. I was a junior at the time [or was I just beginning my Senior year?] and I went around asking if anyone had a copy of FFIX they wanted to sell. The remarks were interesting. Some dissed Final Fantasy games, saying things like "Final Fantasy is gay" and sometimes going to the point of stating "anyone that plays them are lame." Then, there were some that flat out remarked they would never rid themselves of ANY Final Fantasy title they had in their posession [a trait I would later develop as well....for the most part]. Finally, after asking all the people I fixed computers, and learned to fix computers with, it was time to go to a store and grab a copy. Back in 2005, you could actually GET used PlayStation games at places like EB Games, and that's what I did. I dug around for a bit, and WHALAH! A fresh copy, fifteen bones was the price. I bought it happily, having purchased a gem of a game. Needless to say, I finished the game. I ooohed and aahed in certain places. I was filled with happiness, then melancholy, then happiness and then utter despair as the story had progressed. I had a gauge, which I like to call my 'pissed off gauge' that measured how long it would be until I went into a 'trance.' Once I went into a trance, my powers increased, and for each character there was usually a special that appeared. My black mage could cast any spell he wanted twice in one move. My knight could hit with two and a half times the force, etc. As I watched the credits roll, and the 'The End' come on screen, I knew one thing at that moment, I had to play another Final Fantasy.

I played Seven next. And why not, really? That's all anybody recommended to me. "SEVEN DUDE! DEFINATLY SEVEN!.....uh, eight is okay, ....nine is decent...SEVEN IS REALLY GOOD THOUGH.....but......there's ten...BUT SEVEN DUDE, YEAH I RECOMMEND THAT ONE! ...although, eight IS pretty decent...." It was like people were on broken records, with gouges in the vinly that made them replay the same spot in a snappy repetition. Well? Yeah, that many opinions, I bought a copy of Final Fantasy Seven. I played it. Seconds....mere second of gameplay had me hooked. I do not lie. As soon as I started controlling my character, I could feel the pangs of energy from my game transfer into my hands, via the controller. It kinda felt like that. I was this mysterious blond-haired fellow, whom I found out minutes later was named Cloud. He slashed his massive sword, and I felt the energy from every stroke. As I came up on the first boss, I was immediatly struck with how exciting the Limit system was. I was immediately impressed with the Limit system, which was pretty much like the Trances on FFIX. Everytime I got hit, my gauge would fill a little, only this time, the harder they hit me, the more it filled. This was the first game where I nicknamed the gauge the 'pissed off' guage.The game progressed. Man, FFIX had so many secrets, and here was seven, an entire three years older than FFIX, and yet just about as many secrets throughout. So many sidequests. Poke`mon had never had true sidequests [unless you counted going after all the different Poke`mon] and SMRPG had only an hour or two of them, but now I was truely swiming in a pool of possible sidequests. One thing that struck me about both titles was just how much wonder there was in the game. Every frame felt like it was hiding something, something I could dig up and find, then use to my advantage. The story though....it couldn't be as crazy as FFIX....could it? It was. The story was just as in depth, the characters were still more three demensional than I had ever seen, and the humorous dialogue kept me in danger of falling outta my gamers' chair. Not to say, mind you, that there weren't times I hated what I was doing [coughChocoboRacingcough cough......seriously, I put two holes in the wall of my room in 2005, the only holes I ever put in my wall ever, and they were both from Chocobo racing] Then, the monsters I could summon, which were called 'Summons', and rightfully so, as I call them that in each FF game, usually. Anyway, they were just as badass in Seven, and I was shocked at this fact. And then.... the game was over. "GOODBYE SEPHIROTH, COCKSUCKER!" Was probably my battlecry as I administered the final move; the dreaded Omnislash. Ohhh, I bet that hurt like a bitch, dinnit Sephy? ...It was time for another Final Fantasy. I had finally learned what RPG's really were, somewhere along the line [not sure when] and I was hooked. I got Final Fantasy Eight. I played it, beat it. Somewhere in there, I had started playing Final Fantasy Ten, and then lost my file when I had just gotten to The Calm Lands. Oh well, the copy hadn't been mine anyway....so I went out and got it, I believe after FFVIII. Once again, I was impressed with the battle system. Nine had impressed me with all the equipment ingenuities, the amount of shit I could steal from anything and anyone, and the in-depth amount of skills to learn. Seven had the materia system, which, even for those that HATED it, cannot say that it wasn't revolutionary and/or unique for its' time. Seven was a 1997 release, after all. If anyone has played this game all the way through, knows almost everything [or everything] you can do with the materia system, and still says that it wasn't revolutionary or unique for its' time is a very ignorant, if not slow, individual.

