M&L has encounter-type battles and a strictly turn-based battle system. That's about the best distinction of JRPG which I can come up with.

What are these "western RPGs" that you speak of? Don't get me wrong, I realize they can be categorized and there are big differences. But one of the most striking things about western RPGs is that they were almost completely absent from about the early nineties. Sure, there was some really great stuff that came out in…

Actually experience points and stats are the only robust characteristic of RPGs. The "role-playing" part describes people actually playing roles in pen-and-paper games. It doesn't make any sense when referring to computer games, you're almost always playing some character, even in a first-person-shooter.

The trouble with Akira Toriyama's designs is that they're so incredibly repetitive. DQ8 executed the designs perfectly, but you were meeting the characters you already recognize.

Development costs really. RPGs have pretty huge worlds, so modelling everything in HD would vastly increase costs. And RPG developers also tend to prefer to focus on other aspects of the game anyway. Some of the most loved RPGs are visually the least impressive: Dragon Quest, Tales, Suikoden; all have incredibly plain…

Oh man, that would be so fucking awesome.

What I want to see is a *finished* Wind Waker. Everyone who played it knows that this was an excellent game cut short and forced out the door early.

Problem is Nintendo still made some of the finest moments in gaming. If you haven't played the first-party games on N64, GameCube and Wii you've really missed out on something.

Well, you got your Playstation pretty late then cause it was already a couple of years old by the time accelerated graphics on the PC got big, and pretty ancient by the time FFVII came out for PC. The Playstation was initially way ahead of what the PC could do.

If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse".

3D was actually it's strength. Sure it's not great now but at the time it was way better than anything before. It was really quite weak for 2D though since it didn't have enough memory for beautiful animations like on the NEOGEO.

Yeah, the FFVIII FMVs were what choked our original PSX too. Played it a year or so later on PC.

The hammer example is a bit disingenuous. A hammer is a tool. It's as useful today as it was a year ago. That's why people don't sell their "used" tools but keep them in a tool box in the garage. It's also why some software like Microsoft Office has a ridiculously high resale value. You can sell it but chances are…

This is the way it's always been with VC titles. Unless it's a Hanabi festival release it's the original European version.

That sounds about right with the UKs 20% VAT.

But would you buy it at $250? For me I just have to say that I'm not really interested in it right now. If there were something to entice me I'd probably be able to find $300 for it.

Apple's way is simple and honest: Some people are willing to take the cheaper option, but they think many will pay more for the extra memory.

There's not really much to choose from in terms of localized games.

You think Final Fantasy IX is bad? Just tried a couple of hours of the original Final Fantasy on virtual console. Some observations: