[MMO/FFXIV] Final Fantasy XIV has taken over my life.

HI. LONG TIME NO SEE. (Did you know that originally came from Cantonese? No? Well, now you do.)

Basically... Final Fantasy XIV has taken over my life. I have like 1,000 screenshots I want to write about and post. I will eventually get around to it, but I thought it would be better to do like a highlights entry. Like, the highs, the lows and everything else.

The game is amazing. It was released last week on Tuesday. A lot of people are still suffering from various errors such as error 1017, 9000... I've suffered from them too, and am right now, hence why I am writing this entry. However, once you get past the log in issues, the game is just... out of this world. Naoki Yoshida and the team have seriously out done themselves.

I am currently level 38. I am playing a Black Mage. I have been playing with friends so have been progressing through the game alright. Queues in the duty finder for DPS are absolutely ridiculous. 45+ minutes to run a dungeon. But luckily, my boyfriend has been playing a tank so I have been able to enjoy 5 minute duty finder queues and progress nicely.

I will go into more detail about the mechanics, things you can do, jobs, classes, professions as I work my way through these screenshots and write their respective blog entries.

This is just a post to say... hey guys! I'm still alive. Here are some awesome pictures from Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

WARNING: PICTURE HEAVY

So I tried out some Archery.

A pretty afternoon in Thanalan

FAAAATE

Meow

Eorzea is prettyyyyyy

Craaaaab! 

Dem heals

And here is my favourite picture of them all...

There will be more in the future! This is just a teaser... I will write about it in future too. I just need time to organise all my pictures and screenshots! So many screenshots and stories to tell, and so little time.

This is where I put a link where you can buy the game but they've stopped sales because the game is so awesome and they have no room for more players! :'D

If you want to play with me... Hit me up on Odin EU! I'm Aylin Moon :') Black Mage Extraordinaireeeeee!

[PS3/Vita] New Comparison Trailer From Gamescom of Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster

Long title is long.

Prepare yourselves - this will be 99% fangirling and 1% actual intellectual observations, as previously mentioned on my Twitter.

So, I am awful and haven't really followed Gamescom due to a combination of things. I have been hanging out in my hometown so have been seeing lots of family. Tales of Graces f is a fantastic game that sucks your soul into it and you forget about real life. With the Origin Humble Bundle, I managed to install The Sims 3 in Japanese, another game that is soul sucking, but even more so now I can spends hours playing it in Japanese.

So there are my excuses.

However, I have been keeping an eye on any announcements or anything related to Japanese games. And, you should know by now, I am a huge Final Fantasy fan and I am even more of a Final Fantasy X fan so it's not even funny how excited I am for this remake remaster.

With Gamescom, came a new comparison trailer which I dutifully squealed at...

This video shows you the SD version, then the HD version.

The changes are quite obvious, but I will still run through them. Obviously, the menus, bars, names, everything that we see on the battle screen has been changed. It's cleaner and more modern. I'm not feeling the fonts, however. It just doesn't suit it. It almost looks like a fanmade game and they've picked a really lousy font for it. But other than that it's looking really good. I will just have to accept the new font.

The models are smoother, more defined and less blocky. Textures are more vibrant and just look a lot better.

What stuck out to me most is... DAT MUSIC. Have a good listen to it. It's been remastered and it is perfect. I mean, the original soundtrack was amazing, but this remastered version sounds even better. It really adds a whole new dynamic to it. I'm listening to it now as I write I have the biggest, dorkiest smile on my face. Well done Square Enix. Well done. I cannot wait to hear the other tracks. If I'm getting excited at the battle theme... The seven help me when I hear the rest.

So, it's still looking great. This year has seen a small trickle of information on this remaster, and with every drop of new news (can you even say that? I think I've just broke the English language) the game looks even better.

I am really looking forward to this, and will most definitely be purchasing it. Yes, it's the same game, same story, same characters... but none of that needs to change. It's an awesome game with a brand new look and I'm so excited for it I am just randomly tapping away at my keyboard I mean who needs commas when you are this excited for a game!?!

I don't.

I am trying to stay objective and not biased on this game but I am sorry guys, I think this looks amazing and I cannot wait for it - I may not like that damn font - but this is going to R U L E.

No release date yet, but I reckon it will be dropped before the year is out.

If you are excited for the game like me, you can preorder it at Playasia!

[General] Awesome game music that you need to hear before you die (Part 1/2)

Hey all.

