(*NOTICE* this is now kinda old as I've had it in my drafts for several days so as such it will feel dated since we're well into January)
Happy New Year to everyone reading this! I finally got my sub back just in time to still catch the latest event. The dog zodiac kabuto and housing decoration both looked amazing and I can't wait to see other variations in the future. This was my first time participating in a Heavensturn so everything had an extra air of surprise.
First Limsa's Aftcastle was packed with colorful banners, floor designs, and a set of kadomatsu at the top of the stair entrance so those were very cool to gawk at and take a picture. Then came the modest event stand and the npcs with vibrant dog kabuto giving them a bit of a bobble head look. The quest proper started simple enough in following around the adorable puppy Taro, during which a level one player stopped to feed my Heavy Hatchling a few times (the other day someone fed it for two minutes straight while I stood checking my market profits). The speech option phrasing however had me piss laughing for a good second
Things soon escalated when the damned pirates and their giant wolf dog came in talking about eating Taro for being small. For a moment something in me anticipated a fight sequence, but it turned out to just be posturing.
That was, until the quest moved into it's FATE portion
With the pirates crashing all the mochi pounding areas and giving Taro vietnam flashbacks it was up to the WoL to once again save the day. I chose to head out to one of the two FATEs via the Zephyr Gate. I imagined that there might be a mochi pounding mini game where the player has to mash out as many correctly prepared advent cakes as possible in a time limit before I learned it would just be a FATE, though I wasn't completely off.
After getting lost for a bit I pulled up on my chocobo just in time to catch the start. The turn out at first was very small with only myself and two others but then again I hadn't participated until days after the event started. Eventually more people came as we worked and there soon was a little crowd gathered. The FATE spawned and a giant ogre Pillsbury dough boy showed up with a mallet ready to pound a huge bucket filled with mochi paste. Around it spawned ground shaking AoEs and continuous wolves. The AoE's could not only easily kill in two to three hits but covered you in white mochi (a fate I learned the hard way).
Half because I felt timid and half because I had yet to realize you were supposed to interact with the mochi pestle when it was safe to do so, I stuck to killing wolves on the outskirts of the AoE as best I could. It awarded advent cakes, but at an unstable rate for my cast times as an AST left me open to a non caster killing my mark (i keep not doing this stuff in DRG part because i forget and also because if that was the case the AoE's wouldve been more a pain in the ass bc i have to close distance to fight and overall have an even slower time). Eventually though I threw my lot in with everyone else and braved the run for the pestle.
This went on and on until I lost track of time. A few people including myself died at least once and some kind hearted SCH kept raising us from the sidelines while also doing the FATE, I don't know how they multitasked so well but thank you.'
In the end we won the day and returned to Limsa to complete the quest. Taro regained his composure after a standoff with the help of locals you interacted with earlier against a pirate wolf before someone threatened to bring in the Yellowjackets. The festival went on as planned,and I got two cool hats (which was very unexpected I thought they'd make us choose originally)! I also didn't forget to buy the wind up stuffed dog furniture from the event vendor.
I had a bit of fun though to be honest this felt kinda lackluster compared to the other past events I've covered. I think it's because I wanted to feel more involved instead of more "x is in trouble, do y FATE to collect z items then finish". I'm still really excited for Little Ladies Day next month though!
