I love the artwork from the game so I pre-ordered the book from Amazon Japan not long after it was announced by Square Enix. The shipping confirmation was received this Monday and it was delivered last night. *_* So fast~!
Anyway, I took some photos of some of the illustrations. Pardon the quality since I don’t have any professional tools or equipment to take incredible photos. ^^
Case in point:
The photos~
Dust cover, cover, and obi.
Back of the dust cover and book.
The title page.
Job section.
One of my favourite illustrations is the Dancer. Unfortunately, the photo’s not all that great. ^^
The Scholar and Ace Striker (Tidus).
The names of these jobs literally translate to Knight of Heresy and Ninja of Heresy.
I wonder if it just means that they don’t follow the Palamecian rules? I don’t have any of these jobs so I don’t know what the card descriptions are like.
Incidentally, these were limited time job cards.
The Sage of Heresy was a limited time job. The Paladin, however, is a regular one that’s always in the job pool.
Cloud and the Berserker.
The Strategist is another one of my favourite illustrations (and jobs)~! Other job is the Judge Magister (Gabranth) from FFXII.
Squall and Zidane.
Tonberry and Moogle Costumes.
Lightning (^^) and Hope.
Noel and Snow.
The illustrations for ability cards follows the jobs.
Moogle and others.
Hellgate and Melter.
The top left card is Dark card that has the Dark weapon enchantment. The other ones are all Trance types. Bastet (on the right) is among my fave illustrations.
These are all illustrations from the 1st Anniversary cards.
More 1st Anniversary images.
The last of the 1st Anniversary illustrations.
Some of the FFXIII cards. I didn’t even know Barthandelus was one until I saw this. ^^;
Orphan and Minwu.
The Minwu card is known as the Ultimate Card. Read about it here: http://altema.jp/ffmobius/ability/1862
I doubt this will be the last Ultimate card we’ll ever see which makes the whole “Ultimate” name kind of silly.
The Gallery section features character design drawings.
Notice the design for Wol; he’s wearing the initial outfit which caused the controversy that forced Square Enix to cover up the sides of his torso and his butt.
Designs for Sarah, Garland, and Echo. There is still no information about whether or not Echo actually has hands.
More Echo designs but in various costumes. These were all available in the game at one point.
Echo and Mog as they appear in Terra Battle, various moogles. Cid, and Meia/Meir.
The Image Art section features concept art.
It seemed like Mobius FF was supposed to have a modern day setting?
Some of the storyboard art was redone as the 1st Anniversary illustrations.
That illustration on the left makes me think Mobius FF was supposed to be an MMO. ^^
The monster on the bottom right is the Kraken. It is an annoying bastard that can attack multiple times in a single turn.
Beautiful paintings of locations. *__*
Background paintings for some maps. Well, except Cid. There’s no map with just him in the background.
Credits page.
There’s also commentary from Toshiyuki Itahana (character designer), Toshitaka Matsuda (art designer), and an interview with both Yoshinori Kitase and Naoki Hamaguchi, the producer and project leader of Mobius Final Fantasy respectively.
Please don’t request for certain illustrations. This is all I’m planning on sharing. If you like what you see, please purchase the book! For overseas customers, it costs 2593 yen. Along with shipping and import fees, the total ended up as 3773 yen. I haven’t checked what other retailers carry it aside from the Square Enix Japan e-Store and Amazon Japan though so there may be cheaper options. (The SE Japan store doesn’t ship internationally.)
Incidentally, some of the illustrators have posted their Mobius FF works online. Please refer to this post for links to many of them: https://koukoupuffs.net/2016/06/06/the-artists-of-mobius-final-fantasy/ Note: All links were working at the time I wrote that post, but there’s a possibility that some may be broken now. ^^
Before anyone asks, Square Enix has yet to mention if they will release an English version of the art book.
Unrelated: I got an ASUS MeMO Pad 8 yesterday! Loving it so far! 😀 It may be an entry level, no frills sort of tablet but it’s still great and totally does the job for me! Besides, I already have an iPad mini with Retina after all so I don’t need another premium tablet; even if it’s with a different and a much more customizable OS. :3 I’ll probably babble about it a bit later!
Now onto the crappy quality pictures! XD
Some cute sheep plushies at a local drug stores. Not sure what sheep had to do with Easter. ^^
I know I shouldn’t make fun of this but those ages listed …
Caught some ducks chilling in a pond at the Chinatown Centre around here.
Even explaining it won’t get lazy idiots to flush a toilet.
