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Part one:
email correspondence with a THQ play-tester -- cleverly backward-style
Says he:
I too am looking forward to Dragon Quest VIII. I loved Dark Cloud pretty much more than any other video game last year, mainly because I was able to do anything I wanted at anytime I wanted in any order I wanted. I was given this huge open slate and allowed to let my imagination just run with it. I felt like a kid in a candy store and boy did I eat a lot of candy. Funny, because I absolutely despise Dark Cloud 1 and almost never gave the time of day to the sequel.
You're one lucky bastard, getting to go to TGS. After I found out XII was showing, I really wanted to go. Maybe you'll bring back some nice pictures for me?
Personally, I dislike Final Fantasy VIII. Maybe because I expected too much from it. Maybe because I wanted it to have the EXACT same magic as VII had had... But no, of course that could never be. I've beaten VIII twice. I don't know why I don't like it. Something gnaws at me when I play it. Something deep inside telling me that it isn't right. Funny thing is, VIII is one of the only games I've ever beaten multiple times. Up near the top of the list with MGS, Mario 3 and Vagrant Story.
Also, just for you:
????????@thq.com
That's the guy to talk with regarding Aidyn Chronicles. I believe he was a lead tester on it for awhile. His name is Sean and he seemed really jazzed about answering some questions for you.
-----Original Message-----
From: tim rogers [mailto:tim@insertcredit.com]
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 1:34 PM
To: ????????@thq.com
Subject: Re: Final Fantasy
You know, they made that movie a sci-fi because "Americans don't like fantasy movies." Well, well, well. Too bad they didn't wait until, say, last year to begin production.
IX is . . . a pander-game. it was made for people who didn't like VIII. it was squaresoft recognizing a mistake that wasn't even a mistake.
youve probably heard the stories: men in japan don't play final fantasy anymore. they didn't play VIII because of its concentration on the cuteness of its male hero. they all, however, played IX.
think about it: they consider the big-headed, little-bodied characters to be more 'mature' than the realistic-looking ones.
they also did not, in general, like X.
it kind of doesn't make sense.
just like FFIX doesn't make sense. FFIX is an effort to make sense out of the entire canon of 'classic final fantasy' stories. the truth is, the spirit of final fantasy is relentless reinvention. FFIV was good both in concept and execution because it didn't fear its audience. FFV was made with a little fear. FFVI was made with no fear whatsoever -- and maybe a little fear would have made it the best video RPG of all time. FFVII used FMV and flashiness as a mechanism for dealing with its fear of the audience, as did FFVIII, which upped its flashiness because it had more to fear. FFIX was, plain and simple, made with utter, open-mouthed dread.
FFX was made by someone not too close to sakaguchi, and it was good.
you know sackagoochi isn't around anymore, right? and i don't mean he's been killed. i mean worse -- i mean he lives in hawaii, in solitudinous richness.
as for vagrant story: i tend to like all of it. even the english localization, with its excellent comic-book font and old-fashioned writing. i'd have preferred it with snappier, faster gameplay, just as i'd have preferred it to have voice-acting -- and a playthrough of metal gear solid this weekend confirmed to me how DAMNED cool that would be.
japanese males also do not like voice-acting in their games. i wonder if DQVIII will have it.
it's an interesting thing, the japanese view of 'maturity' in videogames. new final fantasy is 'immature,' while all dragon quest is on the list of manly pastimes, right next to baseball, beer-drinking, ramen, and infidelity.
it's different from the hardcore/casual debate. it's . . . odd that there can be videogame . . . 'traditionalists' (?) out there.
yet, the world is a better place for all these different types, i say. and i DEARLY look forward to dragon quest viii.
as i look forward to seeing FFXII unveiled at TGS next month -- IN PERSON!!!1!!!
oh, and this:
if you don't buy that, you're SO not l33t.
--tim rogers
(novelist/freelance journalist/genius/four-time college graduate/actor/punk-rocker/(unemployed))
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www.insertcredit.com
www.tokyopia.com
www.livejournal.com/users/pyramid108
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"Wu said in his commentary, 'White 108 was an extremely difficult play. One waited with not a little excitement to see where it would fall.'"
----- Original Message -----
From: ????????@thq.com
To: tim@insertcredit.com
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 3:22 PM
Subject: RE: Final Fantasy
OK. So two things: What was the dark secret about IX that you didn't like?
And did you or did you not like Vagrant Story?
