So, I'm basically a Final Fantasy whore. I'll pretty much any game featuring those two words. ("Final Fantasy's economics textbook adventure? Sweet!") However, I am also notorious for being critical on the games. I thought 10, 10-2 and 12 were all gonna suck. I loved them all. So I tried to keep an open mind about Dissidia, even though deep down I wanted to use the word suck so bad.
Well, I had to be right eventually.
Okay, let me correct that. The game doesn't suck. It just doesn't appeal to me. I'm not a fan of fighting games as it is. Not from my experience with Final Fantasy that aren't RPGs, this isn't necessarily enough to turn me off. In fact I beat and rather enjoyed Dirge of Cerberus, even though it's a shooting game, which I hate even more than fighting games. But I think Squarenix went wrong in several ways before I even got my hands on the game:
- It's on the PSP. Seriously, is there a worse system to put a fighting game on? Usually with a fighting game you want to play against other people. The PSP being a pretty expensive handheld system, with not too many great titles on it, I only know a small amount of people who own one. And while Brian and I each own a DS, there's only one PSP in the house. They should have put this out for PS3 - or at the very least make downloadable on the PSN. That way at least all you'd need to play with a friend is a second controller.
- The character line up. So, with all the characters Squarenix has to choose from in the Final Fantasy games, they chose only to use the main hero and villain from each game. Well, kind of. I hardly call Jecht the villain of X. Seriously. Seymour would have been better. But I digress. No one gives a shit about half the characters in the game. I don't think anyone saw the character choices and thought, "Man, I can't wait to play as the Warrior of Light!" And you know what, I could have stomached the line up of losers from the games that time forgot if they had some decent unlockables. But no. There is a total lack of that as well. No kicking ass with Auron or Cid for you.
Top Line: 1. Warrior of Who Gives a Shit. 2. Random Guy #2. 3. Character so pointless they don't have a name. 4. Cecil. 5. Kid Icarus. Or Bartz. Or something. Who can tell. 6. Terra2nd Line: 7. Cloud. 8. Squall. 9. Zidane. 10. TIDUS! It's Tie-dus! How does that look like Tee-dus in any way? I refuse to call him that! You try and make me! 11. Are you fucking kidding me? 12. Cosmos, or something.
Villains, 1st Line: 1. Ugly guy. 2. Crazy hair. 3. Skanky boobs. 4. Golbez. 5. X-DEATH THE ELIMINATOR 6. Kefka, the scariest clown in existence.
2nd Line: 7. Um...it's on the tip of my mind...uh...oh, I don't know. Seph...something. 8. Ultimecia. 9. Kuja, the oh so fabulous one. 10. Jecht, who's suddenly evil. 11. Seriously?!?! Does that game even count?! 12. Super McEvil Dude.
With all the potentional they had, they kind of screwed up from the beginning. The idea of a Final Fantasy fighting game, even for a non-fighting game fan like me, was appealing. Who wouldn't want to see some of your favorite characters go head to head against a friend? Well, for that the game would actually have to have some favorite characters. And I hope your friend has a PSP.
Other things that suck about this game:
- Level design. Holy crap. With all the locations to choose from, they instead chose to do either boring plains of non-existence or walls upon walls of colors so brain numbing they must have been conceived during an LSD trip. And way too many cliffs and bottomless pits. Why do so many fighting games have that? These people should fight somewhere a little more stable. Anyway, they should have gone the route of Super Smash Bros. and given us some more levels that were actually relevant to a game, instead of a monkey on mushrooms could have programmed.
- The story is awful. Now, admittedly this is not a strong suit of fighting games as whole, but I think I could think of something less lame in about in about 2 seconds, as could the monkey on shrooms I previously referred to. It's something about crystals and friendship and other gag inducing crap I zoned out immediately. Can I play as the villains now? They're trying to destroy all that, right?
- Overly confusing systems. Well, that's Final Fantasy for you, one could say. And you'd have a point. And I'm sure if I spent a lot of time with the game I'd get the hang of it at some point. But I shouldn't have to read every single tutorial to shed some light on what the hell's going on.
There was something I liked about the game - the chocobo. He was pretty cute. Oh, and the help menus. They feature characters from past games and it was kind of cool to see them. But if the best thing about the game is the Help menus, you know there's a fucking problem.
Overall, I think this game is a disappointment. Even seeing Sephiroth without a shirt could not save this game for me. I think you have to like fighting games to enjoy it - Brian, who does enjoy fighting games, seemed to really enjoy it. This game is not enough fan service for Final Fantasy fans in general. I hope if they choose to do another one they take some of my complaints into consideration. (Because you know Squarenix is sooooo reading this.)
Yup. Not even worth it for this.
2 comments:
About the character line up: Well in its defense, the game was supposed to be a celebration of Final Fantasy's 20th Anniversary, so in order to commemorate/pay homage to the entire series it only made sense to have the most important characters from each and every installment as representatives of every FF. While it's a shame you couldn't get more than two characters from each installment, alas you can only do so much with the PSP. (is the PSP more expensive than a PS3 in America though?!)
It'd be pretty biased to soley make a fighting game of the more "popular" characters/characters from the Final Fantasies of the Playstation era, even if it was those games that really pushed the FF name forward outside of Japan. Still, you can't discredit the past works - the backbone - of what you can call FF nowadays; and while their fanbase certainly isn't as big, you still have a number of fans of the older FFs. I've already heard of people growing accustomed to certain characters in Dissidia that they never knew about and are now going ahead of their way to play their respective games, so in a way it also gave those older FFs some sort of recognition too. All this to say: yeah, some people do give a shit actually. >_>
Personally I'm glad they showed some love to some of those forgotten FFs. It's nice to see some amazing past works get a bit more than a pixelized representation, and it's cool to discover a few other characters that I never really knew much about (Onion Knight and Cecil, only FFs I haven't played at this date). One thing I was a little annoyed about was how there wasn't anything Tactics related. But then again if we count Tactics we'd also have to have that Crystal Chronicles or whatever, right?
Anyway I suppose if you're not a fan of the gameplay at all, I guess it's also really hard to grow accustomomed to any characters, regardless of it you actually like them! I'm not really a Tidus fan at all but he's one of my mains simply because I find his game really awesome and overrall fun.
That said, it's a shame you didn't like the game!
I see your point - I'm not saying they shouldn't have had those characters at all... Just some more popular characters would have been nice. I did try playing as The Warrior of Light and I didn't like how he controlled at all. Even if I did love him, I can't see myself ever going back to play FFI - while I appreciate that it's the game that started it all, it's waaaay too old school for me to enjoy. It's lacking the huge story/character development that I expect from FF. But that's me. I seem to be the only person I know who's really not a fan of the game - I think it has a lot to do with having no love/patience for fighting games. I'm glad you love the game - Brian does too. He's still playing it. (And as for the price of the PSP, it's more expensive than the DS for sure, but not the PS3!)
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