So, I've been pretty caught up in Tales of Graces f and waiting for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn to start so I haven't really updated this much. However, whilst listening to a couple of OSTs today, I thought I would do a post like this.

One thing I love about Japanese video games is that they usually have some fantastic music. I may be a little biased, but growing up with Final Fantasy, I have had the pleasure of listening to some awesome tracks over the years. Of course, other Japanese games I've played have had awesome OSTs too. For example, Legend of Zelda, Lost Odyssey and Devil May Cry 4 come to mind.

Any way, so this blog post is just a bit of fun really. Here are a few of my favourite Japanese game music tracks in no particular order:

1. Kaette kuru, kitto (Lost Odyssey)

When this plays in the game... tears were shed, OK. I think my mum was cutting onions somewhere. There is an English version, but I think the Japanese version is way more touching.

2. J.E.N.O.V.A (Final Fantasy VII)

This terrified me when I was younger. I thought it was so creepy. But now I'm older... it's so awesome. The Final Fantasy VII Advent Children version is good as well, but nothing beats the original.

3. The Landing (Final Fantasy VIII)

This plays at such an awesome part in the game, which really contributes to how awesome it is. It made you feel so awesome. I would so play this on my commute to work (if I had a job and a car...). It'd get you so pumped up.

4. Wind Waker Main Theme (Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker)

Easily one of my favourite Legend of Zelda games. There was just something very appealing about sailing around the seas on a boat... all that freedom!

5.  The Price of Freedom (Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core)

Get the tissues ready. The price of freedom is so high it makes you want to cry... 

...and that's all for now! There will be a part two, once I decide on a few more tracks. It's hard making sure they are not all Final Fantasy tracks.

Let me know your favourite tracks! I'll add them in the next post. Make sure to comment below!

[MMO] My Phase 4/Open Beta Experience and Error 3102

Hello, hello...

Disclaimer: This is a long one. Skip past the wall of text to to get to the photos. 

Sorry for not updating much recently. This weekend marked the final phase of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and what an eventful weekend it has been.

If you were in the previous Beta tests, Phase 4 began on Friday. I was unable to play because I was busy on that day, but it seems the day went by without a hitch. Many budding players all logged on, loaded up their designs from character creation and got straight into the game.

However, Saturday and Sunday saw a lot of problems. People were getting kicked out of servers, servers were too full, people couldn't create characters on their desired servers so had to go to other ones... it was hectic. I somehow managed to miss all this by fifteen minutes. On Saturday morning, around 9.45AM (UK Time), I decided I would go on Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. It all loaded up fine, I selected my character design and off I went. According to my boyfriend, fifteen minutes after that open beta began - which then was followed by all the server problems. I got very... very lucky.

A major problem over the weekend was "Error 3102". Basically, when players are trying to sign in, they are greeted with this error code. So, everyone turned to the forums, making multiple threads about the error. The forum moderators responded to this and made an official thread for the error. They asked people who were experiencing the error to list their character name and server. That thread now, reportedly, has over 1,000 posts. The forums are down currently so I am unable to check what the exact page count and post count is, but a lot of people are suffering from this error.

I am one of the lucky ones and it didn't affect me - but it did affect my boyfriend. Now, since phase 1, he has dutifully tested and provided feedback. So, as you can imagine, being locked out of the game for the beta weekend has had quite an impact. He has not been able to log in on his character since Friday. I can imagine there are so many other people who are in the same boat.

However, it is a beta test. It exists purely to test for things like this. It is also open beta, meaning anyone could sign up and log onto the game. At one point, the game was reported to have over 120,000 concurrent connections. There was so many people trying to get into the game, that Square Enix had to open up two new servers on the Japanese side. I hear today they also opened up two new servers on the EU/NA side, and consequently locked all the other servers in a move to push players onto the new servers, and hopefully spread out the amount of players.

Crazy. The commercial that was released to the public the other day has obviously done it's job. They've amassed more players than they can handle. Of course, one does wonder, all the errors and server shut downs have probably pushed a lot of people away, but still - they really have made an impact. The official launch is getting ever so close. One side of me is wondering if the game will crash again, or will they have learned from this weekend and be able to handle it better. Also, with so many people rushing to play the game, it may end up being a historically huge launch... we can only wait and see.

My Phase 4/Open Beta Experience ...told in pictures.


I managed to get a good days worth of Phase 4, and took some screen shots of my adventures. I rolled a Miqo'te Thaumaturge. She is a Seeker of the Moon named "Aylin Moon". (Don't roll your eyes! I'm not good at names...).

