Final Fantasy Record Keeper

I've never blogged about an app for smartphones before, but today I'd like to tell you about my favorite game on the iPhone.  While Candy Crush and Soda Saga are great in their own right, and I'm digging the Simpsons' Tapped Out, the game I look forward to logging into every day is Final Fantasy Record Keeper.

Pretty much everyone knows how much I love the Final Fantasy franchise.  I own almost every Final Fantasy created (excluding the MMO version of 11 and 14, or FF Tactics).  I've played countless hours trying to get every item in the game, running through all the sidequests, and leveling all my characters to their theoretical limit of 9999 (or in the case of FF10, 99999).  When Facebook suggested that I might like this new app when it was released in the U.S. on March 26th, I quickly downloaded it, eager to see what it entailed!

When you first open the game, you'll get a little story background and plenty of tutorials to try and get you started.  It was a little intimidating at first, but anything with a learning curve usually is.  The game gives you access to realms that you can jump into memorable battles from various Final Fantasies across the generations (FF1 through FF13).

 

Each realm has a number of dungeons you can embark on, with wide ranges of difficulty.  And if you master one, it will unlock more dungeons or enable the Elite version of the dungeon, which is even more difficult but has even more rewards.

Before jumping into a battle, you have the option of selecting and setting up your party.  As a fanatic, I love unlocking my favorite characters and getting them great gear to use in battle.  I can pick certain equipment that "synergizes" with the realm I'm playing to make those weapons and armor even stronger.  The abilities I choose are more dictated by the bosses I'll face and the weaknesses I'll want to expose.  I usually like to roll with 1 healer, 1 black magic mage, and 3 melee characters.

 

The battles are very straightforward and are based on the classic turn-based style with Active Time Battle (ATB) that has grown accustomed to Final Fantasy games throughout the years.  You can choose to attack with your weapon, defend, or use an ability.  Abilities have a set number of uses before they are depleted, so deciding when to use those abilities is key if you want to survive and pass the later stages of the dungeon.  And because it's ATB, you have to make decisions quickly, otherwise the enemy will just pummel away at you.  Fortunately, you can change the speed of the game on the fly without penalty.

As a completionist, I'm doing pretty well getting all the characters that have been released to the game so far.  There is a Japanese version that was released about 6 months earlier that has a lot more in the game than the U.S version.  However, I love the pace of the game.  They release a special Event dungeon about once a week that will typically focus on just a single character and allow you to unlock them if you haven't gotten them already.  I personally like to level up all my characters to level 50 (which is the initial limit; they can reach 65 if you find their memory crystal when it becomes available).

 

I like to have one party that I'm working on leveling to 50 to take out the easy dungeons.  Then I have a party of 50+ to use for the challenging dungeons.  I'm constantly leveling up players and trying to get them better gear.  I don't really think the game involves as much grinding and farming as in other games, which is really nice.  There's also so much in the game that even though I've started since day 1, I always have something to play when I log in each day.  And because the game uses "Stamina" in order to play, it controls just how much you can do in the game in a single sitting if you don't want to spend money or precious mythril.  I personally choose to use mythril on expanding my inventory space or on rare relic draws, which can give you powerful weapons and armor, some that are character specific and change their limit breaks.  The game is pretty good about slowly giving everyone mythril, there is not a finite amount.

As of today, I have not contributed any monies to FFRK.  I can comfortably play this Free-to-play (F2P) game without ever feeling the need to spend money, but my patience with these types of games has never been a problem anyway.  As you can see, you can still have a pretty awesome collection of gear if you are just diligent and disciplined.

And that's about it with Final Fantasy Record Keeper!  It's simplicity makes it easy to play, progress, and get addicted to.  The nostalgic feeling makes me want more and even replay old titles I haven't in a while.  And it is easily my favorite game for the smartphone.  If you want to see a well done video review, I recommend this one by AppSpy.  I know most people are crazy Final Fantasy fanatics like myself, but if you like Role-Playing Games (RPGs) at all, I think you should give this one a shot.  I personally can't wait to see what more gets added over the months!

DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy Record Keeper is produced and owned by Square Enix and its developers.  All the pictures on this blog are screenshots of the game on my iPhone 6.

Japan: A Long Blogpost Upcoming

I like to travel internationally once every other year at least, and recently I went on a 11-day trip to Japan in the second half of April!  My friend Chuck had been living there for the past year working for Raytheon on a contract with Mitsubishi.  I figured now was a good time to see the country while he was still there, as you know I like traveling for friend-seeing more than sight-seeing.

