Plus XP

Over the last couple of days I have been playing Dissidia: Final Fantasy- something I have been quite looking forward to. I have really enjoyed playing the title, and recently discovered that it could be played online. However, doing so is fairly confusing – mainly due to the fact that the game comes with Ad Hoc multiplayer only. So wait, I say the game is only local Ad Hoc, yet it can be played online?

Thats right – on the Japanese Playstation Store, they have released an application called “Ad Hoc Party”. This isn’t just for Dissidia, but can be used for all games with Ad Hoc multiplayer functionality, such as Monster Hunter.

Although the application is free, the hard part is getting it, and using it – seeing as its only officially been released on the JP store, you’ll have to traverse through confusing Japanese pages and the like to find what you’re looking for – but fear not – Plus XP is here to guide you.

You will need:

One PSP with up-to-date firmware and copy of Dissidia: Final Fantasy (or other Ad-Hoc game)
One PS3 with a working wired (Ethernet) internet connection
One friend/contact who also has everything – forums often have social areas for meeting other players if need be
A little patience – it’ll be worth it!

So assuming you have all of those, we’re ready to go!

First off, you’ll need to create a Japanese account on your PS3.

 

Creating a Japanese PSN Account

1) Create a new user profile on your system, name it something like “PSP Ad Hoc” or whatever you want, and sign into that account
2) Hook up your PS3 to the Internet, and select “Sign up to Playstation Network”
3) Select “Create a New Account” on the first page
4) Click “Continue” on the next page

5) On the next page, make sure to select “Japan” under Country of Residence. The text will now all turn into Japanese, so make sure to pay attention now – ignore the second option; the last of the three options on the same window are asking for your date of birth. Fill this in with anything, just make sure you select a year earlier than 1990 so that your age is over 18 (otherwise you may be locked out of certain age-restricted content in future). Now press down on the d-pad, and press X on the third option in the bottom row, which is the “Next” button (this is where the button will always be, usually greyed out if the page is not yet completed).

6) The next page is the general agreement information, press Down to highlight the text, then press Right to get the cursor down to the bottom of the page where you can select the Next button to continue to the next page.

7) Next is your e-mail and sign in information. You’ll need to enter an unused e-mail address in the top box (you cannot have multiple PSN accounts on the same e-mail address) so you may need to create a free email account online if you don’t already have a secondary one. Once this is entered, the next two fields are password and password re-entry, so fill them both in with the same password – you must have at least one capital letter and one number, with at least six characters. Check the following tick-box so that the PS3 will store your password for the future.

8 ) The drop down list next is to choose a ‘Secret Question’, so skip this box and enter anything into the following field – either remember this answer, or just make sure to remember your password (although hopefully you shouldn’t ever need it if you checked the box to save your password). Go down to the bottom and press the Next button once more.

9) Press OK, and the console will now ask your to create a unique PSN ID. Enter anything you like (this cannot be changed later) and press X. If you have entered an unused name, press X and the Next button should be available to press to continue. If you get a message and the Next button is still greyed out, you need to try a different name until you find something unique. The online ID must be 3 to 16 characters and can consist of letters, numbers, hyphens (-) and underscores (_).

10) Once you have successfully created an ID, you must fill in a couple more fields. The next page asks for your Forename, Surname and has a drop down menu to choose your gender. Fill in the name fields with anything, and then skip the drop-down menu, since it is optional. Click Next.

11) On the next page, the first field must contain a 5-digit number, so enter something like ‘12345′ or similar. You MUST select the second option in the next drop-down menu, and then enter any random characters in the remaining four fields. Click Next.

12) On the next page, leave the check-box blank and click Next.

13) Scroll down to the bottom of the next page, and click Next once again. After a couple of seconds a confirmation screen will appear, with a button for the Playstation Store. Press X, then a sign in screen will appear. Press Sign In. You should now see the Japanese Playstation Store boot up, which is where you’ll want to be for the next step.

This account can be used for all of the general Japanese Playstation Store content, including some free themes and demos that are exclusive to the JP store – although its up to you if you want to work your way around the foreign options.
Downloading Ad-Hoc Party

The hard bit’s over now. All you need to do is this:

1) Open the Playstation Store by selecting the Bag icon under the Playstation Network section of the XMB of your Japanese username.

2) Scroll down to the bottom option of the Playstation Store list, and press X

3) Press X on the first option, then on the first option once again.

4) You will see a load of different icons, you’ll need to let them load for a second – scroll down and you should find two that are green squares with white stick figures on them, one of which says “video”. You want the one that does NOT say Video. Accept the download.

5) Once it is downloaded, you will find the application listed under the GAME section of the XMB.

Setting up and Using Ad Hoc Party

1) Before booting the application, you must register your PSP to your Japanese account. To do so, select the Register Device option under the PS3’s Settings category, and select PSP, you will need to attach your PSP to the USB port of the PS3, and select USB connection to complete the registration.

2) Once this is complete, boot Ad Hoc Party. You will be greeted with a green menu. When navigating these menus, use the O button for pressing buttons, and the X button to go back – this is the standard layout for Japanese playstation software.

3) The first time you use AHP, select the top option, and press O on the various agreements.

4) Once that’s done, you can then press X to return to the top menu, and navigate down to the third option on the menu. Press O.

5) The console will now search for your PSP. Make sure the WLAN switch is set to ON, and boot up your game.

6) Enter the wireless play mode of your game, in the case of Dissidia, you must select the Online Lobby under the Communications Mode menu, and select any one of the lobbies. This will then connect you to the PS3,and you will see the name of your PSP appear on the PS3 display. You can then press O on the PS3 controller to accept the connection.

7) Return to the main menu by pressing the X button. Once you have done so, scroll to the top option, and press O to open the world viewer.

8 ) The world viewer consists of 10 worlds labelled A-J. You can use the L1 and R1 buttons to scroll between worlds – currently, J is a popular one for English speaking players. Once you have chosen a world, you need to choose a room. Each world consists of 64 rooms in the form of white segments that form a ring. A red stick figure on a white block depicts a room at full capacity, a blue stick figure represents a room with players, and grey stick figures are empty rooms. Use the analogue stick to select a room, each one is numbered from 1-64. Press O and it will zoom into that segment. Press O again to enter the room. Any room is fine, as long as you and your friend are both in the same room – such as F-16 which can be found on the far right section of world F’s ring.

9) Once in a room, you will then see stick figures representing players, and houses representing peoples games. You can press START to type and chat, and using the analogue move the cursor. Pressing O with the cursor will allow you to either move to that location (the top option), or create a new game (the bottom option).

10) When creating a game, you will be given a menu with five options. Pressing the top one will allow you to edit the room name,and the second will allow you to edit it’s description. Press O on the left of the two buttons at the bottom to accept your game.

11) You will now be taken to a ‘lobby’ screen which shows your game. Your friend can then join your room, and you can play as if you were playing locally. Next to their stick figure on the Ad Hoc Party lobby is a PSP icon, if it’s lit up you’re good to go, if not you’ll need to reconnect to the in-game lobby of what you are playing, and it should light up. Once all of the competing players’ PSP symbols are lit up. you’re ready. In the case of Dissidia, you will need to both select the same Dissidia Lobby as well (Baron, Midgar etc). You should then see them in the game’s lobby, and be able to challenge them to a fight!

It’s a lot of work, but once Ad Hoc Party is set up its fairly simple to use. Sadly, due to the language we don’t really have perfect control over some of it’s more detailed features, but this should help you do what you need. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing an English version in the future – but until then, this is the way to go.

-Leon