And here she is...

She hasn't quite grasped the concept of gloves yet

Uh... that could have went better. This is just shortly after I made her. She is sporting a lovely mage hat which almost resembles a sombrero. She's rocking it.

Ready to explore!

There we go! Minus the interface... she randomly has... across her legs! Finally worked it out. 

So do you come here often?

She made a new friend. He doesn't talk much. Keeps repeating "Kweh", for reasons she couldn't understand. There also another one of them in the background... showing us what he thinks of it all.

This is awkward.

Ended up in a pretty awkward situation with a random guy in a pub. He kept falling off the chair. She just acted like she wasn't looking. (She was.)

Her eyes look like moons. I went all out with her.

Isn't she cute? I never really liked the idea of face paint but considering she is a THM, and she has such bright eyes... I decided to go with it. Obviously, the hat really sets off her eyes here. Meow.

I am the tallest one here. Ha.

After some adventuring, some killing, some questing, some ooh-ing and aah-ing... I got some new robes from the little Lalafell's in the THM guild! They totally make her oven gloves mittens hand gear look awesome.

Ooh, flashy

Here she is in action, showing those Cactaurs who's boss. I love the cactuar in this picture. It's so like "Come at me bro!". It even brought it's friend. "We can so take her on!". Silly Cactuars. 

ALL DEM THMs

Helping out in a FATE. I found it hilarious how many THMs were there. THAUMATURGES, ASSEMBLE! You ain't got nothing on our Blizzards, Fires, Thunders, Sleeps, Tranposes... we own Thanalan.

This...this would make a pretty cool hat.

NEW ROBES! NEW THREADS! EAR SLOTS! So I marked the occasion with this fancy tourist-y picture. She doesn't look too happy about it all to be honest.

This adventurer business ain't too shabby.

Upon returning to Ul'dah, I was informed I now had a room at the inn. Went to check it out. My reaction was something like, "Niiiiiiice." Pretty spacious. Good amount of natural light. Good storage. A cute little table. A very flat bed.

Maybe it's too little.

The table could be better. Can just see her little ears popping up at the top there.

Perfect weather for mischief.

Upon returning outside... It was foggy in Ul'dah! I had read the patch notes and was aware that they had added in the new weather cycles, but this was my first time seeing Ul'dah being anything other than sunny. It is really well done... I loved it when it was foggy.

Action shot

Weather soon cleared up and I was back on the adventure - this time I had a friend! Boyfriend had to make another character just to get on the server. But any where, she looks pretty awesome when she's casting.

And that's it...! That is all I got up to really. I managed to get to about level 12. But I am purposely taking my time with levelling - I really enjoy the story and the scenery, so I do tend to go off on tangents and just go off exploring.

My thoughts so far... I love this game. Considering I've been able to take such fun screenshots and spend more time running around, just soaking up the atmosphere says a lot. I am really excited for full release and although all the server problems it has experienced this weekend is a little worrying... as I said before, it is a beta test. These things happen.

I am really enjoying playing THM. When I get to level 15, I will be switching over to Arcanist. I am quite looking forward to it! I think from today onwards, I will document my time on FFXIV: ARR like I have here. It's fun.

I leave you with this quite serene picture to see you off.

If you have any cool screenshots or stories from your time on Beta, let me know in the comments box below! :)

[MMO] Final Fantasy XIV Japanese TV Commercial Released

It looks like the advertising for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is in full swing in Japan!



Quite an interesting commercial - a lot more interesting than the leaked one (which eventually turned out to be the actual one!

What I thought was pretty cool was this shot of some armor...

On a Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn group I follow, someone suggested it was the Paladin AF+1 gear. It's looking pretty snazzy.

The Japanese commercial is advertising the release/launch date which is the 27th August and the Open Beta/Phase 4 dates which is 17th August until the 19th August.

Exciting stuff. Personally... I can't wait! I genuinely feel sorry for this blog... It will either turn into an FFXIV blog or I'll never update it.

I must find a balance... ;-)

[PS3/Vita] Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD English 30 Minute Audio Sample

Breathes in...

SOME MORE INFORMATION ON FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD: 30 MINUTE AUDIO CLIP AND NEW SCREENS *squee*

Breathes out...

I'm bad at headlines, ok?

