Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 - Grimoire of the Rift

I don’t make a habit of reviewing video games but I do make a habit of playing them, and so I often feel like I have a good sense of what makes a game fun and good.  But these terms are so subjective that nearly every game ever released gets praise from at least one fanboy uneducated in the arts of classical gaming, thus rendering the terms “fun” and “good” relatively pointless.

Nonetheless, an objective examination of a game can inspire other people to form their own opinions about something and help them consider whether they should run out and buy said game or stop playing it for some other new FF game that just came out; and since this is the essence of what reviews should be about, I am going to talk about the last game I bought, “Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 Grimoire of the Rift”!

(I purposely wrote a winded introduction to this review that would match the beefy, lengthy title of the game!)

The title of this game really boggles my mind.  I mean, typical Nintendo branding is why they called the first game Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.  It was for the GameBoy Advance and they called just about everything, “Advance” at the time.  Super Mario Advance.  Final Fantasy V Advance.  Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario 3 Advance.  The list goes on.  What bothers me is that this game has nothing to do with the GameBoy Advance, but because the predecessor was released on the system where nearly all games had “Advance” stapled to the end of their names, the word “Advance” remains a part of the new title.  Yes it’s a continuation of the original FFTA game, but if they had called it Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2: Grimoire of the Rift, would any of the FFT-style game fans really have overlooked it?  It’s not as though it’s really a true sequel.

If you recall the last FFTA game, this one starts with a similar concept.  You’re a kid on the normal world and you get sucked into the world of Ivalice through a magical book, whose pages remain blank.  As you venture through Ivalice, you note that the book is magically filled with a story about your quests, so you figure that you will return home when all the pages have been filled.  You are the stereotypical youth of unyielding optimism and enthusiasm, but you are tossed something of a sense of humor, so Luso, the main character isn’t a bad kid at all.  Unlike last time, you don’t end up sucking your friends into Ivalice along with you, which I kind of like…

So you start by getting thrown into a battle and you meet a clan of jolly fellows, lead by a bangaa (or whatever he is) named Cid.  If he is Bangaa he looks NOTHING like the rest of them, but he also looks nothing like any of the other races.  Whatever.  He asks you to join his clan so he can protect you from the giant throbbing cockatrice that wants to peck your eyes out.  You accept, and a JUDGE appears from the skies and flags you as a member of the clan, dressing you in fantastical clothing and a hat that no one would dare to wear in the real world.

Now at this point, I know I’ve said enough.  JUDGES.  Yes, the judges are back.  This alone is reason enough to skip the game, and while I still hate them with a passion, I can’t say that they are as bad as their predecessors.

For those who didn’t play the previous FFTA, they implemented a “Judge” to oversee a match.  The judge will set a law at the beginning of the fight, and it can be anything from, “Don’t use magic”, to “You cannot stand still on your turn.”  In the previous game, if you violated the law, the offender would be taken by the judge and thrown into prison, removing them from the field.  You had to go bail them out of jail after you won or lost the fight.  And they wouldn’t post bail on them right away, so you would have to go without certain characters for days.  WTF?!

In this version, you don’t get thrown into jail if you violate the law you just lose the bonus items you could get from winning the match and you get less exp or something.  I did it once and it sucked, so if I ever violated the law on accident, I’d just reset the game.  “Oh that’s not so bad at all then.”  No, no.  It gets worse.  It is your prerogative to uphold the laws, but the NPCs you fight, aren’t subject to them at all.  Now, you might think, “Okay that makes sense.  Why would the NPCs care if they lose the bonus items at the end of the fight?”  Well sure, it makes sense for normal battles, but in a boss battle, a clan trial, or event match, if you violate the law, it’s GAME OVER.  The match ends and you get a grand prize of wasted time!  Meanwhile, the NPCs continue to be free of any laws.  ASS!

So let’s talk about the game mechanics and what the points really mean.  In FFT, you would get EXP (Experience Points) and JP (Job Points) for every action you took.  While it was a relatively low amount of exp, you could kill all the enemies in a field except for one, and perform self actions that would raise your exp leveling you up quickly and making each battle yield a large amount of points, but only for characters that were on the field of battle, performing actions.   In this game, you get a base level of EXP for each match and you get a bonus for every round you perform an action.  The character that performs the most actions in a round is called the MVP and gets extra EXP.  After each fight, you also get 30 job points which get applied to your entire clan, even people who did not participate in the battle, so you can level up the skills of your deadweight characters while working on your main set, which is really nice because usually you have to swap people back and forth to keep everyone even, which is such a pain in the ass to do.
In typical FFT fashion, you must pick a job for your character and various skills and abilities will be made available to you based on the job you select.  Unlike other FFT games, though, your skills are tied to your equipment.  So let’s say you change to Thief.  You have no skills at first, so you have to equip a dagger which gives you a Thief skill, like Loot Gil.  When you go to purchase items, you can see a list of all the abilities they offer, and some offer the same or different skills to various jobs, making them reusable.  Also, in typical FFT fashion, you can equip a subset of skills on your job, to use the skills you learned from another trade.  So if you’re a Black Mage, you can also equip your White Magic skills to heal and nuke, which is pretty handy.  The down side is that each skill/ability has its own exp meter, and until you get enough points to “master” it, you cannot use it on a different job.  This means you are forced to level up on that sucky job for a long time until you finally get the skills you want mastered so you can switch to something else less lame.  My main character has been Solider for nearly the entire time I’ve played and I put about 15 hours into it so far.  That shouldn’t be allowed.

