I feel like my nose is getting browner and browner, but I concur, this is a great idea for a feature.

When I take a sick day from work, I usually end up playing my RPGs all day, then I actually end up feeling guilty about taking the day off because I felt perfectly fine while I was attached to my games.  Then when I pull myself away, I'm reminded... oh ya, I'm sick... well that sucks; and sometimes hope... damn i kind of hope I'm still sick tomorrow so I can do the same damn thing!

And also to the point of games being demonized, I think that's accurate.  RPGs in particular I feel are more helpful in pattern recognition and problem solving, whether violent or not.  But does that get news coverage?  Hell no, because news is never positive (at least not in the crappy ole USA).  Some games I have to admit are a bit excessively violent, like Manhunt... but let's face it, if you're willing to commit a crime like that per the game, you have to have some kind of mental deficiency or were under heavy abuse as a child.

Did you know that there's actually a study that occurred where a group of gamers were able to find out the structure of an enzyme causing AIDS in 3 weeks, whereas the scientists took 15 years to figure it out?  Check out this article:

http://www.mtbeurope.info/news/2011/1109025.htm

Ahhh, these sure are good "slacking at work" material.  Just listened to the Phantasy Star podcast today and it was music to my ears.  I can't help but think about Shining Force 2 though whenever I hear Phantasy Star IV, since i think they're both pretty much near perfection in RPGs.

If you all ever want to go on a rant about the Shining titles, you would have my undivided attention!  SF2 is still my favorite game of all time, but I love all the games in that series until Sega messed it all up after the departure from the Saturn.

Didn't realize you had the RSS feed for it, thanks Mike!

Awwwww, well if it means that much to you...  just make sure there's enough negative commentary about it so I don't feel a complete impulse to take the dive and buy a system for one friggin game.

Rob's usually pretty good about knocking down JRPGs though, so I guess I should be okay.

Since the number of Podcasts is growing substantially, I think it would be a nice enhancement to add Podcasts as an item on the navigation bar, kind of like the Features option.  It's sort of painful going through thousands of news feeds looking for the old random encounter episodes.

I really liked the idea of interviewing the composer of the soundtrack, as I'm a pretty big fan of a lot of video game music.  I haven't played Bastion yet since I've been engulfed in Shining the Holy Ark lately, but I'm more interested to check it out after hearing that interview.  The most interesting point that Darren made was the differentiation between having involvement in the design process from the getgo, versus being brought in after the game was finished to rush a soundtrack for it.  Quality almost always skyrockets when all relevant parties are in it from start to finish in a collaborative environment.

And whyyyyyyy does Xenoblade have to come out for the Wii of all systems, that's the one system I definitely don't want to get. I don't think I'm going to be able to swallow listening to the podcast since I loved FF12 so much, and you guys said that it's what 12 should have been like.

As a sidenote, I was pretty inebriated when I made that post last Friday, but it was sincere.  My friends tell me I'm quite the happy and affectionate drunk : )

I think a more interesting question might be how the East is accepting games produced from the West.  I've heard that there is a niche of Japanese gamers that dig games like Mass Effect, but that it's less mainstream.  I do wonder sometimes though how other great games that came out of the west fared in Japan though, such as Dragon Age Origins and Baldur's Gate 2.  (bioware brownie points yippee)

The thing I wonder about is why it seems that most RPGs we get from Japan have kind of childish storylines.  One would think that if the style of the games I mentioned were really appreciated over there, then they may start creating games with more mature plots and characters (which is the main reason i'm not as big on JRPGs these days).  That may just be a disconnect in the culture I suppose...

Hey guys, I haven't been too active on these forums, but I just want to give credit where it's due and commend you on your podcasts.  Not only do I find them to be entertaining and funny (especially Stephen's awesome one-liners), but these expose me to a lot of other games that I've never heard of that I now really want to try out.  Hell, thanks to a feature on this site from a year ago, I went and watched a full playthrough of suikoden 2 to understand why luca blight may just be the best villain ever devised in an RPG.

As someone who has been playing RPGs since the age of 4, and is now a Software QA analyst for a profession, I get a lot out of the commentary on these.

Long story short, I hope these podcasts continue, and honestly these make me very interested in becoming a reviewer and a part of the  RPGFan community.  So keep up the good work!

I would kinda be sad if random encounters disappeared altogether.  I think they really add a lot in certain situations depending on the game.

For example, a dungeon maze with a bunch of treasure chests loses some level of strategy if you can just avoid all the encounters en route to treasure goodness.  Depending on the game, wasting away healing items/mp by taking on those battles can make the rest of the dungeon more of a challenge after the looting.

Also, random encounters can be interesting if you're hoping for a certain type of enemy to appear in the encounter, like your metal slimes in dragonquest or the special monster encounter in suikoden 5. 

I think a key though is finding balance.  I don't want random encounters if battles take way too long (pre-battle loading+battle length+return to map loading).  And I don't want constant interruptions when I'm running in an area with weaker monsters (something I really liked about Breath of Death and Call of Cthluhu on XBox Live Indy).

Plus I like RPGFan's webcast, and i don't want the name Random Encounter to be obsolete!  :P

Kind of feel like a suikoden character belonged in there somewhere, perhaps Nanami from 2, Chris from 3, or... Hazuki from 5 (even if it's just for her awesome unsheath battle entrance alone).

And on the hall of shame, sorry for all the FFIX lovers out there, but Eiko was just...well, shameful.

That's a good idea!  I can just picture Donatello breaking out the classic final fantasy black mage attire holding his Bo.

I would just hope that blobs don't fall out of the sky in a TMNT RPG.  On that note, I'm kind of surprised that GameTrailers still hasn't posted a review for Radiant Historia, for shame!