Final Fantasy novels would be amazing. I think if an honest to goodness Final Fantasy movie were made, with real actors and a real story, it would blow the movie industry apart. Just look at how well Lord of the Rings is doing. And those aren't even great - hell, maybe not even good - movies.
On a side note I saw a screening of Final Fantasy Spirits Within about six months before it released. Sakaguchi-san was in the audience, some two rows directly behind me. I had no idea until I went to leave when I saw him. And there I was, making fun of the movie the entire time, laughing out loud at the really terrible parts.
Still though, I went and shook his hand afterwards. I told him straight to his face, I didn't like the movie. I like the games much more. Keep making games. He smiled and bowed his head and I walked away.
-----Original Message-----
From: tim rogers [mailto:tim@insertcredit.com]
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 1:16 PM
To: ????????@thq.com
Subject: Re: Final Fantasy
Oh, we already DID play Aidyn Chronicles. The documentary recording is in the bag, as they say. I just have to write up a few words on it.
I'd really like to get an interview of some sort with someone involved with the game. Do you happen to know anyone -- or know anyone who knows anyone -- who was on the team? I happen to have a few questions.
See, Final Fantasy VI, I'm guessing, was made by a bunch of guys who thought, constantly, "This game FUCKING KICKS ASS."
Aidyn Chronicles was . . . not. Yet, no one sets out to make a BAD game. There are always honorable intentions. In the case of Aidyn Chronicles -- the battle system is honorable -- ON PAPER. it's in the execution that it fails, and miserably.
someone must have had a good idea, someone perhaps hidden behind the bad art, the bad music, the bad control, the bad bugs that CORRUPTED MY SAVE FILE UPON ITS CREATION.
you might be extra interested in this upcoming FFDog Gaiden, then.
as for FFIX: it was the first game i finished IN JAPANESE. i LOVED it. i had been so disillusioned with VIII that i was ready for something more traditional. it was an attempt to replay the game many months after i'd played it in japanese that . . . made me realize the dark secret.
oh, it's a dark one, alright.
and yeah. vagrant story got a 40 from famitsu, which says to me that the team knows one thing or one other thing. playing the game tells me a hell of a lot more.
FFXII could be legend. i'm not expecting it to be better than VI -- then again, i WAS expecting IV to be better than I, and it was; i'd like to see something similarly opposite happen here.
i say: now's the time to try to make final fantasy literature.
it's been pop-culturish high-end comic-booky for more than a decade. if they can try something new, and try it well -- well, that'll be good. i'd like it to be as serious in its execution as metal gear solid 2 is silly.
that'd really be something.
--tim rogers
(novelist/freelance journalist/genius/four-time college graduate/actor/punk-rocker/(unemployed))
---
www.insertcredit.com
www.tokyopia.com
www.livejournal.com/users/pyramid108
---
"Wu said in his commentary, 'White 108 was an extremely difficult play. One waited with not a little excitement to see where it would fall.'"
----- Original Message -----
From: ????????@thq.com
To: tim@insertcredit.com
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 3:05 PM
Subject: RE: Final Fantasy
I was saddened to see that IX is one of your least favorite. I really like that game, maybe only because I really didn't like VIII and IX reminded me alot of VI. Maybe too much.
I personally am really looking forward to playing XII. I am on the beta of XI and have so far played it for about 20 hours. It is really nothing new. Maybe I just don't like MMORPGs. Vagrant Story is one of my favorite games of all time however and I'm really excited they are using most of the same team for XII that was on Vagrant Story.
Also, it's been enough time since VI came out and I think Square is ready to make another masterpiece. And I agree with you about the 16-bit era of video games. Everyone seems to think there was so much good stuff being put out on the Genesis and SNES when the fact of the matter is, for every Yoshi's Island we were given 5 shitty licensed games based on McDonald's or some crappy movie starring Paulie Shore. I tend to think we are getting just as many good games to bad games as we used to. It's just now we have our own money and tend to buy alot more games when back in the day begging was the only way to secure a new copy of Phantasy Star 4.
Oh yeah... Have fun playing Aidyn Chronicles... I tried going through it once and ended up turning it off maybe twenty minutes in.
-----Original Message-----
From: tim rogers [mailto:tim@insertcredit.com]
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 11:26 AM
To: ????????@thq.com
Subject: Re: Final Fantasy
Aha.
Well, that would be Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VI, respectively. FFVII was the one that made people know that Final Fantasy meant business -- and I mean "business" in a money sense. I knew some kid -- captain of his high school wrestling team, he believed RPGs were "super-gay" -- who bought Final Fantasy VII based on the ad campaign that showed only clips of full-motion video, yet found himself surprisingly not turned-off by the RPGameplay and more Popeye-armed character models in the map screens.