But let’s talk about the things that make this game a pain in the ass…  I entered a clan trial that states the following.  You must defeat all the enemies without using MP.  Okay, no problem.  Since you can regear your people before the match starts, you can change your mages to melee and you’ll never have to worry about using MP.  WRONG!  More on that in a moment.  You enter the fight and the enemies appear to be Warriors or something who can also cast magic.  Black magic spells target the immediate radius around them, so they can end up nailing several of your guys at once.  If they all move back to back, that could near, if not full, wipe your party.  Fuck?  Okay, but wait.  We just said the law was not to use MP!  Yes.  YOU cannot use MP, the NPCs can.  “But if I use it, I don’t just lose the bonus shit, I lose the match and its insta-over!”  That’s fucked up.  So earlier, I said you can regear your guys and turn your mages into melee if there is a law like, “Don’t Use MP.”  So I used my Mog Knight and had him do a move called Mog Lance on one of the bad guys.  Guess what happens?  VIOLATION!  GAME OVAR!

Wait, what?

Mog Lance doesn’t use MP!  It’s not magic!  And if it were a spell, it would have a number next to it, indicating the MP cost!!  …Except it doesn’t, and somehow it still counts as using MP so I lost that clan battle and my clan points.  What the fuck are they thinking?

They also have certain laws that will obviate certain characters in your arsenal completely.  For example, there is a quest I did that said, “No Actions by Hume”, and since my main character is a Hume and I was forced to put him on the field, I had to do this fight with him taking no actions.  I just made him stand in the corner and cry.

There are also things that say you cannot harm certain races, so you have to make sure that you remove your reaction abilities, like counter, which will make your character counter attack after being hit, otherwise, you could accidentally violate the law and get boned by the judge.  One law made it illegal to miss.  With the right setup and a good strategy, that isn’t too bad, because you can get a better hit ratio from standing behind an enemy, but if they attack you from the front and you have counter on, and your counter attack misses, it’s over.  That’s just stupid.

The game moves entirely too slow for me.  I am willing to give myself over to dark world of level grinding and although this game offers a way to level up all of your character’s skills, regardless of whether you use them on the battle field or not, the fact that the capacity of your job is limited by the skills you get from GEAR is incredibly retarded to me.  I can’t even map out whether or not a certain job will become useful later on because I have no idea what other moves it will get.  And the judge system of this game seems to be less inhibiting than its predecessor, but at least in the last game, you had cards that could remove the law on a certain field.  Here you just have to live with it.  The system is bad, it makes playing this game un-fun, why would the game designers force you to play in an un-fun way?  I get the whole, “let’s make it challenging and throw some surprises at the gamers” idea, but if I put all this work into getting my characters to use special moves, I want to be able to use them, not sit on them because of the ass law system.

All that said, I think this game has a lot to offer if you are willing to put up with its bullshit.  It’s a brightly colored, fairly light hearted story with a nice new cast and promise of fun battles using your customized team, but the level up system is a bit slow for me and I despise the concept of gaining skills from weapons and not being able to use them on other jobs until mastered, especially when it can take several rounds of increasingly hard battles where you have to hope for available quests that you can complete with your current team while you finish out that damned ability mastery bar.  Unfortunately, since I bought Final Fantasy IV, a game which I never really played the original version of, I’ve moved on and haven’t looked back.  I think if they ever release another Tactics Advance game, I will scan it first for the implementation of judges, and if I detect even a hint of a law-like system, I will pass it by.  If you like this game, I wish you the best!  You are more patient than I, and have a much deeper sense of appreciation for games of this nature.

(But I say it’s ASS!)

After tea, Keitalu invites Afuce ovar to his birthday party and everyone who has gathered enjoys in food and drink and shinies! Everyone has fun telling stories, jokes, and complaining about drop rates in Salvage.

