Recently, IT Media Gamez posted a list of video games characters they dug up from browsing Twitter. A few of them are legitimately run by their respective companies, but the vast majority are fan-made.  Their list contained but a few Final Fantasy characters, including a Shantotto bot, but hinted that more were out there — I got curious.

Apparently, bots are somewhat popular on Twitter in Japan with many accounts created to mimic personalities from comics, movies and gaming. If you’d like to see what Japanese fans have done with your favorite characters, I searched and scoured and tried to collect a good amount of recognizable names from throughout Final Fantasy in the list below! Many of these accounts are programmed to spout familiar phrases, act in character and also respond to followers.

Keep in mind these are all in Japanese, so probably only useful for those with reading ability, or fans who would welcome the practice.

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While it’s not FFXI specific, I came across an article that I thought was kind of interesting.  It has to do with how Japanese fans refer to the Final Fantasy series.　This news was reported not just on gaming websites but regular news sites as well, proving how famous the Final Fantasy series and Square Enix is in Japan.

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UPDATE: Amazon is now displaying a sale date of January 25, 2010.

A few days ago, I mentioned that the colored versions of the Tarutaru statues were shown off at Chara-Hobby. The same site that brought us that information actually sells figurines and such online.

They are now reporting that the statues will go on sale in late December. There will be 5 figurines, the 4 we have already seen pictures of as well as one secret unnamed character. Aniani lists the recommended price for a box of 9 figures as being around 4200 yen (roughly $45 USD) which is around the 500 yen per statue people have been predicting. However, there is no guarantee that a box will contain all 5.

What character do you think the secret statue will be?

It’s been a slow month for in-game FFXI news to be sure. The latest expansion, A Moogle Kupo d’Etat, has been out for awhile. The Sunbreeze Festival with new furniture built from goldfish scooping prizes is over. There hasn’t been an announcement relating to in-game things on the PlayOnline website all month.

I’ll use this as an excuse to post something only slightly related to FFXI since some people sounded interested when I mentioned it on twitter.

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The net was made for rumors. People making stuff up and spreading it to as many sites as they can to see if people bite. Heck, there are even times where I see rumors listed on western gaming sites and they show how they have been debunked only to later see the same image pop up on a Japanese thread somewhere as proof of something.

It’s been a pretty slow month as far as FFXI news. We’re still waiting to get an official release for those Tarutaru statues or an announcement of what will be on sale at Tokyo Game Show next month. There’s also other things upcoming for JPB as well but…. in the meantime, why not look at a crazy rumor I saw on a Japanese site today.

I was looking to see if any new FFXIV information was floating around the Japanese fansites when I came across this image:

Yep, the crazy rumor was of a PSP remake of FFXI. It would play as a standalone game instead of networked and would be out in about 2 years. This was one of the images that went with the rumor.

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Thought this might be fun to share with everyone. Poor Square Enix has been taking quite a beating in the Japanese news lately. Final Fantasy XI is being targeted in the midst of a media frenzy regarding… Online Gaming Addiction *thunderclap* .

Livedoor News decided to take it one step further and depict an MMO-addicted father in the emotionally scarring comic you see above. I translated the provided version, but you can see the original on their site if you are bi-(lingual)-curious.

A lot of the buzz concerning “netoge haijin,” or people addicted to “interNET games,” seemed to stem from the release of this book, aptly titled: ネトゲ廃人 (ne-to-ge hai-jin), which delves into the lives of such people and offers illuminating quotes and statistics about what such an addiction can do to a person. The book also references Final Fantasy XI directly more than a few times.

The Livedoor news article mentions an 18-year old boy who got sucked into the world of Final Fantasy XI. He would spend 20 hours a day playing, subsisting on just bread slices and milk. His life consisted of being behind the computer screen or in bed, but if he had to sleep, a friend would take over in order to camp monsters. “I lost an enormous amount of my life. If young people spend all their time playing games, they won’t be able to work. If net addiction increases, I can see it being a serious problem in Japanese society.”

A look through the news recently shows that many other Japanese people feel this same way. More than anything, this kind of pressure might be what drives Final Fantasy XI’s shift towards casual play, and brought about the promises of a more relaxed MMO experience from Final Fantasy XIV.

Source: Livedoor News

Nobuo Uematsu is undoubtedly one of the most famous composers for video game music. This year he turns 50 and decided to celebrate with a year long project album called “10 Stories”. All the lyrics and music for the album will be written by Uematsu himself.

The first song in the project “Here comes Conga Boy” is already available on iTunes. You can also check out a short preview by visiting the site itself. This is a silly happy song entirely different from what you may be used to hearing from Uematsu. It sounds like it would be perfect as the theme song to a show for young children.

Maybe to underscore that it is more on the silly side of things, it’s being released under Nobiyo Uematsu and the Dog Ears. (Nobiyo is a nickname that the staff also uses to refer to him in the Dog Ear Records blog.) Chances are he is working on this, the FFXIV soundtrack, and other projects at the same time. I wonder how much one project ends up influencing other ones.

Thanks to this thread, I discovered a neat little JP site I wanted to share with you.

You can click that banner to take a look, it’s a site that hosts 8-bit sprite versions of FFXI characters and monsters. It’s a little outdated, but contains sprites up through Treasure of Aht Urghan.

The navigation menu at the top includes はじめに, Introduction; 顔アイコン, Face Icons; 敵アイコン, Enemy Icons; 全身アイコン, Full-body Icons; その他, Other; TOP (brings you to the index page)

If you happen to download and use the artist’s work, they ask that you fill out the contact form located at the bottom of each page. This is a common request of some Japanese sites where the user puts a lot of work into their creation. Usually a simple “thank you” will suffice. Here is how to fill it out:

At the bottom is a box, with a blue bar as a heading with ご連絡はこちらから。 written inside. This means “contact info goes here.”
おなまえ – Name
メールアドレス – E-Mail Address
HPアドレス – Homepage Address
使った素材の種類 – Type of sprites you used
最後に一言お願い致します。 – Any thoughts or comments are appreciated

The buttons then read 送信する (SEND) and リセット (RESET)

Enjoy! And remember to send a thank you along if you use anything for your own site.

Kaeru, the “Super Real Alchemist” is back, and he’s brewing up more trouble! Can he mix a real life Deodorizer, or is this just a recipe for disaster? Read on to find out the results from ConnectOn!.

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In the October issue of ConnectOn! the self-proclaimed “Super Real Alchemist” called upon his wisdom under the tutelage of guild member Azima to create a potion using materials in real life.

Read on to find out how much HP it restored… (or took away)

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