The trip was scheduled several months in advance, with lots of planning to make sure I got to see as much of Japan as I wished to see.  The round-trip flight to Japan via Japan Airlines was $1300.  My friend Jen had been wanting to go, as well as a couple of Chuck's friends (Josh and James), so that made a nice party of 5 for this trip!

Friday, April 17 - Land in Osaka:

After about an 11-hour flight from LAX, we landed in Osaka (Kansai International Airport) and took a bus to Namba, where we would be staying at a Capsule Hotel for the night (more on this later)!  Immediately when we started walking around Namba I was amazed by the bright and colorful lights of the city.  We eventually had Okonomiyaki (or Japanese pancakes) for dinner.

The nightlife in Japan is great and we eventually made our way to Space Station, an Australian owned bar with old school gaming consoles you can play while you drink.  We didn't stay out too late this night, which was hard with 1) jetlag and 2) it's fucking Japan, we wanted to see everything on the first night lol.  We had to take a morning flight to Okinawa, which is an island west of Japan and close to Taiwan.  For the first night, Jen really wanted to try staying at a Capsule Hotel, where you literally sleep in a capsule.  It's like sleeping in a coffin, but for $25 a night, I couldn't really complain.  I wouldn't stay in one of these again, but I'm happy I can say I experienced it.

Since it was hard to get good sleep in the capsule, a few of us got up pretty early and wandered around from some food.  Strangely enough, not many places are open early on weekend mornings in Japan.  However, we were able to find a ramen counter on the street where you order at a vending machine, which prints a ticket to give to the cook, and the result is some delicious ramen noodle soup.  A nice find before we set off for Okinawa!

Saturday-Sunday, April 18-19 - Hashing in Okinawa:

If you've never been "hashing" before, I don't recommend it.  While the concept of getting some exercise in while drinking beer sounds great, the traditions of hashers mixed with American obnoxiousness makes for some pretty cultist-like experiences, which will make most outsiders feel quite uncomfortable.  Think of "hashing" like an adult frat party...who knows, maybe you're into that kind of stuff.  Anyway, Chuck is a big hasher and there was an Okinawa hash he really wanted to be a part of. It was a beautiful route that went along the beaches, through some shrines, and the mountains, so for that reason alone it was totally worth it.  That and it was probably the only time one would actually get some real exercise on this trip.  The other good news is that you can have open containers on the streets of Japan (like Vegas). :D

After hashing most of the day Sunday, we hit the bars with the fellow hashers.  This was something I couldn't really stand, but if you knew how loud and obnoxious some hashers get, you'd understand.  The next morning, Jen and I grabbed breakfast while the others slept in.  The great thing about Jen is that she is as adventurous as I am when it comes to trying new food.  We ordered a bit much for just the two of us - that "eat with your eyes" problem, but for me, eating the local food is a MUST when traveling and probably the #1 reason I like to travel anyway.  You'll be seeing a lot of food pictures in this entry.

Not pictured above is squid ink soup, but you'll find a bowl of clams, some pork belly, and tripe and noodle soup.  Okinawa was one of my favorite places to visit in Japan, mostly because of the atmosphere.  For example, the fish market featured some really colorful and exotic creatures.

Later in the day on Sunday, it was time to get some *yawn* sight-seeing *yawn* in.  We visited one of the castles which I don't even remember the name of.  You can tell I'm just not into sight-seeing.  It's all about lifestyle and culture for me!  Pictured below is me in front of some temple/castle looking thing.

After a dinner of trying "tacorice", which is a literally what it sounds like but is apparently popular in Okinawa, we found our way to a karaoke bar, which are huge in Japan.  This is not like your American karaoke bars however.  Instead, you rent out a private room with its own karaoke machine and you can get all-you-can-drink for as long as you ready to pay for it.

We ended up singing very late into the night, which was good because I had to play StarCraft league from Japan at 4am.  Usually StarCraft league is at 12pm PST in the U.S. and it was important for me to play since it was also playoffs.  ATrain was pretty drunk at 4am that night, but he was able to sloppily defend a 2-gate in PvP and win the game, helping team IBM sweep Palantir in the first round of the playoffs!

Monday, April 20 - Dinner in Fukuoka:

The next day we would fly into Fukuoka, which is on the western part of Japan.  My friend Chuck wanted to take us to this restaurant that featured a "live squid" dish, but it wasn't open yet when we arrived.  We killed some time by looking at the various shrines in the city, which you'll find pictured below.