After the birthday cakes (yes CAKES!) all his fwenz present Keitalu with a special birthday gift! It is tradition in Vana’diel to make a wish before to open special gift like this! So Keitalu close his eyes and think of what he can wish for…

But suddenly, with his eyes closed, Keitalu begin to see a silhouette of a person in his mind! It must be next person to find… But it’s so hard to make out who it is… He looks to be hume, wearing RDM clothes… Light color hair.. and..

Suddenly Xenora came by and showed Keitalu a bright sparkly! So shiny! But Keitalu was distracted from his thoughts though he remember the basic concept of the person he should look for next!

Afuce comes over to Keitalu during the pt and say he has to leave. :(

“Wow I guess u has bettar plans, eh?”

“Oh it’s not that, I just has to go home to feed my dog Reuben and my brother called and said he was destroying the house again so I needz to check on him-o,” Afuce replied.

“Oh wow, solly it happen 2 u. :(((”

“Me too. And sorry I has to miss ur pt! But thanks for the food! It sure was delicious-o!”

Keitalu smiled. “Come back after, kay? Cos we still has to find moar keeper of the secret star and I think I has a clue for da next one!”

“Yes! All right my friend!!! I will be back shortly!!!!!!!”

Afuce left and pt started to wind down. Keitalu thanked all his fwen for throwing such a fun pt! Keitalu says {Gotta go! Got stuff to do!} and bids farewell to his fwens! (Leaving them to clean up the mess themselves…)

Keitalu begin to search everywhere, looking for person who looks like person he saw in his mind. Unfortunately for him, RDM is such a common job (everyone has it!) and there are lot of hume too, so it’s hard to find people who don’t look like it! But there sure are some flashy people out there!

Finally, it seems the hume in question has been found! Keitalu approach him with a cautious eye, examining him repeatedly and making surprised face emotes around him.

“Who ARE you?” The hume RDM questioned at last.

“Haha solly. I’m Keitalu and I has been looking for u!”

The hume looked suspiciously at the tiny taru. “Wat fer? If I MPK’d u at some point let me just apologize now because sometimes I just get-”

Keitalu pulled the hume away into a vacant area where they could has some privacy. There he explain the situation and was pleased to see that the RDM was becoming moar and moar interested.

“I’ll definitely help you, mai gud man, for I am Shoten, seeker of hidden treasures!”

The two continued their conversation and after minutes out loud ramblings and arm flailings, Shoten darted up and pointed toward the MH!

“Let’s go! I know of the treasure which u seek!”

Keitalu was shocked! Amazed! “You mean you has this treasure already?!”

“…Oh, no.” <,< “I have to change to /blm to go back to WG…”

Keitalu, no everyone, was silent. (Even people who didn’t even know what was going on)

Moments later the duo arrived in WG and Shoten took the reigns, leaping around town searching under every table and behind every pillar. Could the omega 1337 shiniez be in such a common place? It seems unheard of! Or so our hero thought.

“Aha at last!!!” Shoten shouted with ravenous glee. “I has found ur treasure but in order to see it, you will have to come quietly with me!”

Shoten starts casting Sneak on Shoten.

Keitalu stares blankly.

Shoten crept stealthily toward a man crouched on the floor. As they drew closer he exclaimed in a whispered voice…

“r u srs?” Keitalu was not amused.

“I know, it’s s0 kewl…”

“This r n0t wat I wanted. You r a tool. I’m outta here..”

Shoten, surprised and desperate, shouted, “No wait! If this isn’t the treasure you are looking for, then maybe we should go talk to the expert of all things valuable.”

“Who is that?”

“President Naja of course!”

“Ya. Good idea. Let’s go schedule an audience with the president who has a billion people to bludgeon with her morning star before she could possibly get to us. I’m sure we’ll find the treasure sometime before we’re 90. Besides, she’s so violent and brutal, and she only cares about herself. Why would she bother to help us?”

“Leave it all to me! I won’t let you down!”

Keitalu sighs as Shoten sped off, “You already did…”

A moment later, Shoten reappeared, “All right! Let’s go to see the President!”

“How did you get us in so fast???”

“Do you know Abquhbah? Well he’s my older brother! I have the inside connection! I was supposed to meet with the President this week anyway, but I asked Abe if I could get moved up to today. He said she wasn’t in the greatest mood but she could see us now because some mercenary just failed a huge mission for her and she is waiting for a second group to form to make another attempt.”

“Wut it’s for?”

“No idea. But let’s go!”

Keitalu reaches to open the door when he hears the feminine-sounding shriek of a grown man. He turns his head to look at Shoten who is in a /panic. Keitalu’s indescribable face strikes with a lash of frustration, disappointment, grief, and disgust all with one glare.

Abquhbah storms through the door to find the two standing outside. Moments later Keitalu has finished explaining his summarized story to President Naja herself!