You’d think this was some electronics convention in some East Asian country but nope, this was at the Toronto airport! XD The waiting areas at the gates have iPads at each table. My mom’s playing Tic-Tac-Toe on one. ^^~
A local Walmart charging an arm and a leg for flowers. (They totally ran out of the smaller number cards. ^^)
Yes, I use an ancient phone. I have no need for a smart phone since I hardly go out and have Android and iOS devices at home that I use via wifi.
Seriously, these photos are random. I take photos of things that interest, amuse, or disgust me. ^^ I decided to post them for the heck of things (or more like it’s an excuse to make a new post). 😀
Oops. I cropped out the price tag but it was about $16.99 Canadian or something. Anyway, I doubt the fortune cookies are in the shape of a cat.
… the oranges just overran the entire section. 😦
Mama eggplant and a baby one. ^o^~
I got these from a Korean bakery. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried macarons. ……….. I’m not sure what to think about them. ^^;;;
Perfume sticks in the form of a matryoshka doll~! Would be hilarious if there was another one inside …
I thought these were llamas at first.
Sorry about the crappy photo. It’s difficult to see but all the products seen here are actually for women. 😛
Happy too!
They couldn’t decide whether to sell it for $5.49 or $1.69. 😦
Check out them ancient buttons! Also note how they’ve been rotated!
Their elevator doubles as a service and passenger elevator, I believe. It’s also in desperate need of renovation. Wonder if we inhaled any toxic stuff? Incidentally, this was taken in November 2013 and I haven’t been back there since so I have no idea if they redid the elevator. I sure hope they did because it completely clashes with the updated, upperclass-like look of the store.
Uh, yeah … the thing is falling apart. =___=
I love the turkey. ^^~
I THINK this was the BTrust washroom before it renovated. I can’t remember since it’s been a while since I took the photo. Anyway, that plastic bottle has a small hole on the cap for the soap (the yellow liquid) to come out of it. 😛 What’s hilarious is that this is a supermarket that SELLS liquid soap too so there’s no reason they can’t afford to put an actual bottle of the stuff for customers to use.
Just had my DJMax Technika Tune LE delivered today. Paid an arm and a leg for it, no thanks to the UPS Brokerage and their INSANE fees. I used to constantly blame the Canadian customs and government for the additional import cost but it turns out the culprit for the excessive charges comes from the broker. Anyway~ Here are some photos of the set. :3 They’re all kind of blurry here because WordPress resizes them to fit the blog’s theme/style. You can click on them for larger, crispier, & clearer versions (except the one with the open game case).
DJMax Technika Tune LE slipcaseDJMax Technika Tune slipcase + boxClockwise, from top left: artbook, wrist strap + screen cleaner, game + card case, soundtrack, Vita slipcaseNo manual. Not a surprise though.
As a bonus, here’s my current DJMax collection. XD There were a few that I didn’t buy since they were either way too expensive and/or hard to find (like the Portable and Portable 2 ones), or just had stuff that I didn’t care about. I think DJMax Trilogy LE came with a mug or something goofy like that. Oh yeah, these are all pre-orders too so I got them all at retail price. :3
Haha. I didn’t realize that DJMax Trilogy was upside down until I was cropping the photo. XD
I have an unopened copy of Fever in The Crew Edition LE because I bought the game first before PM Studios decided to sell the limited edition. The shiny silver thing between the Technika Tune LE and Trilogy is the DJMax Technika Exclusive Collection soundtrack. Bought it on a whim even though I never played the arcade game before. In fact, Technika Tune is the first time I played a game in the Technika series.
DJMax Portable Black Square: Quattra Edition has tape on its cover because either Play Asia or the people putting together the thing slashed it. I know for certain that it wasn’t me since the box itself was no where near the opening flaps of the shipping box that it came in.
Man, between all the limited and special editions here, I have 3 or 4 Platinum Crew cards. ^^ I’ve never used them before either. :3
DJMax Hot Tunes LE. I decided to open up the box again since I had the game on my shelf for the longest time and wanted to put it away. I forgot how extravagant and over-the-top this design was.
Hot Tunes had one of the best looking DJMax limited editions, IMO.
Now about Technika Tune itself~~ it’s pretty fun! Only played about 4 songs in Freestyle (on Easy XD) though. I’m gonna need a lot more practice with this game since I’m bombing here and there on 2 – 3-star stages and might not move out of Easy difficulty for a while. ^^; (Bombing = breaking quite a bit. My lowest rating has been a C but I mostly get B’s and A’s)
I just switched it to Normal to see how different it will be in terms of judgement and if note patterns change. I have a feeling I’ll be putting it back onto Easy though.