Dinner time finally rolled around and it was well worth the wait!  $40 would get us an 8-course meal, with the main feature being "live squids"!  Inside the restaurant, everyone sits around a pod of live squid.  The chefs then catch one and slice it apart before our very eyes, then serve it to you on a plate as it is still dying.  Perhaps it sounds inhumane, but some of us are carnivores and it's just the truth of the matter.  Anyway, I was especially stoked to see the squid's tentacles still moving whenever I touched them, then proceeded to eat the body while it stared at me.

After the body is consumed, they throw the tentacles into the deep fryer and bring them back out for you to eat, tempura style.  So it's a little misleading that you're eating "live squid".  Nonetheless, I thought it was a pretty cool experience!

Tuesday, April 21 - Hiroshima, Roadtrip to Maizuru & Nagoya:

We arrived in Hiroshomia late Monday night via bullet train, which was exciting 'cause it was the first time I got to ride one.  I must say that the efficiency of the "shinkansen" is quite impressive and the trains reach speeds of 170mph+.  Most of the gang was beat and didn't want to go out, but Jen and James were game and we took a cab to Nagarekawa, which was nightlife district

I had developed a couple traveling philosophies by this time:
1) Whenever you get an opportunity to shower, do so, because you don't know when you'll get to again.
2)  Whenever you get an opportunity to eat, do so, because you must try everything!
So while wandering Nagarekawa, we ended up eating at multiple places.  One happened to be owned by Taiwanese, which was cool 'cause I could actually communicate in Mandarin with them.  I ended up ordering a bowl of noodle soup, which would be a consistent dish throughout this trip. :)

The next day, we spent some time looking at the memorials around Hiroshima.  This included the A-Bomb Dome and a bombing museum.  Kind of depressing to look at honestly.

Around the early afternoon, Chuck needed to go to Maizuru to get his car and return it to an agency in Nagoya.  He didn't want to travel alone, so I volunteered to go with him while the others remained in Hiroshima until they were scheduled to take the train to Kyoto later that evening.  The plan was to spend the day riding with Chuck and meet up with the gang in Kyoto, but I learned that when you're with Chuck, nothing ever goes according to plan. :P  We soon arrived in Maizuru and I got to see Chuck's apartment for the last year.

The car ride from Maizuru to Nagoya was a few hours, so Chuck and I got to catch up and get some extra bonding time in.  When we arrived in Nagoya, he had some hashing friends he wanted to meet up with, so we ended up hanging out and staying with them overnight in Nagoya, instead of making it to Kyoto.  I was okay with this, as it gave me more opportunity to see different parts of Japan.  By this time, I had already hit 6 cities in just 5 days, lol.

Wednesday, April 22- Getting Kicked Out of Clubs in Kyoto:

Chuck and I finally arrived in Kyoto, just in time for lunch.  We had revolving sushi, similar to Teharu in Phoenix.  The sushi was exquisite and only about a dollar for a couple pieces of nigiri!  I definitely ate the most out of the group and the most peculiar item I tried was "sashimi horse meat".

Next on the day's agenda was visiting the monkey park!  It was a 20-minute hike through the mountains to get there, but the park is really cool because the monkeys just roam around freely with the humans.  You aren't allowed to pet or throw your feces at them, as they may retaliate, but there was a feeding cage and as one would expect, monkeys are quite smart.  So no giving them empty peanut shells or anything; they'll swat that shit out of your hand.

Later in the evening, it was time to go out drinking...again.  In fact, I think I drank all but 1 out of the 11 days I was there in Japan. :O I started to develop another traveling philosophy:
3) Always get 2 drinks at each convenient mart if you want to drink continuously since you don't know when you'll get to the next one.

This proved to be a very dangerous philosophy that I would not continue.  I was hammered by the time we had Korean BBQ (this is becoming popular in Japan).

And because I was so full from dinner, I would begin to pass out at the club we would eventually end up at later in the night.  The bouncers asked me politely to leave, but I resisted and Asshole Andy would end up heckling the bouncers who were trying to get me to just wait outside for 15 minutes before I could go back in.  Apparently this was too unreasonable to Severely Intoxicated Andy, who flipped them the bird as he walked away and wandered the streets of Kyoto alone.  I guess being drunk and passing out on the streets of Japan is pretty common, lol.  And so I got kicked out a the club in Kyoto.

The next day, we explored Kyoto and did some sight-seeing around the imperial palace.  This was the one time I got to see the cherry blossoms, which were nearing the end of their season.  After Kyoto, it was on to the main event: Tokyo!