FFVI is important because it marks both the beginning and the end of the 16-bit RPG's glory. A lot of people talk about "The 16-bit RPG," yet fail to always notice that there weren't too many good ones. Everything Chrono Trigger had, it got from Final Fantasy VI. Even the two Dragon Quests of the 16-bit era were nothing. Now, I enjoy plenty of 16-bit RPGs, including Dragon Quests V and VI; still, I have reasons for saying what I say.
Final Fantasy VI is the next FF to get reviewed on Project FF Dog. That review is long, and it's getting longer each day. Final Fantasy V will be reviewed after that, and then Final Fantasy VII, and then Final Fantasy III, and then VIII, IX, X, and X-2. By the time III comes up, I'll be in Japan, and by the time X-2 rolls around, I might be able to purchase and play XII. XI, I haven't figured out yet.
If you'd like a list of my favorite Final Fantasy games, in order, here goes:
1. IV
2. VI
3. X
4. VII
5. VIII
6. V
7. III
8. IX
9. II
10. I
This excludes X-2 and XI. X-2, which, yes, I have played, I would include between III and V. And XI, I would put just beneath X-2. I'm hoping XII will be better than VII -- and by all reports, that's a possibility.
Of course, this might raise more questions. Heh.
--tim rogers
(novelist/freelance journalist/genius/four-time college graduate/actor/punk-rocker/(unemployed))
---
www.insertcredit.com
www.tokyopia.com
www.livejournal.com/users/pyramid108
---
"Wu said in his commentary, 'White 108 was an extremely difficult play. One waited with not a little excitement to see where it would fall.'"
I found the site about a year ago when I was stationed in Illinois testing Summoner 2 in 20 hour shifts. Got hooked a little after that. Anyways, my weekend just arrived and I'm gonna go. But I will definetly write back on Monday and we can wax philosophical on games all week long. Laters.
-----Original Message-----
From: tim rogers [mailto:tim@insertcredit.com]
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 5:55 PM
To: ????????@thq.com
Subject: something for the fans at THQ
I forgot to attach . . . THIS!
And ask how you found the site. I'm so unprofessional today. It has something to do with the tuxedo.
--tim rogers
(novelist/freelance journalist/genius/four-time college graduate/actor/punk-rocker/(unemployed))
---
www.insertcredit.com
www.tokyopia.com
www.livejournal.com/users/pyramid108
---
"Wu said in his commentary, 'White 108 was an extremely difficult play. One waited with not a little excitement to see where it would fall.'"
----- Original Message -----
I actually started working here after Aidyn. I was selling games at that point at an EB in Southern California when that game came out.
So, I guess as long as you bring it up...
What are the other two important FF games?
-----Original Message-----
From: tim rogers [mailto:tim@insertcredit.com]
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 5:51 PM
To: ????????@thq.com
Subject: Re: The best?
ヴぇｒｙ、ＶＥＲＹ語オｄくえｓちおｎ
. . . whoa. I tried to type and my Japanese IME was on. Now it won't let me delete the above line. What the HELL?
Ahem. I shall pretend that didn't happen. I could always close this window, though . . . well.
I'll start over:
Very, VERY good question.
Why, the best RPG of all time happens to also be the second-best game of all time.
. . .
Well, here I could string you along, if I wasn't a little busy getting ready for my friend's wedding rehearsal-thing. I'll just come out and say it:
Mother 2. Earthbound. Shigesato Itoi's lumbering, odd creation, if only just for the soundtrack. If you've read the article I wrote about the greatest game of all time -- Super Mario Bros. 3 -- you may or may not be interested to know that I'm currently working on something similar dedicated to Earthbound. I think it might be right to post it just after my Final Fantasy VI review.
Oddly, you're the first person to ask this particular question. Everyone else wants to know "what are the first- and second-most-important Final Fantasy games?"
Kind of tells you something, it does.
Hey, you work for THQ? You weren't, by any chance, involved in any way with Aidyn Chronicles for N64, were you? I'm going to go ahead and tell you what everyone else is dying to know: FFDog Gaiden I -- the next installment to go up -- is . . . Aidyn Chronicles.
I'm not going to write a review of the game. I'm just going to do a video feature. However, if there's any way you could get me a quote from someone or something, that'd be nice.
Heh.