After hearing this story, the President Naja Salaheem said nothing. She quietly clasped the shaft of her morning star, turning with it held firmly in her claws. Her eyes narrowed and one could only imagine the ideas she she cycled through her crafty head. Many times she opened her mouth as if to speak, but instead she said nothing. Everyone in the room couldn’t help but feel apprehensive at her silence, but it all shattered to bits like a plate of fine china dropped from mouth of a dhalmel onto the dry, rocky plains of Bibiki Bay when she burst into a rage exclaiming how foolish Keitalu and all his fwenz are!

The president proceeded to explain, in depth, how everyone in her sight and their corresponding souls are her property! How dare anyone think otherwise!

“But nonetheless, your plight intrigues me,” President Naja said in a sly voice. “I have a quest for you! You will be required to form a party of decent size and variety. Get this together as soon as possible and speak to Abquhbah when you are ready to depart.”

“Where do we go?”

“I’ll ask the questions here, my bulbous-headed tiny man!”

Keitalu frowned. Shoten did too.

“Well that’s your orders. Wat r u standing around here for? Decoration? GTFO!!”

Keitalu and Shoten decided to split up to ask their respective fwenz for help with this mission from the president.

“Let’s meet back here in an hour,” Keitalu said. “Tell your fwenz that the president may offer us special shinies if we accomplish our goal. Make sure to only bring people who is not too n00b. I dun want to full wipe on something critical like this, get me?”

“Okay! I only have 1 friend but I’m sure he will come with us!”

“…Sure whatever. I’ll be back in hour!”

As Keitalu ran off, he stumbled into the legs of an elvaan. The elf picked him up and dusted off his tunic.

“I’m sorry about that, Keitalu. I’m back and ready to go!”

Keitalu looked closely at this elf who knows his name… “Afuce?”

“Yar. It r m3. lulz”

For some reason Afuce seemed different… Keitalu couldn’t shake the suspicion that this was not really Afuce! He questioned him…

“How was Reuben?”

“He was fine, thanks. He tore up the blankets on my bed and totally ripped my pillow into bits. My moogle was hiding in the corner when I got home and my brother was so upset that he had gone fishing. He taped a note to the door saying he’d be back tomorrow.”

Wow, Keitalu thought. This must be Afuce! But why he looks different? “Wat happen to ur other ears Fuce!”

“Oh, it was just a hat, as yours is, I’m sure.”

“Yeah…”

“Shall we head out and find the shinies now?”

“Oh, dude! You missed wat happen! We are going on a top secret mission from the president herself! She is going to give us more details but I’m pretty sure she knows something about the secret star!”

“Wow, how do you know?”

“Well I told her everything and she say she r interested… She also say she will use only us for this mission cos our special goal.”

“Fascinating. Let’s not delay then!”

“Yaya! Come with me I will ask more of my fwen to come help!”

“All right then,” Afuce said.

“Let’s go!”

As Keitalu vanished around the corner, a voice spoke to Afuce! “Does he suspect you?”

“He was leery at first, but I have him convinced.”

“This tarutaru is not easily fooled. Stick to the plan and don’t let him catch you off guard.”

“Yes, mastah. His shinies will be ours!”

Keitalu popped back around the corner.

“Hay u! C’mon I’m gonna teleport us!”

“Sorry about that my dear friend. I must have zoned out for a moment. Let us depart!”

[OMG HAX! Afuce is not Afuce!? But who he is??? How is it possible!!! Wat r going on lulz!

To be continued..!!!!]

Well I had ss but my stupid work computer decided to ignore my flash drive so I can’t post them. >,<  I have to say this update is a bit nuts though.  Talk about a crazy addition to content.  I didn’t get on until way late last night so I missed Salvage.  Apparently, several Alexandrites dropped.  A few sorted to Jack and he tossed them. XD  I think we’re going to have one person collect them from all of our runs for now and hang onto them until we know exactly what to do and how best to use them.  There’s talk of it being a prio’d item but it will obviously work differently than a normal drop.  Some people are saying we could split them and sell them and actually make money on Salvage lol.  Nothing set in stone right now though, so I guess we’ll figure it out as we go.

So anyway, last night when I got on Cloud and a few people were wanting to try out some of the brand new stuff.  We decided to try out the new NM system.  So okay first off, you have 2 npcs in Whitegate.  Ryo and Sanraku.  Talk to them both and they get you started.  Ryo tells you what kind of photos Sanraku is most interested at the moment.  Now gear yourself up with your Soultrapper 2000 grab some blank photos and hit the road!

