Happy almost Birthday, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn! I don’t play you anymore, but I’m so glad you’re still going strong!

art by Junko Watarai (source)

That’s right, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn turns one year old on Wednesday, August 27th! It’s crazy to think that this time last year I was obsessively leveling my cat boy Chive. While I never expected to enjoy, much less stick with, an MMO, FFXIV: ARR hooked me during the open beta, prompting me to preorder the limited edition and be a paying subscriber for nearly six months! Every time I hear about new content and patches (did you know you can dye your chocobo now?!) I feel a twinge of regret that I let my subscription lapse, but I ultimately felt I just didn’t have the time to merit paying the monthly fee… Plus, I have so many other games I want to play!

Still, that doesn’t stop me from loving the world of Eorzea and looking forward to hearing about team’s plans for the game’s future. With over 2 million subscribers, I have a feeling it’ll be around for a while! If you’re like me and prefer to enjoy the media surrounding FFXIV: ARR without actually playing the game, I highly suggest checking out the awesome anniversary illustration countdown that I took the above image from.

In other news, it’s on secret that I’ve been on a bit of a figure kick lately. While I’ve mostly been sticking to Nendoroids and am trying to stay far, far away from scaled figures (we’ll see how long that lasts), the impending release of the Etrian Odyssey IV sniper gal, pictured above, had me pining over whether or not I was ready and willing to enter the world of plastic models.

Now, plastic models are different from other figures in that you are required to assemble, and often paint, the figure yourself. While I do consider myself relatively crafty, I don’t think I’m ready to go full-on plastic model enthusiast and buy all the paints and tools needed to assemble them, which is why I felt so torn about the sniper girl. According to numerous blogs and descriptions on Japanese sites, the sniper girl comes pre-painted, so she’s supposed to look relatively good even if you don’t want to bother with painting her. Fingers crossed that that’s the case, as I eventually broke down and ordered one! The idea of assembling my own figure does sound like a rather neat project, so worst case scenario, it will be a learning experience that ends in an miserably ugly mess of a figure. But it would be pretty great if she ended looking as neat as the above photo, don’t you agree?