A little background:
Square Enix announced a HD remaster (Note: not remake - there is an important difference. I think.) of the most amazing game to ever grace the PS2 Final Fantasy X and the not so great Final Fantasy X-2. 

It's not a remake because it's not being completely remade. They are essentially just remastering it. Updating the textures, audio and cleaning off a few cobwebs (it has been 12 years since it was released. Bet that makes you feel old!).

Square Enix recently released a sample of a 30 min audio "episode", to give you an idea of how it's all going to sound.

As you can hear - doesn't it sound different? It's totally brand new. And we finally hear how they pronounce Tidus (it took 12 years!).

It has also been confirmed that the Western release of this will feature all the extra content the Japanese games got... so essentially it's the international version. If that makes sense. Dark Aeons, Penance and I think the "Last Mission" from FFX-2 is included on there as well. 

There has also been a ton of new screens released showcasing what it looks like... and it's looking great. 

Menus have been updated and there's trophies!

There hasn't been an release date announced yet, but I think it's safe to assume it will be dropping later this year. It will be available on PS3 and PS Vita.

Sources: EMGNow (more pictures!), Playstation Blog

[PS3] Drag-On Dragoon 3 or Drakenguard 3... depending on what side of the world you are on.

OK, so my boyfriend sent me this trailer of Drag-On Dragoon 3/Drakenguard 3 a while back.

I thought to myself, "This game looks awesome." So... I did some research! Then, I thought to myself, "I'll write about it on Game Otaku Desu". Then... forgot about it! But I remembered so it's OK.

I did a tiny bit more research today because there does not seem to be much around about this game. What I have managed to gather from mainly Japanese sites is that it is being released in Japan in October, it is not "Nier or Drakenguard 3 so if you were expecting that you will be disappointed" ... and that's it.

I don't know if it's just me (it's probably just me) but this game has so much mystery about it. It looks so awesome yet I cannot find anything on it that isn't in Japanese. I have searched around some Japanese sites like 4Gamer.net, Famitsu and this site (which has a more game footage. Check it out.) and cannot really find much on it which sucks. :(

But I thought I will share what I have found so far, because this game looks great, and it seems that it will be a while before we see it on Western shores... if we ever do.

From what I can find, the games story is a follow on from the manga "Drag-on Dragoon: Shi ni Itaru-aka". (They have the first chapter available on there - if you can read Japanese, give it a read!)

Zero - in all her glory

It seems it will follow the story of two "utautai" - two girls who are able to manipulate magic through songs. One of the girls is Zero, a girl with a flower sprouting of her eye and an artificial left hand. She is quite laid-back, almost being described as lazy. Whereas her sister, One, is described as being "serious and intellectual." Quite the difference.

It is an action RPG, which is always fun. From the gameplay footage, probably a lot of hack'n'slash. An interesting point about the combat is that when the characters are caked in blood, their "utautai" skills get really powerful. Awesome.

It seems they will also be releasing a 10th Anniversary Box Set when this game is released in October. The box set will include...

Drakengard World Inside book
Drakengard Chips Music CD with tracks from Drakengard, Drakengard 2, Nier Gesalt and Nier Replicant.
Drakengard Novel Prelude
Drakengard Visual Book
Drakengard 3 DLC code - which after some searching around seems to be Kaine's costume from Nier.
Drakengard 3 for Playstation 3 with an illustration by Kimihiko Fujisaka, featuring all the characters from the Drakengard games.

Phew. You can get all that on October 31st for the sweet price of 19,800 yen which is roughly $202. Best get saving!

I am not even a Drakengard fan but I am stoked for this. It looks brilliant. Very interesting story, too. Well, from what I could find about it. It is a shame that there has been no word on an English release yet, however when I was doing some searching around, I came across a petition to get Drakengard 3 localised and released in the West. May be worth signing if you do not fancy breaking the bank on importing the game over.

Or, if you are like me, you just want the game so you're gonna buy it regardless. Yeah, impulse buying rocks! ;)

Drakegard 3 is set to release on October 31st in Japan. You can pre-order a copy on the Square Enix store:
Drakengard 3
Drakengard 3 10th Anniversary Box Set
(If you need help navigating the site, let me know in the comments and I'll post up a tutorial!)

or if you prefer to do everything in English,

Pre-order it on PlayAsia - free shipping as well!
10th Anniversary Box Set - out of stock at the moment but may be restocked upon release!

Gah, I want the game now! :(

Sources: Siliconera, Square Enix JP site, 4Gamer, Kotaku JAPAN