…Wait.  You didn’t get one?  wtfPankration?  Yeah no kidding.  I didn’t get one either.  Hit up THE PIT and talk to the fat guy right inside the door to your left.  Oh and take Imperial Gold Coins with you.  Trade him some and hook yourself up with a set.  Cloud and I got the Soultrapper 2000 (lulz) and the high speed photos but honestly, I dun think it’s worth it.  Especially at 500 jettons a pop.  Screw that.

So!  You’ve got your target mob!  You know where it’s supposed to be!  You have your camera and equipment in hand!  Off you go across the world and through time to find something from the bird family.. like bats!  Wait what?  The npcs say really weird things, but they give you a target to find, go find it and paparazzi that shit!  Jingex, who I believe had the most experience with taking pictures of the mobs like this, suggested we only do higher level mobs and get them down to 5-10% before taking pictures.  We took his advice, but it wasn’t easy.  Also, Ryo will give you guidelines on what makes a good photograph.  Listen to her carefully because if you do it right, you will get more points per shot.  Anyway, we took a bunch of pictures of these mobs near death.  (Must have been very embarrassing for them!)  We went back and turned in our photos to Sanraku.  Ryo can appraise the shots if you trade her but Sanraku actually takes them, appraises them, and gives you points.  You need 1400 points to do a tier 1 NM, but most of us didn’t actually get enough.  I sure didn’t.  But Cloud did and so we headed off to fight Chigre!  We killed it with a party of 6 and though no one died, I wouldn’t describe it as an easy fight.  When it touches you, it can give you like.. Slow, Paralyze, and Poison.  Like all at once.  Sucks!  Also hate apparently resets after every 2 hits?  idk but I went on NIN and couldn’t hold it for more than a few seconds at a time.  We had a lot of dots on it, both from RDM (Sly), BRD (Jing), and SCH (Shaya).  It went down after a few minutes and dropped.. a Chigre!  Apparently you turn this in or something to qualify for Tier 2 NMs, but it could have dropped a Blood Ring!  Some of the T1 NM drops look ok but honestly nothing stellar.  I need to research what the other drops are and how to get them, but I REALLY like this system where you can get a small group of friends and rotate through NMs a few times a week and advance people’s NM tier and potentially get them items!  I look forward to doing this a lot more, even though the picture taking thing kinda sucks.  Leave my ISP alone.  I still need to buy my Perdu Blade. ; ;

On certain days of the week, a peculiar sound can be heard from deep and dark into the furthest reaches of the subterrane. Reaching down into the depths, a talu was heard in a percussionist performance across the fungal bongos. This is where Keitalu comes to escape the troubles of the world, to relax to the sound of music powered by his own tiny hands, amplified by the cobs and spores untouched, unseen by most people.

On this day, something strange befell Keitalu as he played through the night. A strange feeling over-took him and he felt as though his body had been whisked away into some kind of dream. At first he thought it was the mushrooms but he didn’t actually eat them so he nearly ruled it out, leaving only the possibility of inhaling spore cells… Anyway, he was lost and surrounded by a bright white mist which seemed to erase his very existence!

Despite the bizarre event which had caught him up, Keitalu remained oddly cavalier. His eyes squinted as he tried to make clear, a voice he heard speaking softly to him. Suddenly there was a bright flash and he was standing in a place he had never seen before! As he looked around, he noticed a feminine figure shrouded in a subtle glow, looming in the distance. He approached with caution and her eyes opened before him. She gazed down upon Keitalu and spoke again..!

Stark and beautiful, she introduced herself as Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV. Keitalu’s head tilted to the side as he tried to mouth the many parts of her name. She chuckled and said, “Most people call me Yve’noile for short.”

This didn’t seem any less complicated to Keitalu and so he said, “I will call u, ‘Shiny Lady of the Glowy Lights with a Purdy Dress!’”

Yve’noile blinked with an expression of emptiness.

“Keitalu,” she said at last. “I has summoned upon you for a special purpose! This is a special time of the year for you, is it not?”

Keitalu, shocked, gaped with a surprised face.

“I know many things about you, and know that today is your special day. This is also a special day for the world in which we live! The stars which are nearest to our planet are reaching their peak of brightness and tomorrow, their light will reach a zenith that opens up the gate to the gift everlasting.”

Keitalu’s surprised face deepened with curiosity.

“You wish to know of the gift?”

“Yes plz!”

“Very well, I shall tell you, but you must lock away my words into your heart once you have heard them.”

“‘Kay!”

[Shiny sparklies begin to surround Yve’noile and Keitalu!]

The talu’s innocence and naivety brought a smile of kindness to her face. “The path to paradise will be opened to the one who can reveal the secret of the hidden star… Beyond the Twilight Graveyard, at the Edge of the Earth, the way is revealed to the Keepers of the Hidden Star!”

“Am I such a keeper?”

