RPG Crazy

Girls do play games, and boy did I find a great website! I played a demo of Fatal Hearts and Cute Knight awesome, awesome games and I'm definitely going to buy them.

Fatal Hearts is about a teenage girl Christina who has these mysterious dreams about a man with these cold blue eyes. There are murders taking place in her neighborhood, and wolves howling... You have to help her figure out the secret to her dreams. Christina will meet several people and she has to figure out who to trust and who she should leave alone. At the end of the demo, it leaves you at a definite cliff hanger and you want to keep playing this game!

Cute Knight is about an orphan who has to figure out what she is going to do with her life. Will she be a barmaid, a knight, or what? She gets to train in many things, make friends, find love. She uses her skills to kill monsters in the dungeon. There are fifty different story endings. Very fun game.
You can find these and other cool games at Hanakogames.com

This story begins as mostly all do, Nintendo started out as a small business in Japan. Fusajiro Yamauchi began in 1889, the company Nintendo Koppai. His only product was playing cards that was called Hanafuda. Hanafuda means flower cards. These were handmade and became so popular that he had to hire more people to keep up with production.

In 1956 Hiroshi Yamauchi went to the United States Playing Card Company, the biggest in the United States, he realized that he was limiting himself and changed tactics. He then got permission to put Disney characters on his cards to get more sales. In 1963 he changed the company name from Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited, to Nintendo Company, Limited.

Other Businesses
With more money, during 1963-1968 he started a taxi company, a love hotel chain, a television network and a food company that sold instant rice, that was like instant noodles. He also started many other things, one of which was Chiritory, a remote controlled vacuum cleaner toy. All of his ideas failed except the toys. Then disaster struck, after the Tokyo Olympics, card sales plummeted leaving the company only with 60 Yen.

Nintendo was in debt and struggled. They always had to come up with new toy ideas to keep afloat. Even after all of this, Nintendo was still a small company compared to others like Bandai and Tomy. Hirosi's luck was about to turn when he visited his Hanafuda factory and noticed an extended arm that one of his engineers, Gunpei Yokoi created just for fun. Yamauchi told him to use the product for the Christmas season, and it was a success selling 1.2 million Ultrahand toys. Yokoi was then put in the product development department.

During this time, Shigueru Miyamoto was hired and Yokoi taught him everything he knew.

The System
Nintendo noticed the success of companies making games and they began making their own. In 1978 they made an arcade game called Computer Othello, but Donkey Kong and Radar Scope was the most popular of all. Donkey Kong was made in 1981, and Miyamoto was behind that success. During this time, they were just experimenting with handheld games, but in 1985 that is when they created the Nintendo Entertainment System, and created more systems: Gameboy, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS Lite and now the Wii.

The Nintendo Entertainment System(1983-1994)
The 8-bit system was sold in America, Europe, Asia, Australia , North America, and Brazil. This console was the best selling one, that Nintendo said sold over 60 million NES worldwide. The NES became the standard for all other gaming consoles with Super Mario Bros. as the bestselling game.

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System(1990-2000)
This was a 16-bit game system that sold in North America, Australia, Brazil and Europe. The SNES is called The Super Famicom in Japan, which means Super Family Computer. Although a success globally, it did not have the same impact on Northeast Asia and North America because of the release of the Sega Genesis console system. It still was a success as it sold 49 million systems worldwide.

Nintendo 64(1996-2002)
The third system for Nintendo released three games in Japan, Pilot Wings, Super Mario 64 and Saikyo Habu Shogi, but just Super Mario 64 and Pilot Wings for North America. Other great games were Legend of Zelda, Star Fox 64 and Golden Eye 007. As of 2005, the N64 has sold 32.93 million systems.

Nintendo GameCube(2001- )
This console was known as the Dolphin until the reveal at Spaceworld 2000. This was Nintendos first system that didn't use cartridges, but optimal discs. The Panasonic Q was a DVD only player that was only sold in Japan. As of last year, The NGC has sold 21.20 million units.

WII(2006- )
Pronounced "We", this system is based on wireless controls, and detects motion in three different dimensions. This system comes with a nunchuk and remote. The controller includes a rumble device and a speaker, Wii Connect24 which allows one to receive updates and messages from the Internet with very little power. As of February this year, Wii has sold over 4 million units. The Wii does not have high definition graphics like other systems. Because customers using the system experienced the breaking of wrist straps while playing, last year, Wii said they would replace the straps for 3.2 million game controllers.
Game Boy(1999- )
The Gameboy is a handheld game that uses batteries. This system is one of the bestselling game system in the world. One hundred and eighty-eight million sold, while the original Gameboy sold 70 million, and the color version, 50 million. The Gameboy Advance system sold over 76.79 million as of last year.

Nintendo DS(2004- )
This is also a handheld game console that includes a microphone that is built in and wireless connection where users can play within a short distance from one another. The DS stands for Dual standard or Developers System, which allows users to use their creative ideas for playing games. In March 2006, Nintendo DS Lite was created, a different version for Japan. It was sold later in Europe, North America and Australia. The DS and DS Lite sold over 37 million units as of this year. Surprisingly, it outsold the Playstation Portable.

Offices
Nintendo main office is in Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Nintendo of America is in Redmond, Washington with distribution being in North Bend, Washington and Atlanta, Georgia. There is also Nintendo of Canada in Richmond, British Columbia, with distribution in Toronto, Ontario; Nintendo of Australia in Melbourne, Victoria; Europe division is in Grobostheim Germany. IQue, Ltd. with Doctor Wei, Yen a Chinese partner and founder. Nintendo of Korea was started last year.

Europe has fined them before because of the high prices of their products. They have accused them of fixing their prices. Nintendo has come a long way from Hanafuda to Wii. Because of Nintento DS and Wii, Nintendo sales have gone up 77%.

I have not played every RPG under the sun, just a few. What gets me to buy are title, graphics, story and most importantly...the music. I'll keep adding on to this until I get the top 50.

# 1 Final Fantasy
1987, Square
# 2 Final Fantasy VII
1997, Square
# 3 Final Fantasy VIII
1999, Square
# 4 Chrono Cross
1995, Square
# 5 Kingdom Hearts
2002, Squaresoft
# 6 Star Ocean(The Second Story)
1998, Enix
# 7 Suikoden
1996, Konami
# 8 Grandia
SCEA, Ubisoft 1999, 2001
# 9 Chrono Trigger
1995, Square
#10 Lunar: Silver Star Story
Game Arts, 1996
#11 Lunar 2: Eternal Blue
1995, Game Arts, Working Designs