It took seven whole months, but Michael Gray has achieved what no human being thought possible: he shot his DNA into spa--I mean, uh, he beat Final Fantasy VI Advance for the GBA. Wow, now that doesn't seem nearly as impressive.

Michael's now-complete run of FFVIA is easily the longest video series we have on the GameCola YouTube channel, clocking in at a staggering 111 videos. To put that into perspective, the time it will take you to watch all of these videos is rougly how long it would take you to watch all six Star Wars movies back-to-back, plus Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, plus Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, plus The Star Wars Holiday Special, with a bit of time between each movie to bang your head against the wall.

If you've already seen some of these videos, it would be a waste of time to click through an embedded playlist to get to a video you haven't seen. That's why I'm just going to embed all 111 videos here; now you can easily scroll down to whichever one you want to see.














...Aw, forget this. Just check out the entire playlist for Final Fantasy VI Advance, and be sure to check back each day for continuing installments. The Ewoks are watching you.

The GameCola YouTube page is chock-full of awesome right now. First up is my brand-new and quite impressive (if I do say so myself) run of Mega Man 4, which we all know is my favorite Mega Man game. As a result, the audio commentary this time around is arguably the best yet.

If you've resisted watching any Mega Man videos up to this point, this is a perfect place to start. The first three videos are already available for your viewing pleasure, and the rest will follow over the next few days. Even if you're not into Mega Man, you might actually like them, so take a peek!



Next up are some things you may have missed, such as Michael's handy tutorial on how to install older games on Vista:



Let's not forget about the now-complete Part 2 of Michael's blind run through Final Fantasy VI Advance, more clips from the Nickelodeon cartoon show Doug, Paul's run through the amusingly bad Super Back to the Future Part II, and Michael's handy video walkthrough of Mega Man X.

There's plenty to watch! Enjoy, and Happy 4th of July!

Michaels Gray and Ridgaway have been hard at play to bring you more Final Fantasy on the GameCola YouTube page. You'll notice two ongoing projects:

- Michael's continuation of his blind playthrough of Final Fantasy VI Advance

- Michael and Michael's cooperative playthrough of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time

Bear in mind that there are more videos on the way, so keep checking back!

Also, stay tuned... my run of Mega Man 4 is on the way, so expect to hear more about that in a week or two.

This will be a short one because you're either with me or against me on this and I doubt any amount of arguing will help. Yesterday in GameFAQ's "Best. Game. Ever." contest (GameFAQ's contests really are fertile ground for my anger) Final Fantasy VII beat Chrono Trigger. No. Just no. Final Fantasy VII, while an interesting game, is no where near the level of Chono Trigger. Hell, Chrono Trigger is best game Squaresoft ever produced. I don't know whether these people have never played CT or are just idiots, but something is fundamentally WRONG here.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think my brain just vomited. I should probably go to a hospital.

Here's a video that I had on my mind most of the time I was playing Final Fantasy VI.

If you need something to watch this weekend, we've got you covered. The GameCola YouTube channel is now featuring a blind run of Final Fantasy VI Advance and two clips from the 1937 Shirley Temple movie Heidi.

Now, something to note: Michael doesn't actually finish FFVIA; he gives up part of the way through and makes his funny predictions about how the game will end. Even if you're familiar with the game, if you're not planning on seeing all the videos, at least watch or skim through the first three videos or so and maybe the second half of video #29 before watching Michael's version of how it all ends in video #30.

And, yes, he does name the characters after GameCola staff members.

When videogames are ported from one system to another, sometimes things are changed or added or taken out, for better or for worse; the same holds true for when videogame reviews are ported from an Instant Messenger conversation to a GameCola article.

That's exactly what happened with this month's Gamer2Gamer review of Final Fantasy. And we're now offering a unique, behind-the-scenes look at the completely unedited original conversation between Meteo Xavier and Nathaniel Hoover.

The formatting has been adjusted for improved readability (GameCola: The Difference Is Readability), the screen names have been changed to protect the AIM identities of those involved, and a little bit of unrelated banter has been trimmed from the very beginning and very end, but otherwise, what follows is a completely untouched, unaltered presentation of the original conversation between Meteo Xavier and Nathaniel Hoover.

Click here to read the whole thing.

I got a PS2 recently, and I picked up a copy of Final Fantasy IX from the library soon afterwards.  I meant to talk about it on the podcast, but never got around to it.  So I'm posting my thoughts on FFIX here.

After a bit of a slow start with long, show-offy cutscenes of the now-bad-looking graphics, the game picked up with a plot involving pirates kidnapping Princess Emo Super-Babe.  I was rather surprised at this.  Plot?  In a Final Fantasy game?  Awesome!  I never liked the fact that FFI and FFVI had no real plot whatsoever, so I was glad to see that the transition to 3D attempts to remedy this situation.