Anyway, eight was certainly unique with its' system for aqcuiring new weapons, and my, how I loved to drive that fucking car. Sometimes, people think I'm kidding when I say I loved driving that car around, occasionally running out of gas, and walking bow-legged back to a city to buy more, breaking into a run halfway through in a desperate attempt to evade some deadly monsters, whom were taking residence in the area. Heh, I made noises too. VVRRRROOOMMM, VROOOOMMM! I went as I drove my little ass car around, enjoying myself more than should have been allowed on an RPG video game for the PlayStation game console. Of course, eight ended up being my least favorite battle system, and is the only one, to date, that I cannot manage to beat a second time, due to simply not being able to enjoy the game anymore. After Ultimacia was given the Coup `De Grace, I went back to FF Ten. The brand new copy of Final Fantasy Ten, this copy mine and mine alone, was in my hands, and I booted it up and advanced beyond where I had originally lost my data. FFVII, VIII, IX, All of these battle systems I had experienced, yet I was once again impressed by the battle system on FFX. The sphere grid system, used for strengthening yoru characters, was very new and very cool. I loved it, and could almost FEEL my guys getting stronger with every sphere I activated on the grid. It also added a new, interesting element to RPG gameplay; nobody had levels. Sure, you have stats, and lots of it, but thats' all you know. Then, there was the fact that you could go anywhere you wanted on the sphere grid with each character, provided you eventaully broke some Level spheres much later in the game. The Limits/Trances were now called Overdrives, and my 'Pissed Off' gauge could now be set to charge differently, at different things [provided you unlocked the settings for it]. Wow, I was floored. Just how many times were RPGs gonna knock me off my feat in amazement? [yes, this will get to non-FF titles soon] I finally beat FFX, and craved more. RPG's had suddenly became my favorite, they were my favorite games. I quickly sought out more copies of Final Fantasy games, and I began to remember a two games I had played as a kid....SMRPG and Castlevania, SOTN. I began to seek out those titles as well [I had been looking for copies of them for years prior, but now my efforts were doubled]. I got Final fantasy Anthology, which contained FFV and FFVI. I also aqcuired Final Fantasy Chronicles, which had Chrono Trigger and FFIV. Both sat there on my shelf for a while, and I began playing FF VII, IX and X over and over again. Things wouldn't change much from this pace, until later that year....

...now I was a senior in tech school. It was still 2005, and summer was half over. A commercial came on the Television set in my grandfathers' living room. It was for a game, and it looked fuckin' cool. I wasn't one to go off appearance either. The commercial kept playing, two different versions I think, and after a while I could no longer ignore them. It was for DragonQuest VIII, and I went out soon and bought a copy. To my amazement and approval, it was an RPG! Not only that, it was the most visually stunning one I had ever seen, and thus a new chapter started for me, my love for Cell-shaded RPGs. Cell Shading [or Toon Shading, as they sometimes call it] is where the graphics are shaded and colored in such a way that the game looks like an Anime or a cartoon. While I had played a few games that WERE Cell Shaded, and I loved how they looked, this one was the first RPG I had played that was Cell Shaded. Not only that, It looked.....so good. I realised that RPGs and Cell Shading really seemed to go hand-in-hand. The entire game looked like it had been hand-drawn, rather then computer animated. Then, there was the battle system. My understanding of high and low scale battle systems came to be. The battle system for DQ8 was very low scale; your characters' being godly if they ended the game with 500-600 HP. One thing immediatly appealed to me; this one was geared to be harder. Instead of tons of HP, and aqcuiring new levels all the time, levels were suddenly sparce, and few between. When a party member was injured, you had to heal effectively, and once you had progressed a few hours into the story, and achieved all four party members, it wasn't uncommon to have two members healing every turn, while the other two attacked. The bottom line; you healed often. Staying patched up was the name of the game, not to mention whoopin' some slime-ass. Also, the game immediatly kicked into 'fuck you' mode. There was no gradual difficulty when it came to the first monsters faced. I have read many articles on the game, and many people had offered jokes of their first times playing the game, going for the first destination instead of training....they got their asses kicked. You weren't babied. You had to stay close to the first city, named Farebary, and fight until you were about to pass out, then run back inside, your tail tucked between your legs as you dashed to the town Inn and healed. Also, monsters were more violent at night, and some monsters would only come out then. Time flowed. I believe it took around 12 minutes for the sun to go down, and vice versa. I quickly realized the that battle system was the most balanced one I had ever experienced. There was also so much at your disposal, once it was all unlocked. It stayed exciting as well. At first, the battle system seemed plain, seemed bland. Then, little by little, more and more of it was slowly unlocked and/or revealed, and I continually found myself surprised and excited. I could slowly master weapons/skills, via points that were given to me [a random amount] after level three or on it, as I can't seem to remember which. There was an immense alchemy system that revealed itself, pieces at a time [won't spoil the surprises] and what I could make became more and more expansive. There were books everywhere that I could read, which were actually worth reading! Some were funny, some provided tips, and some actually taught you recipies for alchemy! To save your game, you had to go to a church and 'confess' your sins to save, something I found humorous and cool. Things were expensive, and, with the exception of what you found on the ground, you had no choice but to fight and defeat monsters to get cash. So brilliant, you had to fight monsters not only for experience, but for the cash I so desperately needed so often. Also, each contenient was massive, and with only a few exceptions, you could go anywhere the fuck you wanted, often resulting in your brutal death. I'll not spoil the secrets of travel, for those who want to play but haven't yet, but suffice to say I learned later, something that still impresses me to this very day; everything you can see, anything and everything at all, you can explore. If its' a mountain, if its' an ocean, you can explore it, provided you have unlocked the abilities, so to speak, to do so. Its' not that you see an ocean, and can explore A ocean later. No, its' not that....the EXACT patch of ocean you see is exactly what you will see when exploring it later. As far as you can look with your camera, all that can be explored as-is.