Edit:
Adding some thoughts about the game~~
I do like this game quite a bit! I gotta say that it’s more fun than DJMax Portable 3. 😛
Mostly playing on Star Mixing mode until I get my reflexes up a bit more. I tried Pop Mixing and failed the first stage. XD Played it again and go through 3 stages. Had to set the difficulty on Easy though. .___.;
I find myself using one finger only. Also, I’ve set it so that it’s only on touchscreen and the time line comes from the left.
Some tunes have distracting videos. For example, I Want You just flashes at some point and unless you’re familiar enough with the pattern, you may end up mistiming some things cuz the time line becomes hard to see.
The hand DOES block notes so it’s always good to glance ahead a little if possible.
Really wish they’d get rid of the stupid “Thanks for playing” splashscreen after completing a mixing mode. I KNOW it’s supposed to emulate arcade style gameplay but bleh. I guess that’s what Freestyle is for.
Fucking hell. I wish the goddamn Fever button wasn’t at the top right corner. Would worked better in the center or something.
Ugh. Forever is another one that suffers from the time line that blends in with the video. 9__9
Grr. Ghost is one of my fave songs but I can’t do well in it. .___. Same with Ruti’n.
Edit #2 (Dec 20th):
More babblings!
Getting better at the game now. Managed to pull off some full combos (with Anti Break 3 … but even with it equipped, it doesn’t need to kick in at times ^_^v) and some S and S+ ranks in Star Mixing and Freestyle (Star ones, of course). Currently trying to get a higher combo in Freestyle. I went back to Easy difficulty to ensure a better chance of maintaining a combo. XD
Almost 100%.
Spammed the hell out of Facebook last night to see what kind of exclusive items I can get. Turns out it’s some Fever +40% and EXP +40% consumable items. Looks like you can spam FB like 15 or so times? But because I did it like midnight – 1 AM, I won’t be able to post any more updates until tomorrow. XD
Stocking up on consumable items via spamming Facebook status updates. XD
Pop Mixing is pretty fun! I think I like the touchscreen + touchpad gameplay. I just kind of suck at it at the moment. 😀
I just realized that I officially own some Kara tunes now. ^^; The only song I heard from them before was Jumping and that was from the Japanese version of Just Dance Wii. Actually, I think they may have another song or two on that but I never cared about it. I even bought the Japanese single of Jumping off iTunes JP. I like Step and Lupin now after hearing them so much in Technika Tune. ^^; I guess I’ll look for the singles to hear them in their entirety.
Managed this on Easy difficulty. I think I would have gotten a game over in Ghost if it were on Normal.
This package was dug up a few days ago from the basement. It brings back memories! I was a fan of MLP way back in the 1980’s and Hasbro even had an official fan club for the toys and cartoon. ^^ Thing is, I think this was the only thing that ever came out of it. XD
Click on the images to see their full size! (They’re crappy photos though. :3)
My Little Pony Fan Club Envelope
For some reason, they sent me a French-only version of the newsletter and certificate. 9__9 Also, the ponies on the certificate were coloured by me. ^^;
My Little Pony Fan Club package with other stuff
I’m quite certain the poster and post card were a part of some party set that that had the pink birthday pony and some other accessories. ^^ I just stored them in the envelope along with the fan club stuff.
I just received my Taiko no Tatsujin 1:12 scale model kit today and the box of Tales of Friends Vol. 2 (Rubber Strap Collection).
I totally didn’t realize the Taiko one was a construction kit. ^^; This will be the first time I ever had to put a model together! Exciting! ^o^/
For the Tales box set, I’m so happy that I got all 10 characters! I seem to have luck with these blind boxes whenever I order a full box. Volume 3 is coming out soon but I’m going to ignore that since I don’t care about most of the characters. I also didn’t bother with volume 1 due to the same reason. Volume 2 is the best! ^o^
Here be photos~!
Tales of Friends Volume 2 Boxset – All characters get!
Tales of Friends Volume 2 Boxset
Taiko no Tatsujin Arcade Replica 「太鼓の達人・[初代]アーケード筐体」
Ghetto 2012 print-out calendar. I don’t have a proper base for it and too lazy to look up how to create one so I used an existing 2008 calendar and taped the new one over it. It’s also held together by two twist-ties. X3
The 2012 calendar was printed incorrectly as I didn’t “reverse” every other page so now every month is back-to-back so I have to turn the calendar around every other month. XD
Ive placed an order for the hardcopy since it’s free. I’m just not sure if it’s a desktop or wall calendar. ^^;
koukoupuffs 