--tim rogers
(novelist/freelance journalist/genius/four-time college graduate/actor/punk-rocker/(unemployed))
---
www.insertcredit.com
www.tokyopia.com
www.livejournal.com/users/pyramid108
---
"Wu said in his commentary, 'White 108 was an extremely difficult play. One waited with not a little excitement to see where it would fall.'"
---
"Wu said in his commentary, 'White 108 was an extremely difficult play. One waited with not a little excitement to see where it would fall.'"
----- Original Message -----
From: ????????@thq.com
To: tim@insertcredit.com
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 7:42 PM
Subject: The best?
You say that Final Fantasy IV is the second best RPG video game of all time. What do you think is the best?
????? ???????
Test Lead
Part Two:
email correspondence with an Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage play-tester:
Hello, Sean.
I hear you know a thing or two about Aidyn Chronicles for the N64. Rather than make this a traditional kind of question-and-answer thing, well . . . I'll see what I can do, later. For now, questions and answers. Feel free to write as much on each question as you can muster.
You may or may not be familiar with insertcredit.com's PROJECT: FFDOG. We've been video-documenting play of many RPGs, most of them Final Fantasy or connected to Final Fantasy. We then put up video clips onto our website, wherein we look kind of like assholes, and drink lots of Dr. Pepper. Everyone watching almost dies laughing and then emails me very, very strange emails.
For FFDog Gaiden I, to go up on insertcredit.com very shortly, we pitted THQ's monsterpiece Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage against a TurboGrafx16 armed with Devil's Crush and Ninja Spirit. It was a philosophical-type thing.
As you can see from a little page-browsing, I've been writing two parts about each game: one is a link-filled commentary on the videos; the other is a review of the game.
Well, I didn't write a review for Aidyn Chronicles. I've just written up a video commentary, and planned to do "something editorially clever" in lieu of a review.
I said to your coworker ????? ??????? today:
***
I'd really like to get an interview of some sort with someone involved with the game. Do you happen to know anyone -- or know anyone who knows anyone -- who was on the team? I happen to have a few questions.
See, Final Fantasy VI, I'm guessing, was made by a bunch of guys who thought, constantly, "This game FUCKING KICKS ASS."
Aidyn Chronicles was . . . not. Yet, no one sets out to make a BAD game. There are always honorable intentions. In the case of Aidyn Chronicles -- the battle system is honorable -- ON PAPER. it's in the execution that it fails, and miserably.
someone must have had a good idea, someone perhaps hidden behind the bad art, the bad music, the bad control, the bad bugs that CORRUPTED MY SAVE FILE UPON ITS CREATION.
***
So I guess, what I want to know about Aidyn Chronicles, is . . . why was it made? There's a coherence of content, concept, and execution that all the Final Fantasy games have, that Aidyn Chronicles has not.
I'm going out on a limb here and assuming (as a journalist is not supposed to do) that you don't like the game. Well, if you do, I can do this point-counterpoint style.
So, the questions:
Why was it made?
WHAT HAPPENED in the testing center?
What complaints did you report?
What was the attitude of the team in charge of the game?
Scott says you were lead tester "for a little while." Why just for a little while?
I ask in my video review, "Did no one at THQ ever PLAY this game?" (I played it for 12 hours, all night, and almost died (biologically))
Did you ever finish the game?
These are the basement-level questions. We can get deeper and more uber-philosophical as we go along. I'll turn this all into something big and bold. If you'd like to not be mentioned by name, simply say so. In fact, if you'd like to just go ahead and write an article yourself, let me know that, too. Or I can simply turn your answers into an article, adding my (clearly-marked) extrapolations.
I wanted to do something like this because Electronic Gaming Monthly ran an article a little while back called "How a bad game gets made". It was written by a guy who worked on ARMY MEN: SARGE'S HEROES, a game based on the depiction of certain childhood toys in a Hollywood movie (Toy Story). Aidyn Chronicles is . . . an original concept. Delving into this game's creation will be beneficial for everyone. And it'll get Slashdotted, and make me sexier and famouser.
You, too.
That's all for now. Thanks in advance for your cooperation, and I remind you again that this won't be TOO humiliating.
--tim rogers
(novelist/freelance journalist/genius/four-time college graduate/actor/punk-rocker/(unemployed))
---
www.insertcredit.com
www.livejournal.com/users/108
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"Wu said in his commentary, 'White 108 was an extremely difficult play. One waited with not a little excitement to see where it would fall.'"
Sean's reply NEVER CAME
The world will never know.
終 (That's totally Japanese for "the end" --tim rogers would know, believe me)
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