The Shrine

<div style='font: bold 12pt "Comic Sans MS", Modern; text-align: left; '>Think you could hook me up with a copy of Black and White? Ive been all over my warez hook ups for the past week to no avail...</div>

<div style='font: bold 12pt "Comic Sans MS", Modern; text-align: left; '>Uhhh uhmmm... yea.. That sure was ZOE..... *cough*</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Come again?</div>

<div style='font: bold 12pt "Comic Sans MS", Modern; text-align: left; '>I uhh.... beat it....</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>How many hours?</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Modern; text-align: left; '>He got ZOE at 6:02 PM, at 9:51 he posts he beat it. Do the math. :P</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Too short.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Helvetica, Modern; text-align: left; '>What's with these short-ass PS2 games?</div>

<div style='font: 14pt Agatha, Modern; text-align: left; '>...I mean MGS and Vagrant Story were pretty freaking short too.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>That's true, but 3 hours on the first time through is disturbing. My first time time through either of those two were at least double digits.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Hehe, I was shocked when I beat the game! "Errrr.....wait a minute.....I'm fighting Metal Gear......it's the end!!!"</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Bah the first hour of the game I enjoyed, I did NOT enjoy having to hike back 25 minutes to pick up a sniper rifle.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt Agatha, Modern; text-align: left; '>...wonder if it has anything to do with the difficulty level. Doesn't ZoE have two of them? The Normal difficulty level (assuming that they have one and that's what Oracle picked) might just be far too easy.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>No idea what that means though.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I'll admit, there was no way I woulda known to go back and get the rifle. I can't remember if I lost so many times that the colonel got pissed and told me, or if I ended up lookin in a faq.

Oh well, after you went all the way back and got the rifle, and walked all the way back to the towers and shot her, it was fun again.</div>

<div style='font: bold 12pt "Comic Sans MS", Modern; text-align: left; '>YEa, I picked normal. Im gunna start on VERY Hard right away :)</div>

<div style='font: bold 12pt "Comic Sans MS", Modern; text-align: left; '>I dunno. What's the return policy on EB games? 10 days, right. but can it be opened? When I bought it it basically was all unwraped besides the skin covering the top opening with the game name and bar code on it. And the price sticker of course...</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I don't know why people equate length with quality, and yet they don't like strategy games that takes weeks to finish a game.

I'm beginning to lean toward 20 hours+ is too long for a RPG. I cannot think of a single RPG I've played that's over 20 hours (i.e. every one of them) that couldn't have some dead time cut down so that you can still have the whole story and whatnot in the same time frame. Well, Xenogears may be tough due to a huge script.

A great short game is better than a long boring game, and it is every bit as good as a great long game too.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial, Modern; text-align: left; '>Well, there were those segments of the storage house that you never opened. That, and I think they do tell you after a long enough wait.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "Arial bold", Modern; text-align: left; '>MGS took me 11 hours the first time, say 9 for someone going through it quickly. That one was 2:30. There's a big dif there.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Times New Roman", Modern; text-align: left; '>It can be opened yes</div>

<div style='font: bold 12pt "Comic Sans MS", Modern; text-align: left; '>Can the price sticker be peeled off?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I see your point with random battles, they slow the game down, because you more or less want to explore, etc... and random battles throughout everywhere kind of takes away from the games potential, even with that said, it's STILL my favorite RPG =)</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman", Modern; text-align: left; '>I disagree. If a game's great, then the last thing you want it to do is end sooner rather than later.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Just play the game again</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman", Modern; text-align: left; '>Not all games lend themselves to replayability</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Verdana, Tahoma, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Getting old good stuff isn't the same as getting new good stuff.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I don't see any RPG out there with the possible exception of Xenogears (due to a huge script) that couldn't be done in 20 hours if you're allowed to skip random encounters.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Times New Roman", Modern; text-align: left; '>Yes</div>

<div style='font: 10pt Papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>As long as you've got the game, the box, and the manual, you can take 'er back.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "Copperplate Gothic", Modern; text-align: left; '>I had the same quandry. It was a crisis situation, I thought the rifle was in the building behind an alcove for like 15 minutes.</div>

<div style='font: bold 12pt "Comic Sans MS", Modern; text-align: left; '>WEEE!! It's just like renting games for free!</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Well, you're more likely to play shorter RPG's again, if anyone's played the gameboy Final Fantasy Legend games, they're awesome, if you own them, you've probably played them at least 3 or 4 times, FFL is approximatly 4-6 hours while FFL2 is around 12-15 hours (I think)</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Modern; text-align: left; '>ICQ me....all my contacts are gone. I'll link you.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt arial, Modern; text-align: left; '>FFL2 was a hell of a lot longer since you had to level up a lot to beat the bosses.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Go through the Nasty Dungeon and get all the kickass equipment before going to the end of the game and it makes things a WHOLE lot easier.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman", Modern; text-align: left; '>It depends on what you're playing the RPG for. If you're playing for the story, or simply to find out what happens next, then chances are you won't be playing it multiple times. If however you enjoy whacking stuff and exploring for secrets and the like, then that's different.

The thing is, games are usually somewhere between $40 and $50 nowadays, and I prefer to get my money's worth, personally. If a game's short, it should have a high replay value, which a lot of action and fighting games accomplish nicely. But if it lacks replay value, it'd better damned good and long (notice I put the word good in there, I *do* care about quality). I'd feel ripped off if I paid $50 for a game only to have totally exhausted it in under 10 hours.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt "Times New Roman", Modern; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.dailyradar.com/letters/index ... l">Yup.</a>

The guy writing about Z.O.E. knows what I'm talking about</div>