2 posts tagged “final fantasy”
I picked up Dissidia (the Final Fantasy fighting game) a couple weeks back. Well, to call it a fighting game is a little deceptive; your characters level up, have variable HP instead of static health bars, learn new abilities, and get increasingly powerful equipment to use - really, it's more of just an RPG with the exploration element stripped out.
The combat system is akin to action RPGs, albeit always one-on-one. It took me a few hours of playing to actually get the hang of it, but it's pretty fun once you do. The unique aspect of the system is that in addition to HP, characters also have "Bravery". You have attacks that target either one or the other. If you attack bravery, the opponent loses some and it goes to you. If you attack HP, you do an amount of damage equal to your current bravery (plus any circumstantial modifiers), and then your bravery drops to 0 for a short while (then returns to your base value). If you drop your opponent's bravery below 0, you get a huge bonus to your own bravery. So, most of the fight typically ends up being attacking each other's bravery until you've got enough to do a good amount of damage to your opponent's HP. Usually, at least as my strategy goes, you want to get your bravery high enough to take your enemy out in one hit, so you don't leave yourself vulnerable at 0 bravery. Pretty hectic stuff.
I'd definitely like to try playing it against another person. Playing against the computer can be a bit schizophrenic. Sometimes it's just comically better than you. Now and then, for no justifiable reason, a minion character half your level and one hit from defeat will dodge, block, or reflect every single attack you do for four or five minutes straight (and you can get in an attack every couple seconds), all the while whittling you down despite your own expertly honed dodging and blocking skills, and inevitably win the battle. And other times, you wipe the floor with a boss character as if it just doesn't seem to care.
The game has a lot of interesting features. It's the first PSP title I've seen to give an option to install from the disc to your memory card. It has three choices; one for ~220MB, one for ~380MB, and one for ~540MB. I only had enough room to try out the smallest option, but there was a noticeable decrease in load times on the main screens when I did. One of the craziest extras is the ability to save any battle after its completion for a replay viewing. Now, on its own, this may sound pretty tame, but it gets more elaborate - you can edit the replays. You can position the camera freely around the 3D space in which the battle takes place, cut parts out, turn on/off the status overlays... What's more; you can then export these edited replays to an .avi file on your memory card.
I whipped up this clip in about ten minutes. FFVII is not my favorite, but it's everyone else's, so here's the final battle in Cloud's story, fought and edited all within the game, itself (...then converted to 10% its size for the web with the computer). A strange and convoluted, but unexpectedly entertaining addition to the package.
The game also looks to be running a pretty impressive length for a PSP title; I've only got through seven out of twenty-some characters, and I'm already clocked in at over 18 hours. And there are several other features I haven't even mentioned. All in all, a worthwhile pick-up for a fan of 'fighting games', Final Fantasy, or just anyone who actually has a PSP and is looking for something different with a lot to it.
I haven't been excited about any up-and-coming video games for a while. There are a couple, however, I find now that I am quite looking forward to. And they're both fighting games...hmmmm.
Dissidia
A fighting game starring Final Fantasy characters for the PSP. Sounds pretty silly, right? That was more or less my thought, at least, until I read up on it and caught the opening video. I guess I'm just a sucker for crazy epic cross-over madness. The main hero and villain of each of the first ten Final Fantasy games brought together with enough Final Fantasy-grade storytelling to justify whatever it is that's going on?
...well, what can I say? Sign me up.
Tekken 6
I've always been a fan of the Tekken series. It's on the opposite end of the flashy spectrum as the above game. For as colorful the characters and outrageous the storyline, Tekken is ironically pretty much the most down-to-earth major fighting game franchise out there in terms of the actual fighting. The characters use mostly legitimate forms of martial arts and don't have crazy projectile attacks, magical powers, or the ability to jump three times their body height and exchange a few combos in the air. There is a bit of supernatural flare thrown in for the narrative here and there, but they make a big deal of it; it's just not the norm as in most series.
It'll be fun to see how the King of Iron Fist tournament continues on seventh generation consoles.
