RPG Classics Mailbag

Ah, hello, my dedicated fans and everybody else! Anybody else. Anybody at all. HI! LOOK AT MEEEEE!

Shut up.

I can do that. Um, but if I did that, we'd have no mailbag.

Fine with me.

No, because if there was no mailbag, you wouldn't exist except as a pixelated girl in an utterly unbelievable RPG. Stagnant! Unchanging! Personality-less!

Why are you arguing? You know you'll end up doing the damn mailbag anyway.

Well, exCUSE me for trying to inject a little philosophy and annoyance into a weekly mail response and comedy sketch.

No way.

Er, fine. Anyhoo, we now continue our feature mailbag! Most of these were written for last week's ambiguous topic, so they don't exactly answer our question (which, for the elderly and memory-impaired, was "What feature would you like to see in an upcoming RPG?") but then again, most people don't EVER answer our question, so it's not like this is anything new. Speaking of which, our first reply is by Daria, a (you guessed it) NEWBIE!!!!!!!!

Hi. Am I on...?

Yes. No. I think. I dunno. What do you want to be on?

Anyway... what would I like to see in an RPG? Hmmm.... well gosh, lots of things I suppose. I mean, first off I think more games should have the option to play either a male or female lead. That would be cool right? I mean I don't mind playing a guy, I'd rather play with a guy but that's something else entirely. Anyway StarOcean 2 had the right idea, I mean the story was the same no matter who you played but the game varied a bit too depending on which character you choose. Though I guess Sekiden Densetsu 3 was a lot like that too. Also I think it might be neat to customize the colors of the hero sprite. You know, maybe I want my female warrior to be a redhead, or a blonde, or a brunette! This is all sounding very superficial isn't it? Oh well. Also I think polygons should die a long horrible death. Gutted like pigs and left to lie bleeding in a vile concoction of their own CGI fluids and human waste. Maybe I'm just picky but I think RPGs look best with that "cartoonish" quality to them. Again StarOcean 2 had the right idea. Or better yet Breath of Fire 3 was perfectly rendered for my tastes. Also I'd like to see more tactical RPGs. Kinda like FF tactics but I want the ability to roam the cities dammit. I don't want to look at some god damn menu screen in-between battles. I want to loot the houses of complete strangers, or perform side quests like any normal RPG. Also I want to the bad guys to win for once. I want to spend 100 hours on a video game only to find out that my party was too late too save the world and all creation because we wasted 100 hours leveling our selves up to 999+ and seeking out those god damn bonus dungeons. And you know what else I want? I want game to be fucking released in the US. I don't want have to play a sequel to a Japanese original that I've never heard of before. And I want the people who translate that game to be able to speak both Japanese and English fluently. Then I want someone to proof-read their work. Then I want all those snot nosed little office geeks whose sole purpose in life is to censor video games for the faint hearted Americans to jam freshly sharpened pencils up into their noses and through their brains. Thank you.

*sniff*... That brought a tear to me eye...

Go away. Well, that was... informative. O_o Here's Josh Elle.

..I make more sense than you do. Anyway designing your own Main Character. Personalty and looks mainly. I mean most rpg main characters are queer. Like for example the Kid from Secret of Mana...what normal kid wheres purple...and pink..and really really bright blue....!! While I'm on the topic of Secret of Mana WHY COULDN'T YOU GET THE MANA SWORD IN SOM WITHOUT CHEATING OR USING THE MAGIC??? That PISSED me off. Oooh well. By the way yes I am mentally insanse....FWAHH!!

Good! Join the club! Anyone here ISN'T insane? *dead silence* Thought so. Next up is d galloway, with a lovely little yuletide story for everyone.

There are many features I'd like, but since I want to be somewhat brief, I'm only addressing two.

1. Stats by Doing: This is my name for the stat system in Quest for Glory (yes, Lunaris, you aren't the only QFG fan). The system was an excellent alternative to the tried-and-true level system. Basically, you build up your stats by interacting with something. For example: if you use the exercise machine, you build up your strength and endurance; if you solve a puzzle, you gain intelligence; pick a lock, lockpicking; cast a spell, gain magic skill. This is better than levels, since you don't walk around for hours, trying to find some impossible enemy to fight.

YAY! I'M NOT THE ONLY QFG FAN! TIME TO CELEBRATE!!!

