Final Fantasy XI

Continuing with their excellence in the best RPG series to have ever been released (while personal opinion, it is true, so don't argue it!), Final Fantasy XI recently released the fourth expansion to their online game, Final Fantasy XI, titled Wings of the Goddess. While I am still fairly a 'newbie' in the world, at a meager lvl. 21, I have still played a decent amount of the game to be able to tell that this will be an awesome game! I am about to face my first really tough boss, of which I am excited. The game gives you the options to personalize your character with multiple races to choose from: Hume (human male or female), Elvaan (elf male or female), Tarutaru (a midget thing male or female), Galka (a large hulk that looks male, but is supposedly asexual), and Mithra (a kitty girl-only race). In addition to choosing the race, you have 8 faces within that race/gender, and also two different hair colors with each face. Then you choose to be small, medium, or large-bodied. While this is nice, it is still limited to some of the customization games where you can choose skin, eye, and hair color among changing specific features, but it's good enough. Then you get to choose one of three countries in the world to be a citizen of and a main class (starting options are Warrior, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, and Thief). Afterwards, you get to level yourself up, do missions for your country, and do quests in various areas. Once you reach a certain level, you can do a quest to allow sub-jobs, which are 1/2 the level of your main job, though exp. only gains for the main job, the sub just gives extra stats and skills. Also, once you reach 30, you have the option to go on various quests to unlock much better classes. Sadly, I'm not there yet, but I am making my way. As you do missions, your rank goes up in your country of citizenship, and when you do quests, your reputation rises in the country or area that you are performing the quest, as well as influencing your reputation in other towns that are allied very slightly. It is a very fun game, lots of running around and etcetera. While I normally get very bored with online games after a certain amount of time, I haven't with this game. I had a time I was too busy to play for a while, but the fact that I can get back into it easily says a lot in my mind. And, as stated before, best RPG series ever. :)

The Last Remnant

So, my roommate's sister came over for Thanksgiving and brought The Last Remnant with her. I have to say, I was originally turned off from the different fighting style, until I played it myself. It is a totally unique fighting style in which you don't actually select each character's actions, but you group a bunch of characters together into a union and select one of a few options, and the characters will attack, use magic (if they can), special attack arts, or heal. At first it was weird, but as I went on, I found myself enjoying the gameplay. Each union's HP and AP (for magic and arts) is aggregate of all the characters comprised of the union, therefore making a powerful entity that (usually) doesn't die unless all of the HP is depleted. The story is of a boy, Rush, trying to save his sister (well, I'm not that far into the game, so I don't know how much further it goes). Suffice it to say that this is a must-have for RPG players!