grimoire of the rift

I'm a big fan of Square Enix; Final Fantasy has been something I've loved (started with FF VII and onwards, then backwards with the earlier games in the series for the DS). But more than Final Fantasy, I am a devotee of Final Fantasy Tactics.

Oh, the drama. And the job system. And the battles! Yes, the battles.

Nikki surprised me with Final Fantasy Tactics A2, which is now firmly slotted into my DS and eating up a shocking amount of time. The game has everything I love about the series, with over 50 jobs, multiple races and the battles, yes, the battles.

Check out the website (it's in flash but worth the wait) and get a glimpse at what consumes me nowadays.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

(On a side note, I wish Song Summoner: the Unsung Heroes were available for my iPhone.)

non-hostile

It's sad but true: my guilty pleasure slash stress release slash time eater site Get Hostile has been shut down due to poor revenue streams. It's such a shame - Brian provided a venue for Acquire players of different stripes from all over the world. It was cool and fun (and, for a brief moment in time, I was #1 on the leader board).

It was Kate who introduced me to Acquire (and what an addiction it spawned, with us constructing tournaments and Acquire nights).

Here's to hoping to see Hostile somewhere soon!

talisman

At last, we have a copy of the new 4th edition of Talisman, the game I have been wanting for years.

Huzzah!

planar chaos

Every four months or so, Wizards of the Coast releases the latest set for Magic: The Gathering - and like a zombie, I plunk down money to get myself a box of boosters and most (if not all) of the preconstructed decks.

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (actually, it was 1995), I was the first Philippine National Champion for Magic (Nikki, for a while was the highest ranked woman globally, and represented the Philippines at the World Championships in Seattle in 1998). Soon after that, I joined the company which distributed the cards and became the a judge and tourney organizer. Those were fun and heady days - my work primarily consisted of keeping the game alive and fresh, as well as travelling. Because of Magic, I travelled to China, Japan and the US, plus many places in our own archipelago. I truly loved the game, the way it rewarded creativity and intelligent play. I made a lot of friends and learned much during the years I worked for Novelty.

I quit competitive play for a number of reasons, but never truly stopped playing - thanks to my cutthroat competitor of a wife. So every time there's a new set, we get cards and play into the wee hours of the morning.

The latest set is called Planar Chaos, and it's quite a cool addition to the Time Spiral block.

So if anyone wants a pickup game from a grizzled veteran (or two), let me know.

books and games

For someone who is supposed to be working on a handful of stories (gah, the deadlines draw ever closer), I've been remiss, instead spending time reading and figuring out the intricacies and secrets of Final Fantasy V.

New to my bookshelf are a pair of books by Filipino authors:

The Umbrella Country by Bino Realuyo (such a nice guy, as my email exchange with him attests) - direct from the Netherlands, thanks to Rochita.

Night Mares by Leoncio P. Deriada - direct from Dumaguete, thanks to Ian.

I'm also moving through the strange cities of Leviathan, edited by Forest Aguirre.

But what's really eating up my time is Nikki's Christmas gift, a lovely matte black Gameboy Advance that swallowed me whole and spat me out in the worlds of Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced, Final Fantasy V and Pokemon Chaos Black.

I remember the last time I had a Gameboy. Nikki and I got each other a Gameboy Color to lessen the tedium of the longhaul flights to the US and back. Even with those we were competitive, connecting each machine to the other via wires - nowadays, it's wireless, of course.

Lost, lost, but loving every moment (and feeling very guilty).

street fighter...later

Like David (from whom I read about this), I spent a lot of tokens Street Fighting. My three best characters were the kickass Chun Li (using moves that we christened "step kick" and "helicopter"), the masked Vega (in the old days, his aerial attack was devastating - until we learned that Chun Li could catch and throw him in midair), and... Dhalsim (setting up a leg stretch kick/flame combo was wicked). It's one of those games that I cannot help but play if I see an old console or arcade machine lying around. Heck, I even hosted the championships of the game at Robinsons Galleria years and years ago (when you could smoke while playing - it was heaven).

Check out these hilarious minifilms, set 10 years later...

First

Second

With, hopefully, more to come.