The latest On the Way to a Smile Novella from TLS is now out for your listening pleasure: On the Way to a Smile: Case of Barret! As previously, the Audiobook is available for you to be able to download in MP3 format for easy listening and transportation at the link below.

If you’d rather, we also have the audiobook in two segments via the embedded YouTube clips, which have captions included so that you can read along while you listen. You can see the first one at the bottom of the article, and the second half can be viewed by clicking “Read the rest of this entry.” As always, we are very proud of all the hard work by the individuals that went into making this. We hope that you enjoy this latest presentation and look forward to your comments.

Length – 39 minutes 29 seconds

Written by Kazushige Nojima
Produced and Narrated by Joseph Knight
Featuring music by HypochondriacPiano and Roy Todd

Starring
psylentknight as Barret Wallace
Jonathan Waters as Cid Highwind
nuggetsoftruth as Old Man Sakaki
Michael Lloyd as Boilerman
Elephantologist as Junon Mother
Ryushikaze as Sakaki’s Nephew
The3rd23790 as Young Father
The Pawt as Oil Derrick Engineer
Tennyo as Shera
ForceStealer as Rocket Town Engineer

Music
‘Missing Score’ by HypochondriacPiano
‘Sad Reflections’ by Roy Todd
‘The Promised Land’ by HypochondriacPiano
‘A Tinge of Sadness’ by Roy Todd
‘A Time to Heal’ by Roy Todd
‘The Pilot’s Dream’ by HypochondriacPiano
‘Tears Inside’ by Ripley7

All characters and scenarios copyright © SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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Some visitors may recall last Christmas when it was announced that a certain “HARSHREALM” had managed to get each playable character (excluding Aeris) to their natural max HP/MP at level 99. However, after providing save files to prove said achievement it was discovered that he had actually tampered with the file data.
This individual, who appeared very suddenly on GameFAQs with no prior public documentation of his supposed way to the top, was nothing more than a liar and a cheater.

The event, as unfortunate as it was, however spurred the GameFAQs community to take up this never-before-completed challenge yet again. One of the most respected posters on the FFVII GameFAQs board, songsengnim, has now on March 7th 2012 achieved this daunting task.
As he has documented his progress for a very long time, plus added that he has contributed to info and methodology for the Perfect Save File challenge in the past, there truly is no other member whom we could trust more to honestly have completed the challenge!

See GameFAQs Thread

After thousands and thousands of resets we finally have it confirmed that at least in this line of HP & MP progression songsengnim went through the charts provided in Absolute Steve’s guide work! A big round of applause for songsengnim!

For those who want a more in-depth explanation of the Natural Max HP/MP Challenge and its history, I now repost the same presentation from my now deleted Christmas post about the challenge.

Read the rest of this entry »

Better than any art you’ll actually see in the show proper.

It’s time again for the Fan’s Eye View Commentaries for Final Fantasy Unlimited.

And the crazy continues to mount. You might not think it can after the events of the last few episodes. But it can.

Read the rest of this entry »

What, Square engaging in shameless pandering? Say it ain’t so.

Hi again folks, it’s been two weeks, so it’s time for another two episodes of Fan’s Eye View for Final Fantasy Unlimited.

So what are we in for this week?

Read the rest of this entry »

TheLifestream.net has long struggled with its identity. With no FFVII news, what is there to do? Well, quite a lot actually. I have always seen TLS as being in a good position to become a great hub for FFVII content and it is my wish to help the site become just that:
A Final Fantasy VII Hub.

I draw much inspiration from the spectacular site Chrono Compendium. If you want to find any information about the Chrono series, there is where you can find it.
(It should be mentioned though that while the site at present do not plan to include a wiki-style encyclopedia, like the Chrono Compendium has, such a feature may become an option later on when TLS has grown significantly.)

I have written a series of mission statements or Site Goals. But for those who don’t like reading fancy definitions, what is the short story?
To be a guide and resource to the FFVII franchise in terms of its narrative, titles, products and fan-made content.
TLS is very willing to grow, but we need more work power. We need YOU to help fulfill the site goals!

We are always on the lookout for translators, hackers and people who enjoy documenting and analysing the many facets of the FFVII franchise. So even if you do not belong to the two first categories, there is still a good chance you can contribute!

Browse the assignments in the aptly named Project List. If anything catches your interest that you think you can add to, join the forum and post in the thread to enlist! Or if you have an idea for an additional project that suits the written goals of TLS, tell us!

Speaking of changes, the front page will see more renovations of its content and layout, so be on the look-out for that!

This has been a message from Shademp, the newly assigned Content Coordinator of TheLifestream.net.

I told you we were going to do it. I told you we were going to do commentary for Final Fantasy Unlimited.
And so we are.
But what is Final Fantasy Unlimited?
Read the rest of this entry »

On January 31st 1997, the seventh (roman numeral) installment of the Final Fantasy series was released in Japan. This old PlayStation title remains one of the biggest video game obsessions of all time, as proven by the still active fanbase.

Though this is indeed the game’s fifteenth anniversary, the FFVII as we know and love it was not released until the latter half of 1997. In Japan it was titled “FFVII International”, while in the rest of the world it became the standard edition of the game. But despite the original’s glaring lack of Weapons emerging from the Northern Crater or the inability to use Exchange to instantly swap materia between party members, this release was still considered an awesome experience and instantly spawned a huge following in Japan while the overseas gamers were still drooling over Sony’s ad campaigns for this epic game.

Our gratitude extends beyond the re-release it spawned, as in recent years it has been revealed that this first edition is the possessor of many exclusive, deeply hidden secrets such as the now classic Honey Bee Inn lobby scenes. Whether it be in story or gameplay, this game truly is more than meets the eye!