I soon realised that DQ8 had my favorite story, out of any RPG I had played at the time. So many surprises, moments where I jumped up and yelled at my TV in excitement and surprise. As the game progressed more and more, more things happened. I cannot explain all that I liked, to be fair, as I like just about everything that was in the game. However, I will mention that the sidequests were amazing, and collosal in size. Not to mention, the game itself takes about eighty hours to beat, and when you replay, a special place is unlocked that will probably take another fifty hours to beat! And this was a PlayStation2 game! How could so much be crammed into a single disc? I counldn't answer.

Eventually, the game was finished. By the time the end credits were rolling, DQ8 had become my new favorite game. Somewhere along the line, I got my old copy of Paper Mario back, the one I hadn't got very far in as a young teen, and played it through. It became my favorite RPG for a while, and is probably one of my top five most beaten games. I think I gave the chip some minor heat damage, as certain areas of the game are now blurred/curropted. Still playable though ^^

...I played that fucking thing all the way through, about .....fifty times I'd say. Maybe more. I craved a sequel. I bitched for a sequel. Finally, winter of 2005 was upon me, and I was walking with my two brothers, once again bitching at them about Paper Mario, and how there should be a sequel....I shit you not, I stopped midsentence, as I had noticed a demo....
....the demo I had noticed on display was for Paper Mario 2. I'm not sure, to this day, how I managed NOT to scream my fuckin' head off and get kicked out of Wal Mart, but I somehow pulled it off. It came out late December...and I got it as a Christmas gift, on New Years' day, I believe. I am thinking that this may have been the New Years OF 2005, so perhaps I got into Paper Mario1 before 2005, but I'm sure that's irrelevant at this point. I have a bit of difficulty figuring out just when I got into that one, due to all the RPGs I was loading up on. Anyway, Paper Mario2 was finished, and I needed more.

And here, right now, is where I speak more on RPGs and less on my history with them. After DQ8 and PM2, I played many, many RPGs. To date, I have played more than I could probably remember/count. But now I would like to slowly dive into the changes the years have shown.

