This comic is a little late on what's going on in Bear and my life actually. In Final Fantasy 14 last major patch, they released the final installment to the open world instance, Eureka, which play style-wise, is reminiscent to older MMO's in which the gameplay consists less of npcs and quests, and more about running around on a field with super strong monsters that you have to team up with fellow players to defeat and farm. Cecilia was super obsessed with it, staying up late, playing into the night. XD As of late, she's not as into it lately since the content has been out for a couple months now, but it was still fun seeing how much energy and excitement she had surrounding the content.

I, myself have been playing a LOT of Dragalia Lost, one of Nintendo's games on the mobile platform. XD I mean, a good amount that doesn't really hinder normal life stuff, maybe except for some sleep which I need to be more serious about. >_> I'm really loving the game, the art, the stories, the characters, the snappy play controls, and the gearing up; I'm just so obsessed with it! ^_^ Whenever a new event is on the horizon, I'm reliably excited for its launch. I pretty much play some every night before bed and a little when I wake up in the morning. XD -though there are a few serious days when I intentionally decide to not touch it because of time constraints. I think I'm doing pretty good managing my time with it... I think. >.> Though since Daylight savings time last hit, I've been logging in a little later for the daily goal resets. -_-

There have been a number of additions and changes to the game since I last wrote about it five months ago.

• The AI is much better; they don't dodge out of everything, but they DO now, really skillfully once every few seconds at least.
• Many new characters with new and different kind of skills and abilities have been added. Characters can now also equip two wyrmprints each, allowing for more customization and synergy in your character skills and team building.
• Void Battles were also added, which are big boss fights that are usually much tougher and boss mechanic heavy, often requiring that players prepare ahead of time by crafting weapons that counter boss specific mechanics to make the battle MUCH easier.

Easier Void Battle bosses drop crafting materials to make new weapons that are strong against stronger bosses, and so on, creating a progression which I'm enjoying. =D -though, it really sucks when you find parties of players who choose to try beating bosses without being prepared gear-wise or even element-wise (elemental weaknesses make a big difference.) I've had a couple times when things went smoothly even though one person wasn't in the right opposing element to the boss, (sometimes you just need a healer, you know?) -but every other time it's happened, the person just dies a few seconds after the fight starts. I really didn't expect to experience such tough/fun content when I first started seeing mobile RPGs coming out, I'm really surprised!

One of the major things I love about the game is that though it's a "gotcha" game, I feel like Cygames and Nintendo are super generous about what they are offering for free. I personally never feel like I'm ever pressured or even need to spend real money for any features or conveniences, and I feel that in-game resources come at a very fair and probably generous rate. I'm even at a point where I'd probably be happy to buy something from them, just so I can support the wonderful job their team is doing at making such an enjoyable experience. They really caught me with this game; I really like and want to believe Nintendo's direction and philosophy in how they want to carry out their mobile titles.

I really hope that there are a lot more people like me who've fallen for this game and that it continues running for a long time to come, and that Nintendo decides to expand the franchise in some way in the future. I'm really hoping for maybe a epic story driven console JPG with castle building and character collecting like Genso Suikoden 2. X3 -but maybe combined with co-op gameplay with a similar stage/boss challenge flow to the first Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles on gamecube?