2. Actual real-time fights: This is something I made up myself. Anyway, the principle behind this is the attempt is the total abolishing of menus in any way. Instead, the player will use various buttons to input the comands. It probably won't work, but who cares? *Ozzie raises hand*

Die! *kills Ozzie*
The End

So cute. Anyway, abolishing menus completely would mean that it's not an RPG any more. O_o The Star Ocean games probably come closest to what you mean, though. Next up is another newbie!!!!!!!!!! I'll let her introduce herself, methinks. Save myself some typing... maybe I'll go pick up some of that carpal tunnel syndrome medicine... O_o

Well, hello there. Since I probably have to introduce myself, the name's Helen, but I'm also known as Thena. (So maybe I'm schitzophrenic. So?) Just thought I'd put in my five cents for the very first time for this mailbag thingummy. (Keep your exclamation marks, I've been "borrowing" several from other people I know just for this occasion.)

Ooh. *takes back his !s*

Shame that I missed the "overrated and underrated RPGs" topic, though... I had a rant on the brilliance of the SaGa series and a rant on the piece of slug excrement known as Final Fantasy Seven. Oh well, I'll get over it.

You can answer old mailbags in new mailbags. Everyone else does. "Hey, Cid, I missed the last 14 mailbags, so here's my answer to all of them at once!!"

Whats wrong with that? It a good plan!

... Don't do it.

ANYWAYS, to the point. What is the feature that I would most like to see in an RPG? Quite frankly, if every RPG had conversations like Grandia, they would surely be more enjoyable. By this, I mean you talk to someone, then you talk to a person straight after, and they have something different to say. To understand what I mean... well, you probably might just want to play Grandia. (Great game, AWESOME battle system, but Feena needs CLOTHES!).

Also, another thing more RPGs need is humour. I know, I know, it may seem out of place in the RPG type commonly referred to as "Kill the Big Foozle". But, if you can at least work one little joke into an RPG, it brings up my score quite a bit. Also, scenes meant purely for humour (such as the infamous "Porn Collection" scene in Seiken Densetsu Three) are great as well.

Well, I guess that's all that I have to say on this subject. *glances down at exclamation marks she was originally going to use in the entry* Guess I don't need these anymore. *tosses exclamation marks on the floor, much to the annoyance of the janitor*

Grumblegrumble...

What a waste. Anyhoo, I completely agree with you on this one; that's why I liked FF9 so much. Next up is Sir Fenrir, who's an obvious SaGa fanatic. Lunaris, go hang out with him. Right now. Go on, it's your Christmas present.

...Uh, yay? That...the most nice gift I...ever had? *blink*

You're lucky I got you anything at all, ingrate!

hi, it's Sir Fenrir again, and i know that i didn't Have to defeat rouge, but i had DSC on blue, and i wanted to keep it. and riki's last boss is a joke,k? if u have kylin and use vortex, no revolution9, no problem. but that's not why i responded to the mailbag. that best feature in an rpg i think the combo system of saga frontier. i thought it was rather innovative and i would love to see it in other games.

Big surprise there, huh? Let's see what Diesel has to say.

Hrmmm, feature that should be in every rpg eh? (No I'm not Canadian)

HEY! I'm Canadian y'freak! Whadyawas supposed to mean?!

Well, Ithink the best thing to put into an RPG would be a flirtation system. That way, you could go up to any old npc and choose the "pinch butt" command and get slapped accordingly. I think this would entertain thousands and take away from the boringness of any of the new Final Fantasies....

I dunno... after the thirtieth face slap, it might get kinda old... O_o I think NPC interaction could definitely be more interesting, though. SO2's pickpocketing was a good start, eh? (Yes, I AM Canadian!) Now comes "Shadow AKA Dark Dragoon". And I have picked out a job class for him, and it is NEWBIE!!!!!!!!!

hi cidolfas, would you please stop picking on ozzie, we know he´s stupid but not even him deserves that type of treatment.

....Even thinking about thinking about such a thing is unconcivable! UNREALISTIC! It like not smashing on Ultros anymore! A HEATHEN!

Ok. So this is my firstmailbag response and I´ll try to make it nice, what i would like to see in every rpg is valkirie profile´s combo system. It is a great system if you know how to use, for example, if you attack with your mage first, you can basically break havok and forget about special defense, well, that´s what i think at least. So seeya

Never having played VP, I can't really comment on this one. ^^; As for picking on Ozzie... what? You want me to be out of a job here? *hits a button at random* *Ozzie falls down a plot hole and everybody laughs* See? Instant gratification, that.

