RPS EXTRRREEEMMMEEE

Jeebus, the midget even invaded my room on three separate occasions while I was trying to make this flash. It's fortunate I'm a genius and managed to make her curious about the kangaroos that live in the Sahara Desert.

Umineko is making 0 sense right now, I get that the last episode is a flashback and all (Though the lack of Tsurupettan was unfortunate), but there's this whole thing where 4 people *might* still be alive? Or are they dead now? Or did they reach the Golden Land and every one else revived? Or what the poop happened? I decided 20ish minutes a week was too slow, so I managed to find a group that had translated all 4 episodes of the Umineko game/sound novel so far. I figured I'd run through it a bit and at least catch up to the anime, and probably go further on. Little did I realize just how much they have to cut out of these games to fit them into an anime. For reference, I've been going through for hours and hours and hours, and I'm a bit over halfway through Episode 1 I think? Or equivalently, near the beginning of the third anime episode. There's tons of stuff they left out, so far the most notable bits are the very beginning of the story was completely cut, including Battler's airplane fright, and Rosa's very character didn't make it into the anime. All we saw of her was freaking out and slapping Maria for going 'Uuuuu' all the time in the rose garden, but most of the time she's a very reserved and kind person, easily the least venomous of the four siblings. Anyway, I'll probably work my way through this and the other three chapters over August, maybe finishing by school move-in. Episode 5 is slated to be released at Comiket in a week though, so I'll have to keep my eyes peeled this fall to see if an English patch comes out for that.

Obviously with all this Umineko stuff, naturally I would backtrack and see if I couldn't find a translation for the Higurashi games, since I've gotten nowhere near enough Higurashi in my life. And I did, though unfortunately only for Onikakusi-hen. Ironically it was translated by a pair of RL going by the monikers of Mion and Shion, haha. Anyway, the patch is actually down at the moment (though I could probably find it if I tried), but they seem to plan to put it up sometime soonish. In addition, I found that the Higurashi games had been licensed for an English release by a company called MangaGamer. They seem to be European-based, and intend to release the Question Arcs (Onikakushi, Watanagashi, Tatarigoroshi, Himatsubushi) in October and the Answer Arcs (Meakashi, Tsumihoroboshi, Minagoroshi, Matsuribayashi) in December. They even seem to have hired a diehard Higurashi fan who's a skilled English/Japanese bilinguist, so it looks like it'll turn out good. Assuming the price isn't too exorbant, I'll try to get them as soon as I possibly can, haha. The only downside I see is there doesn't seem to be any current intentions for the localization of some of the other chapters from Higurashi Rei, Matsuri(PS2) or Kizuna(DS). Ah well, one step at a time, eh?

Going back to the real world a bit, I finally got my college accomadations in the mail. I'll be living in Susquehanna Hall North, Third floor, Room 358. Move-in's on the 28th, and I believe classes start the following Tuesday? I don't remember. Anyway, I'm mostly ready, just need to do a little bit of shopping and pick up my book packages from the school bookstore. I've got both my English books now, but no world on any details of my Calculus class yet, which is getting a bit annoying. The biggest problem though, is my roommates. I haven't met them yet, so I don't know what they're like, but there's two of them. Yeah, UMBC crammed me in a triple. *superpapercutstab* I don't think Susquehanna has common rooms, so that makes it all the more tricky, especially if they opt to only give us two closets. (Closests aren't built-in in SUS, so I think they can be moved about. I might be wrong.) Well, I've got some ideas on how to beat the system, but it's certainly going to be an interesting bout of Room Tetris.

The official article with more info on FFXIV came out, and with it, significantly better quality character scans. All pictures here are shamelessly stolen from RPGamer, lol. If it bitches for hotlinking, just hit enter in the address bar again or wait a minute and it'll automagically reload anyway:
Hyuran Male | 2 | Female | 2
Elezen Male | 2 | Female | 2
Lalafell Male | 2 | Female | 2
Roegadyn 1 | 2
Miqo'te 1 | 2

Some of the highlights from the article include multiple clans in both the Miqo'te and the Hyuran, not sure if there'll be discernable differences yet. Racial stats will be less varied than they were in FFXI, but there will now be slight differences between males and females as well. Customization is supposed to really be kicked up a notch, and you shouldn't be running into your twin every 20 feet (lol). Missions and quests seem like they will take a larger role this time, and many will take 30min or less to complete, something highly valued by solo and casual players. Armor tweaking and weapon skills have somehow taken the place of experience points and whatnot, but it's unclear how this will be executed. Unlike FFXI though, armor seems to have the ability to deteriorate with use. Finally, there are 3 large towns confirmed. A desert town of Ul'dah, Gridania in the forest, and a lawless port town named Limsa Lominsa. I'm totally going for Limsa, haha.

Finally, here are some of what are almost certainly ingame screenshots. The quality's a bit low, but that's obviously the computer/photo capture they used, not the game engine:
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And for no reason in particular, here's Tsurupettan!