Dissidia - First Impression

Well, this was a promised post, so here it is. I've played Dissidia for approximately 3-4 hours in one sitting (exactly as long as my psp battery lasts me :P) and I have to say I'm impressed. It's not just a fighting game, it has a load of smaller features, and it seems well worth playing again and again.

To begin with: Chaos vs Cosmos, a concept as old as storytelling is probably. Both sides gathered some warriors and the balance was... well, balanced. Then the chaos side did something odd and things went out of shape, and well, I dunno if I'll get a better explanation down the road but Cosmos went poof and now the ten heroes have to save the day. The story is kind of vague, but I realized it could really be seen as if all the final fantasy games were their own world's version of Chaos vs Cosmos and that they all ended exactly simultaneously at the point where Dissidia begins, in a sort of dimension-spanning timeline. Deep shit.

Centerpiece: This is a fanservice game, there is absolutely zero doubt about that. There's dozens and dozens of references to different ff games and characters and items and summons and... yada yada yada. The more ff games you've played, the more you'll like Dissidia, but that's not to say that someone not interested in ff would get nothing from it.

On to the fleshy part: The gameplay is actually very good. There's tons of equipment and bonuses and shit all around, but when it comes down to one-on-one on the battlefield it really feels as if it's you, the player, that makes the biggest differece; your skills and how well you know to use all that crap you've gathered. It also pays a lot to take a step back, think, and be a bit tactical about when to strike, and not just charge straight in. But! and here's the beauty of it, that also varies a bit between characters. Some make better for charging, some should rather stop and think. There is a real difference between how they play. Cloud has some fast, small attacks to keep enemies busy and then a few real close-range nukes to take them down quickly. Cecil is harder to handle and deals less damage but has more ranged attacks and a few tricks up his sleeve. Terra and Ultimecia are spellcasters. There's also several modes and lots of reasons to play stages over again to collect better stuff, but not in the sense of grinding. In story mode the heroes have a story each, and I've played two so far and liked the way they've built individual storylines too.

And of course the most important: Characters. But what do I need to say, it's Square. If it's one thing Square knows how to do, it's to make excellent jrpg characters. They've done an very nice job bringing characters from NES games into modern technology and graphics.

Final points: Music from the ff games, excellent, and the voiceovers are agreeable. Although... Cecil, from ff IV, who I liked in that game, has for some reason earned the voiceactor of ultimate emo that made the emo Prince of Persia... which ruined some. I also discovered that in contrast to the other, older characters (or from older games and more fantasy settings), Cloud's sometimes drawling american accent suddenly seemed very appropriate.

Complaints: mainly towards Cecil so far. Aside from emo-actor no1, there's also the strange fact that because he's an jrpg hero his Dark Knight armor has to be skin-tight and ugly instead of the massive impressice Dark Knight armor his evil brother sports. Strange. Because the hero line-up might have benefited from not being quite that effeminate... especially since they outfitted Bartz like a teenage gay escort. And why the hell did you steal fashion tips from Cloud's Advent Children outfit, Squall? As if broody lonewolf 1 and 2 needed to look like each other too... Anyway, gameplay-wise, not much.

I think that's it...

Yes, and also: I love that chocobo! <3

Dissidia - does that mean anything btw?

The new PSP game Dissidia: Final Fantasy from Square-Enix is something as awkward as a Square-Enix fighting game starring characters from Final Fantasy, the key word in awkward being fighting game. Considering that Enix is a pure rpg company and the first thing that comes to mind in terms of fighting and Square is The Bouncer and Ehrgeiz, hardly any technical knockouts, I looked at this game as pure marketing fluff that might amuse FF fans but mostly just abuse the fame.

However, now it's been released in Japan and the US, and it's getting pretty decent reveiws. Especially as a fighting game with an actual story (can always rely on Square for that) no matter how haphazard one would expect a game combining twelve different sets of characters would be stitched together. It also appears Square has learned from more action oriented games such as Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core and the fighting is both easy to pick up and with some depth for those who like to learn timing and supercombos. I also get the impression the fighting is very intense, with a lot of things happening at once. I'm hoping for battles in the spirit of the Sephiroth battle in Kingdom Hearts II; fast, difficult, all over the place, but quite obviously within reach of victory with a little bit of effort and skill, and of course with the burning determination to beat the bastard dead.

The final word remains to be said; the game is released Sept 4 in Europe, and I will return then with the verdict. Do expect that I might be a bit more inclined to hail it to the skies then; having Cloud visibly present does tend to put me in a very agreeable mood.