Falcon:
Well, I can't speak as one who enjoys the BoF series, as I played halfway through the first and got incredibly bored. I also haven't known it to be all that popular over here. However, I can think of reasons it would be successful in Japan; it follows lots of little in-series traditions, has a (sort of) constant plotline, tries to improve upon a proven formula, etc.

Come to think of it, that last one pretty much sums up Capcom's philosophy in everything, given that they come out with a truly new game roughly once a decade. There's a reason they're not known for RPG's. ^_^;

Chimerasame:
Well, I haven't noticed it as incredibly successful, nor have I seen it as particularly boring, to disagree with two different points made... aside from that, though, I can give one reason for its limited success on North American shores. Who translated the first Breath of Fire game? :) Yes, Square, to which 80-90% of the west hemisphere's RPG-playing community is devoted. (Or, at least, was at the time.) Now, this isn't to say the series lacks merit--it's fairly good. But I've never found it outstanding. My favorite, Breath of Fire II, is full of flaws, mainly in translation.

Falcon:
1. GameFAQs.com. It's a wonderful thing. Click here ; it's in Sailor Bacon's FAQ.
2. You'd think that since they've been doing it for years, it wouldn't be that hard... I'm seriously rethinking getting games on release dates now because of recent problems in that area.
3. Yes, I believe it involves a fair amount of leveling (What game didn't back then?)

Chimerasame:
1. ...ehem. RPGamer also has it. :)
2. Coasters are so popular, they decided to charge game prices for them.
3. There's some levelling in it, but not nearly as much as, say, DW1.

Falcon:
Interesting. I was always a little wary of turning it on its side / turning it upside down when I briefly had a PSX. I wonder if there's some sort of trick to make the FFT rerelease work with a PS2 as well?

Chimerasame:
You have to pull the PS2 into the fourth dimension and turn it around, then put it back, creating a complete mirror image of a normal PS2. You know, if you do that with milk, it makes you unable to digest it! (Even if you could before!)

Falcon:
Um... thanks for the tidbit.

To answer your question, Saiyuki is based on the same legend that Dragonball / DBZ is loosely based on; that's why Goku from legend appears as a character. I'm assuming more names familiar to Dragonball fans will show up. What I'm wondering is, will Dragonball fanboys buy the game simply because the name Goku shows up?

And regarding FFC; I'd say no, simply because FFIV isn't worth $40. FFIV is a pretty marked improvement over the original US release; Chrono Trigger, however, would be immensely more fun on cart due to the nonexistent load times.

Chimerasame:
Actually, it's "a percussion instrument consisting of vertical metal tubes of different lengths that are struck with a hammer." While your definition might also work in highly specialized fields, I think you're reaching just a bit, there. :) The new translation of FF4, as well as the chance to play hardtype, is very cool -- if you liked the original game. If so, it's probably worth it if you haven't otherwise played hardtype. If you didn't especially like it, then don't bother.

Falcon:
I'm looking forward to Hoshigami as well. I've been waiting for a game, any game, to come close to FF Tactics in pure fun, difficulty and strategic thinking, but I've been sorely disappointed. This one at least looks promising. I just wish people would stop going on about what people are working on it; games are about the games themselves, not all about the companies/teams who make them.

Chimerasame:
Yep, yep, Hoshigami looks cool. I wonder if it'll generate the hours and hours of fun that Tactics did simply by having a poor translation... I have a mediocre feeling that it won't. Darn good translations!

Falcon:
Um, no? If you had that easy of a time with Altima, you must have been a heck of a lot higher level than I was. And lucky, too; Grand Cross never settled for poison against me; it always went for confuse, berserk, stone, frog, fun stuff like that. Altima only had about 3,000 HP, so if you were doing 999 damage with people (say, using Holy, Holy Sword moves or Two Swords), the battle would have been short. Try taking her on at level 35-40 and see if there's a difference in difficulty. Or maybe try not using Gamebreaker Orlandu. Altima shouldn't be that much of a cakewalk.

And if you want the simplest battle in RPG history, go play Final Fantasy VIII. Fight any boss, up to and including the last. There you go. Or perhaps one-hit kill undead bosses in Final Fantasy (insert number here). The list goes on and on...

Chimerasame:
Or, try beating her with a straight class party. Before going to Igros castle, get everybody to a single class, say, for instance, Knight. You can only use the abilities available to Knights for all five characters, and they all have to remain the Knight class for the rest of the game. You can choose which class is the standard, though.

Falcon:
Sorry, I prefer my anime to make at least some semblance of sense. Tried Escaflowne or Saber Marionette J?

As for your letters not getting answered, I probably wouldn't answer two word letters either, but I'm not in charge here.

Chimerasame:
Semblance of sense? Heh, you're missing some of the best shows! Furi Kuri, Excel Saga.. the list goes on.
I found it interesting, this letter proclaimed to have been sent by a Kay Wynn. Could that be any relation to Kai Winn, the religious leader of Bajor? Does Chim think too much about this sort of thing? Will T.R. find out that A.D. killed his brother Q.X. with the help of Ñ.Ä.? All this and more, on the next "Admiral Hospital!"