Thursday-Sunday, April 23-26 - Too Much Time in Tokyo?:

We arrived in Tokyo on Thursday night and hit the town hard.  One of my friends from college, Bliss, lives in Tokyo now so she met up with us and helped show us around.  So now it was like having two tour guides in Japan. :)

Tokyo is a pretty crazy city and is the definition of "bustling".  The clubs are open until 8am, and it was common for us to be out until 6am partying and drinking all night.  There were times that I felt like all we did was party and eventually it would burn me out.  But, I will say that there were some highlights during our time in Tokyo

The Tsukiji fish market is quite famous and known for being an area that one can try whale.  Whale was pretty interesting since the meat is red and extremely tender, since whale is basically a zero-gravity mammal.

Visiting the Akihabara electronics district was especially fun for me as I loved seeing all the technology the place had to offer.  One touristy thing I would definitely recommend for anyone is to check out Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku.  This place offers a 90-minute show with elaborately constructed robots on stage and it's like watching Japanese anime come to life before your eyes.  I really enjoyed the show and for $45 a ticket, it's totally worth it in my opinion.

We also had Shabu-Shabu in Shibuya, which is basically hotpot.  They bring out raw meats and you cook them in a boiling pot in front of you, sort of like Korean BBQ.  This restaurant featured All-You-Can-Eat-and-Drink in 90 minutes for about $40, which we definitely took advantage of. :)

Contrary to what I was expecting, Tokyo wasn't as great, but perhaps we just partied too much.  I actually enjoyed Okinawa, Kyoto, and Osaka more than Tokyo.

Monday-Tuesday, April 25-27 - Last Days in Osaka:

Following Tokyo, all that remained was to wrap up a few things left to do and see in Osaka.  First, we still had to try blowfish, properly prepared by a licensed chef.  Josh refused to try it, so we joked that he would be the lone survivor if we all died in a couple days.

Next was the deer park in Nara.  Similar to the monkey park, the deer roam around freely with everyone else.  There'd be deer walking across the street and cars would have to slow down for them to pass by.  One can purchase crackers that the deer LOVE to eat, but be forewarned, they can get a little aggressive when they know you have food.  They'll bite at your shirt or headbutt you until you surrender all the crackers, lol.

We also had to try playing pachinko.  I didn't really understand how to play it since everything was in Japanese and there were a bunch of bright and colorful cartoons on the screen, but one thing I am certain, I didn't win squat.  I dumped about $20 into a pachinko machine and the goal seems to pinball the tiny metal balls into the hole in the middle.  This happened maybe 1 out of every 10 times and didn't pay out very well.  Occasionally there'd be a slot machine on the screen, but that never hit either.

The last thing on my personal list of to-do's was to find a cat cafe!  I had heard about them residing in Osaka, but most were closed on Monday.  This left Tuesday as the last opportunity to get to a cat cafe since our flight left later that evening.  Fortunately, I found a great one and Jen accompanied me to do some cat petting for an hour. :D

And so concluded a long yet epic trip to Japan.  I will say that by around the 10th day, I was ready to go home.  In my opinion, Japan is about the same regardless what city you are in; I don't think you can really go wrong with anywhere you choose to go.  There were a couple things we didn't get to do, such as see Mt. Fuji or eat Kobe beef in Kobe, but I was completely satisfied by the entire vacation.  I think it goes down as Top 5 out of trips I've been on, and definitely #1 on the international list (although San Carlos is a close 2nd).  If you're considering visiting Japan, I highly recommend it!  For costs, it was about $2000 total for transportation, then another $2000 for food and drink, shelter, and activities.  Also, if you've never heard of or tried Airbnb, I also recommend it for your travels; we stayed at apartments (most had a laundry machine) and got a more natural experience in each city.

USBC Open Championship in El Paso

So I've been annually attending the USBC Open Championships with a team of 10 IBMers from Tucson.  You may recall last year I went to Reno to participate for my first time.  This year, the tournament is held in wonderful...El Paso, TX?  I've never actually been to El Paso before, but it was interesting how one could literally see Juarez, Mexico from the interstate as you are driving into the city.  My friend Chris and I arrived on Sunday, and downtown was as dead as could be.  We walked around Union Plaza, where there are a ton of bars and clubs, but they were all closed.  Unfortunately, we didn't pick the best nights to experience nightlife out here, as these places are only open later in the week.  Nonetheless, we found our way to Sparrow's, the only bar open in all of downtown El Paso.  They actually made an effort to open up the place with all the USBC bowlers coming to town, and I thank them dearly for that or else I would've been bored out of my mind.