“Yes. But you are not alone. You cannot reach the path to Paradise by yourself. Find the other keepers, they will help you to find the Twilight Graveyard. You will learn about the secrets hidden within the land and this world’s people.”

“Can I just take my fwenz? Where is this place?”

“When you close your eyes you will see an image of the one you must find next. You will need their knowledge and strength to find the road, but at the end there is a door which only you can pass through.”

“Wut r inside,” Keitalu questioned quickly.

“Inside is a special treasure that the stars have intentioned only for you.”

There was a long pause before his reaction, “Wow! Is it like… a Supar Ultra Shiny?! Like, an OMEGA L337 one?!”

“…You might say that is the case.”

Keitalu danced with joy but before he was allowed to indulge fully in his happiness, Yve’noile stopped him. “Be warned that this is a dangerous road and you will have to face many perils risking life and love and hope for all things. You will not reach the end free of loss and suffering, so you should only take this quest upon yourself if you are prepared for a struggle.”

“I need the fame, srsly. Might as well. And if I can make it, I will get something supar and ultra shiny! To me it is worth it!”

Yve’noile smiled once more and Keitalu found himself back in his Mog House, staring at his moogle spinning over head.

He closed his eyes and saw an image of a tall and thin man, with hair exhausted of it’s color and many ears vast and narrow. A man in purple coat. He would be the first fwen to find!

Keitalu ran around town looking for someone who fit the description he saw in his mind. He wound up at the Tea House to quench his thirst. While in line, an Elvaan accidentally stepped on him and fell over.

“Wowwwww wtf Elf-man!”

“Ooops! I’m so sorry little guy,” the Elvaan said. “Didn’t see you down there!”

“Wow gtfo,” Keitalu replied. The Elvaan drew an offended and hurt expression on his face and Keitalu felt kinda bad.. “Hay u! I’m solly… I’m just having tuff day ya know!”

“I understand.”

“Hayyyyy… I wonder can u halp me?”

“YES! If there is anything I can r halp u with, I will do eet! I swear on my Elf Honor! …Oh btw, my name r Afuce!”

“k, I r looking for a guy! He is like… THIS tall!”

“And he has many ears on his head, kind of like this one!”

“He wear a purple coat!”

“And he has grey hair too I think… Do you knows him?”

The Elvaan paused a moment and as he considered these characteristics, realized that they identified him perfectly!

He shouted, “It’s me!”

Keitalu does a double-take to REALLY check is it him, but looks like it is! YESSS! A Keeper of the Hidden Star is found!!

“I has a story to tell you, but it won’t be easy okay???”

The elvaan nodded and the pair sat down at the table with their tea as Keitalu explained his situation and the quest for the supar ultra (omega l337) shinies!

But elsewhere (actually on the other side of the room) a mysterious figure sat in a corner with an ill demeanor on his face.

[Camera zooms into the corner to show a silhouette of this mystery person… *Slightly scary music*]

Suddenly his face is revealed! He seems to be just another guy… But he begins to write down the particulars of Keitalu’s interaction with Afuce. Clearly he has been following Keitalu! Does he knows about the Supar Ultra Shinies?! If so, why he wants it? Why he cannot has his own, geez… And what will happen if he takes away a shinies that was made ONLY for Keitalu???

[*Suspenseful music!!!*]

(Wow, even I wonder what will happen!)

…To be continued!

So before the whole blog movie post begins, I have a quick aside to share. I’m sure everyone knows about lolcats. They’re taking over! They’re everywhere!

One of the most popular lolcats is the series of cats doing invisible things, the first of which I believe is the photo of a cat which appears to be riding a bike which is not there! This is called Invisible Bike and it’s amazing. In fact, here it is!

So I’m sure everyone has seen this. Literally everyone.

Well, recently, local artist Josh Zubkoff and friends spray painted a GIANT-SIZED version of the Invisible Bike lolcat on a wall at the end of an alley here in San Francisco. For those curious as to where, it’s the alley on Quincy Street at Pine. (West bound, look left)

Because this is literally a 5 minute drive from where I work, I gathered my fwenz and we ventured to the mural to see if it was really true… And it is!

Sadly we went at lunchtime on a weekday (today!) and there were cars parked in the alley (good luck getting out…) so we couldn’t get a full picture of the whole thing. It’s still pretty awesome though! Of course, there is another version of this picture with me and my fwenz in it, but I won’t be posting it here. :)  I’m not sure what the deal with Asians.com is.  Maybe that building is their’s but honestly, idk.  That has been on this building for a long time prior to the Invisible Bike.