Whee.

Oh, you enjoy this, don't think I don't know. Here's one by someone who calls himself Homer Simpson. How original, Mr. Newbie!!!!!!!!!!! ...Okay, this is getting old. It started when I got two newbies a mailbag, but when most of 'em are newbies, I'm sure people are getting annoyed already... whoever's annoyed, raise their hands!

*raises hands*

And what about you?

I don't get annoyed. I annoy other people.

I'm not even going to get started on the lack of logic in those two sentences. On to Homer Simpson.

I'm not sure if this is a "feature", but I'd like to see more porn in RPG's....*silence* Well, I mean I know there's a lil' in DW3 on GBC, but that's in the dark, not to mention *spoiler* w/ a guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(exclamation points, YAY)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, If I were to choose somthing other than porn, I'd say more puzzles, and not nessesarily[sic] NO PLOT, but I liked Final Fantasy because there was essentially no plot; just gameplay. I like a lil' bit less plot than what's in games now. All they do is talk, talk, talk. Thank goodness for my turbo button :-) Back to the main part(no, not the porn part), I REALLY LOVED Lufia 2 because of the puzzles. Some of them were crotch-grabbingly easy, but some(the mtn. w/ the fire arrow puzzle) was HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(more, YAY)!!!!!!!!!!!! Come to think of it, Lufia 2 is my all-time favorite game. *Nostalgia* ahhhhhh *back to reality* Anyway, in conclusion, I'd like to say this: Mo' puzzles, les' jibba jabba. Foo. (smack me for doing that). *smack* thank you. And thank you for your time and listening to me ramble on about the ol' days of yore........

Hey, I spend most of my day listening to people doing that. I charge a goodly amount of cash for it too, so you all are SO lucky that I donate an hour a week of my time for a charity cause such as this one. I mean... look at this reply by FunnyGinMan. You think I do this for fun? ...Okay, I'm kidding, there's no reason he's any worse than the other wackos here. 8p

I think that the one feature to be placed in any rpg is job classes. Plus the ability to have each character to be able to get all of the classes.

This really belonged in last week's mailbag, didn't it? D'oh.

W00t. Been a while since I messed up, eh?

No. You just were too lazy to give yourself that doofus award.

Same thing, really. Just your point of view. Here's an interesting one by IceTyger.

You cannot see what you cannot smell, and you cannot smell... ninja.... ooh, mailbag! Don't mind if I do!

A feature I'd like to see in every RPG? Well, more explosions are always nice. Maybe the crazy hawaiian shirt dude from Milon's Secret Castle... Hehe, THERE IS ONLY ONE MAHARITO

Oh, another thing that would rule would be the inclusion of lamers. Not just lamers, but lamers you could hurt! Like, walk up to one, and hit him with the Useless Magic-User Staff +5 or something. Then they would be all like "OW!!!!1111 >:(" and stuff.

Oh, and don't forget gameplay over graphics, that's always a good thing to have. *gets beaten by the Squaresoft Gestapo* OWW! I'm sorry, dark lords of the nether realm! Noooo, NOT THE FIRE PIT! AIEEEE!

Lunaris! Stop that!

Aww...but it a so much fun part-time job!

All these hobbies... really getting too much, yes? Onto a reply by Another Gamer!!!!!!!!! Amazingly coming all the way from the GameFAQs Star Ocean message board!

(I'll be damned if I'll use a flashy entrance, I can only imagine how tired of them you already are. Besides, trying to use one would just make me look stupid, which isn't really what I'm aiming for.)

Hi there, paletteswapped Klarth-Mailbag-Person-With-5-Personalities and Julian-Turned-Into-A-Homicidal-Maniac.

I deny all of it!

Oh and Mr. Floating Green Pig Who's Great At Getting His Ass Kicked In A Multitude Of Different Ways, And Falling Down Various Types Of Holes(all of which he apparently enjoys doing greatly, otherwise he'd just hide in a block of ice whenever something threathened him in some way), as well as Ms. Eccentric Inventoress With A Gun. That, or I could just take the easy way out and call you Cidolfas, Lunaris, Ozzie and Lucca.

Ech, there's no FUN in that!

I guess it was about time for me to write something in a mailbag, seeing that I've read every single one of them. Anyways, let's get back to the topic in question before I bore you all to death.