The Lifestream.net wishes Final Fantasy VII a glorious fifteenth anniverary!

Forum member Quexinos has very kindly provided TheLifestream.net — and you, our fellow fans of Final Fantasy VII and its related compositions — with the missing link in our coverage of translations from the FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania: Cait Sith’s profile.

Sure, we had Reeve Tuesti’s profile, but not that of his beloved feline avatar. Thanks to Que being less lazy than the rest of us, however, we can at last offer you the only main character profile we had overlooked.

We here at TLS are very proud of Que, and it warms my heart to unveil her first frontpage translation effort.

Character Profile

Sex: ?
Height: 100cm
Blood Type: ?
Date of Birth: ?
Birthplace: ?
Weapon: Megaphone (when riding the moogle)
First Person Pronoun: ボク [Boku]
Voice Actor: AC, DC — Hideo Ishikawa

A remote controlled stuffed cat. Reeve, head of the Shinra Company’s Urban Development Department, manufactured him for such purposes as scouting out intelligence and spying. Because Reeve is the one operating him, he speaks with the unique accent of Reeve’s original Kansai dialect. He’s powerless and limited when alone, so he often rides on the fat, stuffed toy moogle during times of action.

The sector seven plate was dropped as a desperate act to crush a dissenting voice ShinRa could not control. While it was an act of retribution, it was also an act of censorship and of control by intimidation- it was to serve as a warning so that no one else would attempt the act again.

SOPA and PIPA, the proposed Internet Security acts currently in the US congress, also seek the ability to control the flow of information, to be able to control and censor the information online, and this could be extremely problematic for website reliant on information that originates from other sources, including and especially this one.

Even in the reduced forms, these bills are dangerous and set a terrible precedent as far as free speech rights are concerned.

There is, however, a shiny golden wire of hope. Many sites, including Wikipedia, Google, Boingboing, and countless blogs, are going dark today as a form of protest against these bills, to demonstrate the terrible repercussions the ability to censor the internet would have. Many sites are urging their readers to contact their own congress members and urge them to vote against the bill.

We urge you to do the same. This bill would not just affect this site, it would affect us all, both here in the US and with possible aftereffects abroad as well.

So, The Lifestream stands with the Blackout and Against SOPA and PIPA, for a free and uncensored internet.

We just hope you stand with us all too.

Site translator hitoshura has been kind enough to provide us with a chapter-by-chapter summary of the newest official FFVII novel. Released on December 15th, the book was written by Kazushige Nojima, writer of the original FFVII, as well as Crisis Core, Advent Children and the On the Way to a Smile novellas. As such, The Kids Are Alright is an authentic entry in the world of Final Fantasy VII.

Sadly, however, it had no official release outside of Japan. So, while you could still import it if you lived elsewhere, you novel, FINAL FANTASY VII Lateral Biography TURKS -The Kids Are Alright-. Released on December 15th, the book was written by wouldn’t be able to read it without some knowledge of the Japanese language.

Were the contents of this newest tale in Cloud Strife’s world, then, to be kept from us indefinitely? Blessedly, no. TheLifestream.net’s hitoshura has already stepped forward to provide his fellow fans with a rundown of the book’s main events.

This is to tide us over until he is able to provide a complete translation of the 354-page novel — an endeavour that is already under way, so be sure to check back in the future for updates about that.

What you’ll also find in this article: scans I’ve made of all the book’s artwork (illustrations by Shou Tajima), and my translation of a page from the beginning of the book that introduces several of the characters featured in the story. Additional thanks go to hito, by the way, for correcting me on a word I had mistranslated on that page.

So, if you’re ready to get caught up on the latest events in this world we all love, click upon “Read the rest of this entry” below.

Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: All done, we’re now on a 1 GHz virtual PC with a fat internet pipe. Will do some more tweaks and optimizations to increase speed and decrease server load even more; keep an eye out on this thread.

We have experienced some downtime on the forums some time ago, in part due to peaked activity, in part due to shitty vB plugins, in part due to a restrictive webhost that blocks databases at times of peak activity. With that in mind, we decided to go forth and move to a new, better host – again.

This time around, we will be moving from a shared hosting account on Hostgator to a ‘virtual private server’ hosted by Leaseweb. The benefits of the latter are pretty big: A ‘dedicated’ machine, so no database blocks anymore, full control over the system (SSH / commandline control, w00t), and a lot more flexibility in what kind of software we can use.

The plan is:

* Close the forums for new replies at 3 PM my time – that’s 2 PM GMT and about… 9 AM eastern time? Something like that.
* Request a full backup from the host. This may take a few hours, depending on Hostgator support.
* Move the backup to the new server. This’ll take about as long as it takes to transfer a ~5 GB backup file – probably about an hour and a half to two hours, but it depends.
* Unpack and setup the backup. This should only take a few minutes
* Change some settings
* Test stuff
* Switch the domain name over to the new server. I set it so it should only take a few minutes for the DNS change to take effect, but results may vary.
* With luck, the whole move will take about three hours. But that’s with luck, so no guarantees, might take longer.

While we’re moving, feel free to head over to awesome sites like FFOF, SO, or goatse.cx.

Alternatively, join the TLS IRC at irc.ipocalypse.net, channel #tls.

Tis the season, whatever you believe, to get together with family and friends, and we at TLS would like to wish our readers the best.

So, whatever your belief or lack thereof, have a pleasant end of year holiday and may you have a happy new year, and remember, Aerith died on Christmas day, but Hojo’s death rang in new hope for the new year.

PS- If you’re playing FF7 again for the Christmas season and new year, though we can’t actually be 100% sure on what day each event happens, you should definitely have finished disc 1 by now and you’ve only got a week to finish all of disc 2. So keep on plugging away at the game, folks.