All I can say is, you are totally awesome for putting this together Josh! lolcats fans, the world over, appreciate you! Thanks for putting the lol in my day.

lulz

[Cue cliché trailer music]

[Movie voice]

He was a taru on a quest for something special

Into the darkest corners of the world, he ventured alone

Now his story will be told

And the shiniez of omega l33t powers will be found

This summer…

Keitalu takes you on an adventure

[Dramatic pause]

Out of this world

[Dramatic sound]

Keitalu: ohai

Keitalu and the Quest of the Supar Ultra (omega l33t) Shiniez!

…

This May!

As a primer to this post, I would like to note that the text of this entry will be emoticon/slang free, as I have been inspired by a recent find from Maiev. Let’s see if I can do it!

There are various updates to review! To start things off, Citadel Chelonian remains cruel and unusual, refusing to drop anything but Neiman’s Crowns. Even I have one now.

Earlier this month, April 12th, LagSave reached a landmark achievement of 100 completed pieces! That’s a lot of completed pieces and a lot of runs! To date, I believe we have achieved 105 completed sets, including at least one of everything. I’m quite proud of our achievement, even though I haven’t been there from the beginning. I consider the people in LagSave good friends and I feel like I am just as much a part of the group as anyone.

To celebrate our achievement, we held a private party at the hostel in Whitegate. The seemingly privy nature of our celebration was unknown to the party-crashers though. We had several people show up at random, drinking our booze and popping our fireworks. Somebody call the Karma Police!

Several people got so completely wrecked that when they woke up, they were no longer the same gender or species. Quite unnerving.

I had never been to the hostel before. It’s a very fun experience. Once someone registers a date and time, you can have all your friends pop in and party. They provide you with a truck-load of drinks and favors at the door, and you can buy more throughout the party, once you’ve used them. The price adds up quickly though… There is also an active DJ who can play just about any soundtrack from the game for each player. You will hear the Whitegate theme by default but you can set it to anything and it will play that song just for you.

There are several theme flavors you can choose for your party and one of which, provides you with an NPC Attendant wearing… well, this. We couldn’t resist a photo with him. I believe he was officially the life of the party.

When all the fireworks had been launched and all the bottles been poured, we slowly parted ways toward our respective destinations. The attendants were quite keen on getting us out at the given time.

It was definitely a night to remember and I had a lot of fun partying with my fellow teammates. It was really nice of Slycer to throw a party for us to celebrate this achievement. Unfortunately, several key people were out on that night, including Jackalman, Maiev, Etain, and others. I hope one day we can have a party where everyone on the roster shows up. I look forward to more successful Salvage runs, completed pieces, and fun times with the LagSave crew!

Good times, good times.

I recently completed another Assault rank, putting me up at Tier 7, which is still 2 tiers below where I need to be, yesterday. I have to say that the last promotion quest was quite painful. If you’ve seen this before you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Let us never speak of this again.

Last but definitely not least, is a special tribute to my closest friend who reached one of his largest goals in the game recently. I’m referring, of course, to Afuce and his completed Morrigan’s Robe!

As is customary in our friendship, when something extra good and special happens to one of us, we both get together and dance about it. Afuce has been working very hard to get his Morrigan’s Robe for a long time. He is the best Blue Mage I know and has definitely selected it as his career job. We have spent hours talking about how it has improved the powers of both his Red Mage and Blue Mage, and it’s definitely worth every penny. It also looks quite beautiful on him.

I look forward to our upcoming adventures together where we can really see his heightened new powers shine. A very special congratulations to you, Afuce, for your awesome achievement! I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more than you!

I also made another promise to Afuce when we were both Morrigan-less. I told him that if he completed the body armor before I did, I would kill him at rip it off his dead body.

I wasn’t kidding.

And so the real congratulations goes to me for collecting an over-sized, secondhand Morrigan’s Robe! But since he loves it so much, I am letting him borrow it for now. For now!

Afuce, I also made a special graphic just for you today, to immortalize the occasion. I hope you like it!

A couple weeks ago I bought a new TV (Samsung 52″ LCD 1080p 30k:1 DCR [insert moar random technical specs here]) and it came to my house yesterday! I wanted to try setting up my laptop on it so I could play Salvage! Imagine playing on THIS!

Yeah so that stand is so not big enough lolol. I’m going to get a new one tomorrow. Today? idk what day it is. Had a potential scare when I couldn’t login to my account yesterday, but thankfully it was a misunderstanding with Scottie, who thought I had quit since my last break from the game. He thought he could take over my character and he changed my pw to his so he wouldn’t forget it. But once he got the account logged in, he had to dl updates for over 3 hours on his crappy connection, so he never actually got to login. lulz. I pwnz’d him over the fone and we’re square now. Unfortunately I missed Salvage that day and made people wait a really long time for me. F U, Scottie! Get a name that isn’t already applied to a breed of dog!

Speaking of dog, here is mai puppy.

