ALTEREGO'S PROFILE

About Quest 64. Yeah, some of the mechanics are not that well implemented, but the game is pretty ingenious for its time. I wish more people gave it an actual chance... On the leveling issue. Battle exp is only useful to gain magic levels, and you can only get 50 levels through fighting. The other 50 you need to max your levels, you get by finding those 'wisp' thingies (I actually like this a lot because it genuinely encourages exploration. I rather look everywhere to find something as useful as a magic level, than examine every pot and barrel in the game just to find common items). So if you have, say, 1 water and 13 fire, you're not lvl 14. If you got half of those level by collecting 'wisps', in reality you're level 7. That's why exp often seems to be working in a wonky way.

Besides that, you can increase your stats like in ff2, the more you use melee attacks the stronger you get, the more you evade enemy attacks the faster you get, etc. On that note, your melee attacks can get very powerful. Sometimes they are only outmatched by spells in range and number of enemies you can target. So getting that melee boost spell is actually very useful. And the game does encourage you to use melee attacks often because that's one way of replenishing your MP...

The thing is that the game rewards you for keeping your magic levels even. The game is all about combining spells. And if you stick only to one element, it's obvious that you won't be able to crack that many combinations. So if you have, say, 16 water and 0 fire/wind/earth, the melee damage formula is something like: "16 -3 -3 -3", as opposed to: "4 + 4 + 4 + 4". Unintuitive? Maybe. But if you played the game the way it was meant to be played you wouldn't run into these problems. =P
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Anyway, I wish I could make a more on-topic contribution to this thread, but right now I can't think of anything... I'm just sticking out for a game that I feel people don't give enough credit to. And if I made you curious, go try Quest64 by yourselves. Or play the gameboy color version which improves on many things of its flaws, but well, it's gameboy.

Edit: The camera being bad is every N64 game's problem. The level design does become unbearable at times, specially in caves.

I tried the demo game and got an error like within a minute of playing; I didn't want to try it again. The mosuse/touch thing seems a bit clunky to me, but hopefully that can be tinkered with. The loading times were awful, specially in regards of the delayed music (So anticlimactic!), but that's just probably my internet... All in all, I'm not impressed, but I'm half tempted to pre-order it to take advantage of the offer. However I guess I'll wait until there's a trial/lite version to see if it's really worth the money. xP

So perhaps I'm missing something, but does finding running water on Mars automatically means we'll find microscopic life as well? Because otherwise I don't understand what's the big deal is. We already knew there was water there in some shape of form, no? ...I think I'll save my enthusiasm for when the existence of such life is actually confirmed.

Space mermaids

Sure, I'd love to have some Martian sea monkeys as pets. =^)

What a shame. I grew rather fond of the characters as I got to know them while I was pestering you for details to draw them.

Oh well. Maybe you can now focus more on "Dungeon Crawl" and "Apon the brow of tomorrow, clear", among others. ;P

I miss the Shmup guys. The were an annoyance sometimes, but they were a positive force in the community as well. Now that they're gone, this place has grown too comfortable on its 'amateurish' ways... "Sigh" Good night, sweet, sweet princes (And princesses, I guess).

Edit: Ultracynicism is good for everyone (In small doses). (Wait, would that be regular cynicism? =P)