I... I'm fixated on gay-dees. I can't pronounce it anything else.

So playing Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals, the pronounciation for Gades' name is gah-des, and not gay-dees. Weird...

It's Jogurt!

The game itself gives you hints about some basic root words, prefixes and suffixes, and you can deconstruct spells they give you into those components. Personally, I waited until my magic wasn't good enough, late in the game, and then looked them up. It's interesting because a lot of the best roots don't seem to be hinted at anywhere in the game. Of course, depending upon how linguistically inclined you are, that might be more difficult than it was for me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I've been replaying Lufia: The Legend Returns. It has such funny dialogue.

"THIS is what I call frue destruction!"

Oh Gay-dees.

I don't really know if the elementals actually do anything or not, though that you knew to ask the question demonstrates that you must have an impressive RPG pedigree. At the very least, you've played a few Dragon Warrior games.

I had a boring childhood, too; we lived in the forests of rural Pennsylvania, and even though there was a daycare next door, when my mom took me there to play with other kids, I never liked any of them because I was so different. The boys were into He-man and G.I. Joe, the girls were into My Little Pony and Barbie dolls, and I just didn't like any of that stuff. I never really did figure out what I wanted to do for a living, so here I am, stuck in a dead-end job trying to support my lady and 2 kids (both of whom are small and furry).

I'm much the same. I used to hate back-breaking physical labor (or any physical labor, for that matter), but now, the back-breakinger (totally a word), the better. I've grown to appreciate some Country music, especially since the subject matter is at least more varied than Pop music. Sure, there are still a lot of songs about love and girls, but at least there are some that aren't. I've never liked horses, though I admire that they can literally work themselves to death (the reason that mules were used to pull canal boats instead of horses); it's something we share.

That's great! You know it's a good day when 7th Saga doesn't kill you; they don't come often. I don't remember whether or not the trick to kill Romus gives you gold and experience (you use it as an item in battle), but I think it might. There's a chance it may give you different totals; the numbers 300 and 400 are knocking around in my head, but I'm pretty sure the 300 is how many HP he has.

Well, sort of. I've lived in rural Pennsylvania all of my life, but my grandparents owned a villa down there, so we'd go every Winter for a week or so. That might not seem like a large chunk out of my life, but my heart always belonged to the South in many ways. I remember bits and pieces of my time down there, but I don't understand a noteworthy portion of my childhood memories for a lot of reasons. For one thing, there are memories of mine that never actually happened; I dreamt them. My dreams are so vivid that whether or not they're realistic, they are retained among my memories. I have all of my senses when I dream, so if, for example, someone lights me on fire, I feel my skin burning; that makes them a lot more real to me, even if they are structured like someone dropping acid, and then channel surfing. The other big factor is memory repression from the colorful rainbow of trauma I endured in my youth, particularly my early youth. What I remember of it isn't pretty, and apparenthly, there's worse stuff buried in there. Anyway, happy stuff aside, I vividly remember one cloudy evening during which I had a walk on the beach that seemed like it lasted forever, and that's the memory to which I was specifically referring.

I see... that's how I did it my first time, too. It wasn't until much later that I'd found an easier method of defeating Romus. After you've been killed by him once, you can talk to someone in the nearby town (forget the name; Rabelesk, maybe?) who will tell you exactly what Romus is, and give you an item that defeats him instantly upon its use. I'd recommend trying that in a subsequent playthrough because it's pretty interesting. I read about it in Nintendo Power. Too bad there's nothing like that for that bastard, Pison.

I've found that it moves at a fairly slow pace, but it works. I think the problem I had with Vay (aside from its having an even slower pace) was that it has a very high-energy presentation, which doesn't fit its pacing at all. I'd forgotten that Kamil could heal with such proficiency; they complement each other well.

While I love a blood-pumping battle theme in an RPG, I agree; the music in 7th Saga is very... appropriate. The battle music, while not blasting in your ears, still feels like battle music, and conveys the strife evident in each challenge quite well. The haunting melodies throughout the barren overworld convey the loneliness of your mission; it's you against 6 others after the same goal, and you have no one but yourself (unless you get one person to work with you) to complete the task. Melancholy, but soothing; it's wonderful, and it reminds me of my lonely walks on the beaches of South Carolina as a child.

There's a good chance you might like Lejes, if you're a fan of magic users. He's geared mostly toward offensive magic, which might seem redundant, considering that he has an impressive list of equipment that he can use, but he has both fire and ice magic. Of course, there's usually only one other apprentice that will join him (randomly chosen), at least in my experience, so your partner options could be limited.

7th Saga is ridiculous with buffing, especially for a game with such small party sizes. Sometimes, it helps to defend before attacking, since it makes the attack deal more damage, but that depends upon the situation, of course. Esuna's a bit tough to use at the outset, but you'll be glad you chose her by the end; my grandfather once restarted his Kamil character that was decently near the end (he had at least 5 of the runes) because he couldn't get her to join him, and while Valsu is a great healer, he couldn't cut it as a fighter. When he restarted, guess who he picked as his main character? Esuna, of course. Just curious, though; what method did you use to defeat Romus?

One thing that always impressed me with 7th Saga is the fact that everyone can use magic. I mean, it's somewhat necessary just because any one of them can be your only character, or the main character in a party of 2. Every single character is interesting, though, and looking at them, you can see some fairly obvious inspiration for the characters of Mystic Ark, a game often mistaken for its sequel. I thought it was, even after 2 playthroughs and writing a walkthrough for the damn thing, because if you pick the male hero, his default name is Remeer (similar to Lemele, the king that sets you out on your quest in 7th Saga), but after playing Brain Lord and realizing that the main character is also named Remeer, I think that Produce just liked the name. Anyway, Kamil is like the hero, Esuna's somewhat similar to Miriene, Valsu is Meisia, Lux is... Lux, Kamiwoo is Lejes, and Reeshine is Wilme. My favorite combo would either be Wilme or Lux with Esuna, but you could certainly do a lot worse than Esuna and Kamil.

Best I can remember, I've beaten it with everyone at least once; Valsu was the biggest pain in the ass. I really like Wilme because he's such a powerhouse, Esuna because she's a good healer that can also hurt things (unlike Valsu), and Lejes because he's such a visually interesting character. As a kid, I liked Lux best because of his unique spells.

Cool; I think you'll love it. How goes The Seventh Saga, by the bye?