However, I was greatly disappointed to see that it has THE EXACT SAME FIGHTING SYSTEM as Final Fantasy Six.  The crappy fighting system where enemies attack you constantly, but you can't attack back because there are weird timer bars.  And I'm not sure, but I think that half the time, I attacked my own characters instead of the enemies.  Final Fantasy, you need some sort of in-game tutorial system to explain how battles work.  Either that, or switch back to the FF1 battle system, which got the job done.

Battle system aside, the game was gearing up to be interesting, and I wanted to see what happened to the pirates and Princess Emo Super-Babe, but I couldn't save my game.  It turns out that the PS2 is backwards-compatable, but the PS2 memory card isn't.  Lame.  Looks like I'll have to play Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2 instead.

    The other day I thought I would finally play Final Fantasy X (never got around to it in college) and was rather looking forward to sinking my teeth into a nice RPG. An hour later.... I fell asleep. I know it's supposed be a big, epic game but the damn thing just kept boring me to tears. The drawn-out battles, the long, melodramatic movie scenes, and the lack of large amounts of items and equipment ended up producing a thoroughly dull experience for me. Once I had resolved to put the game back on the shelf I found myself saying "Gee, I wish this was more like Kingdom Hearts," and it made me feel dirty.
    Now I really love the old Final Fantasy's, and I will be in Target bright and early July 22nd to buy Final Fantasy 4, but lately every FF game I've played has seemed overly laborious. In Kingdom Hearts, however, you have a great real-time combat system, fun characters (OK, so they're kind of overdramatic, too), and plethora of items to keep treasure hunter like yours truly enthralled. Then comes the realization that Kingdom Hearts involves Disney characters, and I feel like I'm betraying the small part of me with a little dignity left. Why, oh why must Kingdom Hearts be so fun? Why do I squeal with delight when I get to fight with Jack Skellington or Captain Jack? And for the love of Nobuo Uematsu, why can't I stop checking for new Kingdom Hearts news?
    Goddammit, Square had better make the next console Final Fantasy good, so I can start to feel like an adult again.

So, you may have noticed that slowly, yet surely, this whole "News" thing is a growing beast. First there was the post with no seperate paragraphs, and funky lettering all over the place inbetween the terrific bouts of the humor you come to expect. Well, now that the trendy coming of Summer Break is apon us, and the horror filled Jaw of New York State Regents Testing is another thing I can add to the list of "Things Zach Rich Has Escaped From The Jaws Of", expect (mostly) daily news posts from here till my forthcoming death in about 2414 months. You really are living in God's Country, aren't you, Dear Readers?

Let's talk about Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe first. In an interview with Gamespot today, Midway's Ed Boon discussed the pressing matter of how the series staple Fatalites will play into this edition of the long running Fighting series. Boon states; "All of the MK characters and all of the DC villains will have fatalities. The DC heroes who don't kill that often will have brutalities that will function just like fatalities but don't actually kill the opponent." This, GameColaians, is terrible, terrible news. Now I'll never be able to watch as Batman throws his Batarangs clear into Sub Zero's throat, seperating Head from Body completely! Midway givth the dream, Midway taketh awayth the dream. Guess I'll just go play more Marvel vs. Capcom 2 then.

Clank is a Platunum trophy in my book, baby.

As the hourglass labeled "Time Until E3" dwindles away on top of my dresser, the rumors keep on flowing across my eyes. Joystiq (through PS3 Fanboy) found a couple of leaked pics reguarding the long awaited (i.e. should have been there at launch; WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, SONY?) in-game XMB, as well as a shiny picture (shown above) of Gamerscore-istque "Trophy" system. If my sence of investigative Journalism is of any good, it tells me that different tasks will give a different level of Trophy Awardence. That means, if I write one news post a month, that must mean I'm getting a bronze trophy for my achevement. If that one news post gets me a Job at Gamespot, I assume that's somewhere in Silver's domain at best.

Now, let's play a game. I'm going to post a trailer, and I want you to tell me when you're not going to buy this game. The game with a name I'm sure you're going to mistake for something to do with mammories, Double D Dodgeball will be released on July 30 on the XBLA; a date sure to come after the cooler named Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball, from the greatest game company ever (after Rare, mind you), GameCock. If this trailer is of any relivance to the forthcoming game's success, then you can forget about Double D Dodgeball riiiiight about...

...Now.

And finally tonight, did you know that's there's only a little time left until Final Fantasy IV DS's release? I sure as hell did not, but I imagine a few others on staff did.