In this day and age, we have slowly transferred from Turn-based RPGs, which rely on strategy and careful thought, to a more modern system called Action-based RPGs. Action-based RPGs are a lot like regular games, which is why I don't like a lot of them, and the ones I do like, I don't like as much as my Turn-based RPGs. As time went on, as we marched towards the era we are in now, the focus is less on strategy and more on constant movement. They can still be enjoyable. Since 2005, many RPGs have also adopted Cell-Shading a lot more, something I have loved. Graphics have improved, engines have improved, everything is moving forward at a rapid pace, but do we really need to go there? Who makes 2D side-scrollers anymore? Nobody. I think today, people have lost a lot of foucs on the fun of gameplay, and much more focus is now spent on how it looks, and this is very true with RPGs as well. Castlevania, SOTN was a side scrolling RPG. The entire game pretty much took place in one massive castle, which was inverted if you did a laundry list of tasks, esentially making it two castles. Because it was a side scroller, and the graphics were decent for an early PlayStation title, it really made you feel like you were in a castle.....so what if we were to use the graphics capabilities we have today and remade it? What if it was still a side scroller on the remake? Then we would have the most lucious, breathtaking environment, and we would truly feel like we were INSIDE a bigass castle, but not from a 3D view. Sometimes, I believe, we get the wrong impressions. Yes, 3D is almost always better. After all, with 3D environments comes 3D movement, which is ....so kickass [anyone remember when the N64 first came out? Everyone was shitting themselves at the fact we had accomplished 3D movement]. Still, picture it, if you can. Picture a side scroller with our modern graphics and graphics engines. How much 3 demensional shit could be in the background? Just because the shit our character walks on isn't three demensional, doesn't mean the background can't be. In SOTN, part of the castle consists of several grandfather clocks, with a massive clock somewhere in between. With moder technology, we could have three demensional gears moving in the background, as opposed to 2D ones. Not to mention, our character could be 3D as well. So many things would be 3D, just not our movement. It would be as if you were staring at someone walking through a building, but you ripped off the side wall so you could watch them as they padded througout the complex. Just because there is new, doesn't mean the old can't be used in a very cool and effective way, a very fun and exciting way. Why, modern graphics can fuse with the old, making such hybrids as the 3D scroller I mentioned above. Why don't we? Old games are good, and so are new ones, so why can't we have the best of both worlds? This especially can apply to RPGs. Why not have a turn-based battle system, but have each move be extremely cinematic? For instance, you select 'attack' and that particular character uses his fists. Instead of the character running up and punching him, then running back, we could have the camera follow our party member as he rushed in, have the ememy suddenly throw random attacks, have our character get hit with some, and avoid some by doing a dramatic backflip, then closing the gap and slamming the creature in the face with his fists, the creatures' flesh sinking in with the force of each punch, some random blood and howling occuring from the creature as it takes blows? Then, our character finishes his standard 'attack' and dashes backwards, not necesarilly in the line his buddies are in, but still close to them, maybe twenty feet away? Your guys could slowly form a circle as they backed away from the enemy. With turn-based, we select our atttack, and our guy/gal goes up and attacks quickly, then dashes back....all done. In action-based, we mash the attack button over and over, and our character just throws attack after attack, while the enemy attacks as well.....but the battle system I just mentioned, it would fuse those two systems, it would be the best of both worlds! I am no stranger to RPGs anymore, and they are still my favorite game genre. I'd say roughly 90 percent of my games are RPGs, and I am not surprised in the slightest with this.

It should be obvious that I have seen many battle systems, seen many item systems, armor configurations, so why now is everything being repeated? Why now, in the midst of all this technology advancements, are we making the same cut-and-dry RPGs? One of the main reasons is that people are either new school, or old school. There are too many people that will bitch if a game is a side scroller, without even playing the damn game!!! Why is that? I'll tell you; its' because its' not 3 demensional. It isn't the best it can be visually. Where at, along such a long line, did we focus on graphics for our games/RPGs, and not the mechanics, ingenuities and fun gameplay? The most recent RPG I purchased was Tales of Vesperia. It was a very Action-based game, but very fun. The storyline was extremely awesome; one of the best I've seen in quite a while. All this, yet....something was missing. I felt somewhat disbonded, disconnected and empty when the game was finished. I felt as if, while the game was phenominal in my opinion, it could have been the greatest game I ever played in my life, had they implemented some of the old with some of the new, instead of going full-blast with all the new, modern things we can do with our game development. We need to slowly push our way to a new day, a day where we use whatever makes a damn good game, we need to be more forgiving with game companies that churn out games we feel aren't as graphical as they should be. Case in point; the Wii. The main complaint against it; it isn't as graphical as it could be. While I undestand and condone the desire for High-def support, the graphics themselves don't really need to be better than they are. Super Mario Galaxy was incredible visually, yet some complain it isn't high-def, or it isn't simply "the extent or max that we can push graphically." Who played that game and enjoyed it? If you did, then did the graphics really matter to you? Or was what graphics you had enough to enjoy the game? I'm thinking you'll go with the latter. I, of course, think that this could be applied to all games, but I, as an RPG enthusiast, really look forward to a day where this philosophy is applied to RPGs.

Recently, a few days ago in fact, I picked up an old game that I haven't played all the way through in years; Final Fantasy 7. I never expected to have the same pleasure, the same excitement, and the same happiness playing this game as I did then. I am still impressed with this game, all these years later [cough, its' only been four >_>] In all seriousness, I am content with the CG graphics, for the most part. Sure, the graphics overall could use a bit of upgrading, but I tell you one thing, the graphics and the animations that run in the background, paired up with the depth of what you can see......incredible for a 1997 RPG, let alone a regular game. The graphics used on such an early PlayStation title are awe inspiring for me. The battle system still caters to my needs, hell, just about everything in that game is awesome.....so why have we disposed of those ingenuities, just because they are slightly over a decade old? We could morph the ideas, we could fuse them with modern systems, making hybrids, the likes of which we haven't seen yet...

...I am now interested in game design, and I swear to all you RPG gamers out there [especially you, Falcon] that If I do make it to such a job, I will sweat my ass off to bring you the best games I can possibly churn out. Any RPG I make will have to meet my standards, and, while my standards may be different than anyones' that is reading this, I can say one thing about my standards....they are high, and I hope yours are as well. -[AT9]