Falcon:
1. I really don't get the fanboy push for Mitsuda over Uematsu. Both of them are fair composers; however, by and large, Uematsu produces music that is less repetitive, better mood-fitting and is easier on the ears than Mitsuda. Go back through the Chrono Trigger and Cross and Xenogears soundtracks, then look through the Playstation FF's. Notice anything? As good as the music Mitsuda produces usually is, you're going to be hard pressed to find a track that doesn't repeat every 45 seconds to a minute. Uematsu tends more toward 1:10 - 1:45 as a repeat range. Uematsu's music is also more complex; take, for example, Final Fantasy VII's battle music against Xenogears' battle music. FFVII's frequently has three, four and five different lines playing at once, making it more fun to listen for new instruments each time. Xenogears's starts with two and never develops past a horribly repetitive trumpet line, a horribly repetitive bass line, and a horribly repetitive string line. The same applies for FFIX's boss battle music against Chrono Cross's boss battle music. This isn't just an isolated thing; it happens almost across the board. Another plus for Uematsu, in my book, is his more frequent use of major keys, which are easier to listen to. Mitsuda's all-too-often minor keys and dissonant tones just aren't very pleasant.

As for character design, I fail to see anything but pasty white anorexic sicklings in Amano's "designs". Someone else has to flesh those out. Nomura's at least stay true to his original vision. I also get the feeling people knock Nomura simply because of FFVIII; don't knock the designer who made their general look and feel, knock the people who failed to develop the characters. That's where the problem was.

2. The FF movie did bomb. Why? Most people saw the name, heard it was based on a game, then didn't go because "I wouldn't know what was going on." This is because the media failed to report that the movie was "based" on a game in name and style only, not in actual continuity. The Japanese, however, have more understanding of this since RPGs are more a part of their culture than they are here. I think the movie will do a lot better over there than it did here.

I also believe your claim of every FF outselling Japan here is incorrect. To my knowledge, the first one sold more in Japan than here.

3. Considering that they've all but ditched the PSX as of... what, eight months ago, "all their recent releases" translates to "Xenogears re-release, FFT re-release, and FF Chronicles". If you extend it to the last year, you add in Vagrant Story and FFIX, which had no problems. Now, I haven't heard of any problems regarding Xenogears, I believe FFC had a way of making things work as long as you had a PSX/PS2 instead of a PS1, and the FFT rerelease hasn't been out long enough yet to discover if there's a widespread quick fix like there was for FFC. Sounds like human error on the production line, in any case. And if you're suggesting they need a new medium... what do you want them to do, develop for the N64 or Dreamcast? All three of the other next-gen consoles use DVD, so there'd be no functional difference in burning the discs. Your point is moot.

4. GameCube is a revolution? *looks at the titles previewed at IGN* Wow. A bunch of sports games, lots and lots of mindless sequels, and two, maybe three true original games. Looks like a real revolution to me. Sounds about like every Nintendo system made since NES, really.

So, what you're really saying is you're a fan of the good old days of the SNES, when sequels were fresh, and you want to go back. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but that's a pipe dream. Things change; if you don't like it, tough. And don't think I'm some "new-school sux0r" gamer who's just saying that; that's a life lesson, not just a petty gaming squabble.

I have to agree that, in the past year, Square has been selling off name. You expected any less from them after earlier this year they announced that this will be the "Year of Final Fantasy", and *blatantly* stated that they would exploit the FF name? If you want them to do any original thinking, wait until the Year of FF ends, and maybe you'll get it. If their sales fall off. Money talks, after all.

Chimerasame:
There's not a lot more I can add here. Uematsu is good, Mitsuda is good. Uematsu has written a lot more stuff, at least that I've heard, but on average Mitsuda's music is generally better quality... backgrounds fleshed out with more complex beats, and whatnot. Quantity or quality? Uematsu doesn't lack quality tunes, I enjoy a lot of his stuff, but in my opinion, XG's sountrack was much better than FF7's, and a bit better than FF8's. Creid, furthermore, might be the single CD I own with the best overall music on it. That's simply my opinion, though.

Falcon:
I liked the battle system in Xenogears more because it kept things fresh by swapping up every now and then than for any of its other qualities. As for favorite battle system? Even though I'm only about 7 hours into the game, Grandia II is far and away number one on that front. It's simply wonderful; for once a system that requires actual thinking and strategy to use! Lunar: SSSC's was sort of similar, but too limiting; Grandia II's enabling multiple actions to go off at the same time made things fun to pull off and tremendous fun to watch.

Chimerasame:
I didn't have extraordinary problems with the battle system itself--more the redundancy of the enemies you encounter. With the battle system itself, my minor problem lies not with the innovation but with the lack of effect of the innovation. I can make seven low-power attacks, or three mid-power and a low-power, or a seven-attack combo... in the long run, it doesn't make much difference. The combo does a little more damage than the others, but it's not too significant--and then you run into the fact that there's little difference between all the various combos. With practice on an enemy, I could control whether I did 140 or 150 damage per turn... against an enemy with 200 hit points.