News

The first online game for the Gamecube, Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II was released on Oct. 30th. According to the review here:

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/reviews/0,10867,2896605,00.html

It does have a few drawbacks, such as a lack of keyboard at the moment in GameCube to communicate with players while online. The reviewer also states that the offline mode is a bit lacking on the storyline side.

However the game does boast interesting new character types, such as a metalic woman who can't use magic, but is immune to poison. There are also changes in other character systems, with Rangers and Hunters among others.

The reviewer gives the overall score of 7.8, rating the game as Medium.

FFX, the newest Final Fantasy to hit the American and European shores, will eventually have an album out. It's a Vocal album, as is mentioned in RPGamer:

http://www.rpgamer.com/news/Q4-2002/110902a.html

Apparently this is not your ordinary Final Fantasy soundtrack; it has the voice actors from FFX acting out scenes that were not in the actual game itself. Possible connections to FFX-2 as well. Could this be a form of advertisement to make sure FF fans are hyped for FFX-2?

Release dates in Japan are set for Dec. 16th, no word yet on the rest of the world.

You probably noticed that this month's FF4 quiz was AWOL. Climmy was being a bit of a reticent bugger about releasing it, but it's been resolved. You can take the quiz now. Sorry for the delay!

Hall of Fame

If you've taken two or more quizzes, you can now see how well you match up with any other pathetic fools who've wasted as much of their pointless time and effort on it as you.  I hope you are pleased with your dreary performances and making me waste all this time setting it up so you can compare yourselves like small children.  Wait... no, I hope you're really displeased.  Yes.

What do you get when you cross a Final Fantasy character with, apparently, Lara Croft, and add a Western look for fun? This, apparently:

http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~nanko/ev/tgs/990-yuna.jpg

Not that this is altogether a bad thing. It's merely the plans for FFX-2, which is a direct sequence to the popular game FFX for PS2. With new functions, giving some of the game a more of a Xenogears feel according to the preview, and an updated outlook on the world clearly from the impact of the ending of the last game, this should be quite the interesting sequel. Here's another picture of Yuna, totting guns and looking nifty. (Check out the long hair.)

http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~nanko/im5/821.jpg

Release dates are still unclear, but hopefully Japan doesn't try to keep this all to itself. (Link to News Article below)

http://www.gamesarefun.com/cgi-bin....,15879,

Here's another picture, too:
http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~nanko/im5/820.jpg

Gamesarefun.com Article

According to Bloomberg Japan (care of gamesarefun.com), Sony holds 82% of the Console market in Japan, selling 1.6 million PS2s and 110,000 PSOnes in the first half of this fiscal year, which is April 2002 - September 2002.  Nintendo's Game Cube only garnered 14% with 304,000 consoles, despite the fact that the GameBoy Advance owned the handheld market with 1.8 GBAs sold, 89% of that market.  Microsoft, however, is failing miserably in Japan, holding only a meager 4% of the market and selling 88,000 consoles.  They have struggled to unseat the Japanese gamemakers, and their games don't appeal to Japanese audiences.  However, I wouldn't count Microsoft out of the mix yet - after all, the great foriegn power Nintendo did unseat the Atari back in the 80s, and Sega gave Nintendo quite a run for their money as well in the early 90s, so who knows.  A corporation like Microsoft is capable of anything.