Feature #1: Enc-None from FF8. Extremely useful if you want to replay the game just for story, need to walk long distances if you don't have a car/airship/Chocobo/whatever handy or just plain want to clean out a dungeon. For those who say it's too cheap, using it a lot also makes your chars weak in the long run since they don't level up, so you'll have level up anyways in the end unless you enjoy watching your chars do 1-digit damage to the second boss in the game, which in turn kills your entire party with a single attack.

Feature #2: New Game+ from CT/CC. What could be more fun than slaughtering bosses that used to be soooo hard on the first time around with physical attacks from your mages? No, seeing Ozzie fall through a plot hole for the 293849834th time doesn't count.

But I-... nahhh...

Feature #3: Brave Story from FFT. If you don't want to start a new game just to see the story again, you can watch it again from the menu. Too bad you couldn't review cutscenes that happened right before a battle or dialogues during and after the battle.

Feature #4: "Talk" option from PS4. If you haven't played a game in a few months and can't remember what you were supposed to do next, just ask your party members. Simple, logical and effective.

Well, that's about all I can think of. Stick those 4 features in any RPG and I'll like it a hella lot more. Thanks for the exclamation marks, although I doubt I'll really need them, as I rarely use them anyways. Seeya (maybe A LOT, as far as mailbag is concerned) later.

W00t! More replies! More choice! More people who I can choose NOT to get in! >-) Ah, that lovely feeling of the illusion of power. A nice short one from either Alex, or "DB12DBZ101887", and your guess is as good as mine as to how he can remember that.

Low random encounters!

See? You can be concise if you want to! Nobody wants to, though... sigh... Here's yet another newbie... no, I haven't run out of !s, but it's just getting to be a pain. O_o

Hi Cid, it's Cless Alvein, the guy who never writes the mailbag because he was too lazy to find out about it until now. Anyway...

I'd like to see some voice acting and also a "Star Ocean: Second Story" battling system in the new games, as in little voice packages such as "The enemy!" or "I'm dying!" or something like that while the battle is going on. Although sometimes it may not make sense or is cluttered, it adds life to the battles, and for this reason, I can get to level 80 without EVER getting bored of levelling up. Unlike you, I would NEVER like to cuddle up to a nice menu-battle and I find it extremely boring once you play for a while. I want a piece of that gameplay battle action ^_^.

Yours Truly(Not fakely),
-Cless Alvein

P.S. I- I forgot what I was going to say. Drat. Why is it that I can remember a commercial jingle from 5 years ago but can't remember what I was just going to type? >.<

I didn't say I like menu battles *all* the time. I enjoy SO2 immensely. But if I'm too tired to keep my reflexes up like that, it's nice to be able to think things through. -_- Here's a To-Do list by Rayman201:

Here is the list of things I would like to see in an upcoming RPG:
1. Lots of humor
2. Chronic bad language
3. Celebrity appearances (if it were up to me, it would be Jade Harlow, Molly Stanton, Deanna Wright, and Larisa Oleynik)
4. Kickass music
5. Also, I would like to see a village where all the buildings are on fire and they would play the Beastie Boys song "Girls" as the BGM (Background Music).
6. All the bosses would have over 10,000 HP after almost half the game.
7. Enemies with names that're the same as people I don't like.
8. You actually get to name your enemies (so far, only RPG Maker has given players the opportunity to do that).
9. At least one alien.

BLWARG! ALIENS! THEY SPYING ON US! THEY PLAN TO INVADES US! USES US AS EXPERIMENTS! WERE DOOMED! X-COM IS OUR LAAAAAAST HOPE!*faint*

10. At least 3 cinemas where things are exploding or catching fire for no reason.

I sense a Parasite Eve reference...

11. It would NOT be for the X-Box.
12. People getting high.

Ah. Going for the MTV-generation "if it's on fire it's gotta be good", eh? Sheesh. Here's our resident wacko... er, one of our resident wackos... a particular wacko... someone who just wrote in to the mailbag just like everybody else, Doc Shinryuu. Sheesh.