He is doin’ his little stretchy there. Always makes me smile. Happyface. He has this Z mark on his back which I didn’t notice until after I took the picture. That is the true source of his powers!

The life of a talu in Vana’diel is full of challenges of many kinds. In his quest to improve his performance and flexibility as a healer, Keitalu decided to undertake some basic studies as a Scholar. Armed with his trusty dagger and Windy aketon, he ventured out into the wild, to.. study… wait, shouldn’t he have been hitting the books?! Oh whatever.

Equipped with his beastmaster abilities, he first sought to socialize with the locals and he quickly made a new fwen, Savanna Rarab. The wabbit say his name is not really wabbit, but his name is really Inuki!

Inuki and Keitalu faced many foes and struck them down in battle. Their combined power struck fear into the hearts of all of those nasty yags in West Saru. As they continued on their journey, Keitalu began to learn more magical spells. It seemed like nothing could stand in their way!

Then one time they were faced with a new enemy as the yags became too weak to be worthwhile to continue fighting. Out of nowhere, this giant fish comes to attack Keitalu and Inuki!

The fight itself proved to be more than they could handle, and Inuki fell at the fangs of the foe and died! Keitalu was at first so stunned that such a thing could happen to his best fwen!

Filled with rage and hatred, he unleashed his full might and slayed the enemy, but it was an empty victory. He could not bring back his fwen Inuki because he cannot use Raise until level 35. :(

He tried to make new fwenz and fill the hole in his heart with someone, anyone who would come with him on his journey. But it just wasn’t the same… Inuki was gone and there was no one who could replace him.

Keitalu went on a rampage and sought to slay every nasty fish he could find, to vent his frustration and lonliness. However, all the deaths didn’t make him feel any better and he didn’t get a level up either. Saddened and still level 3, he ran away from the waters and deeper into the plains and wept.

He couldn’t forget the good times he had with Inuki, running on the plains and splashing around in the waters! Oh how he missed the happy fun times!

But then one day, Keitalu meets a strange fellow named Mandragora. He knew there was something different about this critter because he looks similar to talu! Mandragora said he was bored and wanted to go on an adventure!

Keitalu was happy to hear this and he used his charms on Mandragora. The charm was not resisted and the two became new fwenz! Mandragora was happy and told him about how he lost his fwen too, when the new jobs come out and everyone started leveling DNC. Mandragora lost is fwen at that time and he was sad for many days, hiding in the bushes pretending to be a plant. Keitalu understands his pain but he learned that sometimes it’s just how it is… Some fwen cannot last forever. Mandragora promised to protect Keitalu because he was still low level. Keitalu said that he would give Mandragora a new name because Mandragora is kind of lame.
Keitalu: I will call you Inuki. It’s a wonderful name don’t you think? ^.^ + T_T

Keitalu and Inuki wet to fight evil bees and stupid yags to get teh xps!

It turns out, new Inuki doesn’t like nasty fishes either! Kills them!

At last, Keitalu begins to level up and he and new Inuki are happy together as best fwenz!

Next day when Keitalu goes back to level more, he finds a familiar fwen!

It seems original Inuki is back! He say that his HP is not far and he comes back after he dies to wait for Keitalu. They find each other again and both Inuki’s and Keitalus are happy and destroy evil bad guys to get crystals and teh xps! So there is no need to worry! True fwenz will never leave you! Even if they die, they just come back again! ^.^

~ The end ~

So I quit FFXI and started a new game. It’s called Travian! It’s an online, campaign-type, city-building game like WarCraft. It’s purely browser-based and has a real-time engine. Graphics are really simple but it works for the simple type of gameplay. I love it!

Okay so I didn’t really quit FFXI. But I am playing Trav hardcore (especially at work, as it’s a GREAT time-killer) and loving it! If you wanna sign up, please use the link above! I will get referral bonus of 20 Gold when the population of your city reaches 250, which I will gladly split with you 50/50, so we can enhance our villages with crazy fun things!

Cloudstah, one of the revered leaders of LagSave and THE Galka, found this game and has turned several (like 10+) ppl from LS onto it. Nearly everyone plays it in the shell, lol. It’s nice because it requires very little attention. In fact, you have to wait throughout the day to replenish your resources so you can build more structures or enhance your farming resources. So you can easily check it throughout the day like you do your email or what have you. You can also take over other people’s villages and steal their goods, or just go to war, np.

Anyway, I promise a real update for tomolow very soon! I actually have a lot of stuff I wanted to cover from Salvage with SCH and /DNC, so it will be a very juicy update with pics and everything! Stay tuned! ^.^

EDIT: Wow I completely forgot to mention what server we’re all on and which zone. We are on Server: Speed3x in the Northwest zone if you want to go where we are! Then you can team up with us! Hope to see you there!