There's really not a whole lot to do in El Paso (unless you're into Museums?), so I'll just cut to the chase.  Day 1 of Open Championships featured the team event, where teams of 5 try and post the best scores they can.  You're basically competing against everyone, so the goal is simply to bowl the best game you can.  The lanes are oiled to be extremely difficult, and missing your mark by just a hair or not adjusting as the games go on will cause you to miss the pocket and leave all kinds of nasty splits.  I didn't have many expectations going in, I just wanted to bowl a 500-series once and enjoy myself.

Day 2 featured the Doubles and Singles events.  I'll say for the Team and Doubles, I had paltry series of around 420 each event. :( Yeah, it's really tough out there.  However, I shined in the Singles event, posting my best games of 185 and 174, ending with a 484 series, which was pretty close to my goal, but just missed it.  While bowling is a dying sport in my opinion, I still love it and plan on going back next year, which should be back in Reno.

Up next, Japan!!!

Bowling Championships and Southwest Challenge!

Bowling Championships:

Last Thursday was championship night for the IBM Bowling League.  Since the format of the final night changed from 2 teams to 4 teams a few years ago, our team has not won the league.  The new format features 4 of the 8 teams all bowling against each other in a battle of total pin-count across 3 games.  Obviously, heads up is easier to win since you only have to be better than 1 other team on a given night.

We bowled pretty well through two games, but another team was just bowling better.  We found ourselves down by 91 pins to that team and ourselves well ahead of the other 2 teams.  So basically we needed to make up those pins in the final game to win it all.  A couple of HUGE performances from Matt (220 with a 157 average) and Chris (240 with a 190 average) really helped and we found ourselves winning total pins by 22 pins!  And so we've finally made it back to the champions' pedestal, our 4th championship in about 8 years of bowling.

Once we wrapped up the victory, I drove my way to Las Vegas to get ready for the APA 8-Ball Southwest Challenge.  I made the decision to bowl first then leave, instead of missing bowling altogether.  That turned out to be a key decision since had I not shown up, our team would've had -30 from me missing the night and we would've lost by 8 pins.  In other words, staying to bowl and leaving Tucson late was totally worth it!

Southwest Challenge:

Chris and I arrived at the Riviera in Las Vegas at 4:30am on Friday morning.  Tyler had gotten in around midnight, so fortunately he was able to check us in early in the morning at 7am (yeah, fuck that shit) and attend the players' meeting for us at 8:30am.  We also got lucky, receiving a first round bye and not having to play our first match until 2pm as opposed to 9am.  Chris and I were able to salvage some valuable extra hours of sleep before hitting up an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ restaurant for lunch before our 2pm match.

For our first match, we played a team from San Bernardino.  Their 3 beat our 5 (Chris) and Tyler (a skill level 4) lost to a 7.  Fortunately, Southwest Challenge is a single-elimination modified tournament, which means you are guaranteed to play at least 2 matches.  Our next match came at 5:30pm against a team from San Diego.  I (a skill level 4) beat a 5 to lead things off and Chris beat a 4 to send us to the next round for Saturday!  We made it to day 2!  However, we also had to play next at 8am in the morning... (yeah, fuck that shit).

Friday night was fairly low key since we had to be up early.  Chris, Tyler, Tyler's girlfriend Tina, and I walked down to the Palazzo to do some gambling.  The whole night we kept our Cereal Killer shirts on and got several comments and questions...almost too many LOL.  Chris and I played some blackjack back at the Riviera and called it a night around 1am.

I manned up and woke up at 7am to go to our 8am match against a team from Las Vegas.  Tyler lead things off against a 5 but lost, and unfortunately I didn't play well enough to beat a 4.  We were hence eliminated from the tournament and had we just this one match, we would've finished in the money (around $50 for each of us).  Oh well, it was still a lot of fun and I would surely go again!

The rest of the time in Vegas was just partying it up.  It was Tina's 30th birthday and the U of A Wildcats beat the Ohio State Buckeyes.  We pretty much drank all day and eventually made our way out to Fremont street.  The rest of the night was a little bit of a blur as we kept the drinking going on and I actually forgot to eat dinner.  Whoops!

And so ended a fun weekend in Vegas.  As I've gotten older, I'm enjoying traveling more when it's for competition.  It gives you a reason to travel to another city as opposed to just wandering around and sight-seeing.  With that said, the USBC Open Championships will be in a couple weeks in El Paso come early April.  Traveling is also more fun with better comradeship.  Who you go with can really make the trip more enjoyable.

So far 2015 is off to a great start, and it's gonna be a great year!