*You feel an electric charge grow in the air as an orb of light appears. It grows into a portal, which Doc Shinryuu steps out of.* Heyhey! Doc Shinryuu's back! *sickly fanfare* Hmm... I've gotta get that fixed. Anywho, on to the response. I think the Wereform feature from SAIYUKI: The Journey West seems like a good idea. Think of it: Turning into a giant monkey to crush your foes. Sounds to me like Dragon Ball Z took that aspect. Plus, the FP system from Wild Arms 2 is pretty good. It's like Infinite MP without Gameshark! By the way, I think I've got the Wild Arms 2 Shrine, so keep an eye out for me. Anyway, I feel like destroying something, so I'll do just that! *Charges a ball of chaos energy* Flames from *Censored*, gather and fire away! FLARE2!!! *Good Ciddy: Miss, Evil Ciddy: Miss, Lucca: Hit, but it heals her, Ozzie: Hit, serious physical damage, Lunaris: Hit, serious damage to body and ego. Doc Shinryuu disappears in the flash of light produced. You hear a dimensional echo afterwards* GYOOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....

You can't censor "hell"! Can you imagine where we'd be if everyone censored "hell"?

Final Fantasy 6.

Good point. And I've had my eye on you for MONTHS! You haven't noticed anything, have you? Heheheh... Here's one-half of our resident female wackos... yes, I can say that one.

::appirates into mailbag , then accidenttaly falls donw into a plot hole that was left there by "accident", carwls out and turns Ozzie, into a pig (suspecting it was him) :: lo Ciddy,Eviel Ciddy, Ozzie,uuh....piggy ^_^,Lucca,Lunaris,etc. well,the BEEESSSTTTTIEEEE Feature that one could put in a game is to no MP system,i know that sounds weird (ontop of stupid),but i was playing Wild ARMS 2 earlier,and the FP system is WAY BETTER then the MP system,cuz you can keep usuing magic as long as you want!!!o yea,just for the hell of it::turns Ciddy into a dog,Eviel Ciddy into cat,Lucca> horse,Lunaris>a COW!!:: now its the BARNYARD MAILBAG!! MUAHAHAHAHA!!::disaperates::

Woof. *turns everybody back into whatever they were* I'm getting sick of that. O_o Anyway... we have a very special last mailbag reply person: the one and only Macc Maverick!!!!!!!!! Heh, isn't that funny? Technically he's a newbie! 8p Take it away, chief!

Hiya, Ciddo. Bet you weren't expecting a response from /me/, were ya? Don't worry, I've got a good excuse. See, it's like this. I'm stuck at work, and I have very little to do here at present, so I thought, "Hey, why not respond to the mailbag for a change?" Yes! Genius! ...er, not that I don't usually want to write, or something, but... well, I want to give other people a chance to get in the mailbag too, and stuff. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Anyway, as for the response... What one feature would be the best/most innovative for an unnamed new RPG? Isn't it obvious? Full interaction. Virtual Reality, baby! You wanna go somewhere? Just walk there. You wanna talk to someone? Open your mouth and say what you want to say, having the character you're conversing with respond in an (artificially) intelligent manner. Yeah, I'm talking holodecks here. Hey, nobody said the best and most innovative feature possible would be easy to implement.

And there you have it. Might as well toss out the rest of your responses, 'cause it's not gonna get any more innovative than this. That was a funny feeling, responding to a mailbag rather than coming up with one myself. Perhaps I'll send in another response some other time, but for now... kick in the shins! *kicks Ozzie in the shins* Bet you didn't see that one coming. Seeya! *disappears*

Ow ow ow ow ow!!

Amazing how much a kick in the shins can hurt more than, say, this? *presses button* *1000-ton weight falls on Ozzie* *another one does just for kicks*

Yup.

Ah, slapstick. Well, it don't get much better than that, eh? *hears shivers* OK, OK, I'm going now. But first, I'm gonna... give you next week's topic! Heh, bet THAT took you by surprise! It is as follows: "What's the funniest moment you've ever had/seen in an RPG?" Send the gaffs and laffs to cidolfas@rpgclassics.com and I promise not to print it out, throw it in the trash, set fire to it, and lob it through your bedroom window. No matter how bad it is.

Awww... see, I always knew he had a soft side.

Yes, it's -

Shaddap! Why am I still here? Ozzie!

Gyak! Seeya!

No, I wont pull off a horrible rant that will size up for about two pages. And YES, Vault Dweller dint sent a email, YES the Mentats maniac dint sent anything like this on this thing! NOTHING! ZLICH! NADA! NEGATIVE! RIEN CALISSE! Is that hard to belive!? I cant imagine how much you peoples are idiots! Gesssh! So instead of pulling off a big rant, I'll just say this: Meep.