Before Crisis 3DS remake a possibility?

While Japan is quite hot on its mobile phone titles, other places aren’t always so keen. While many mobile phone games are little more than a bit of portable arcade fun, occasionally we miss out on something more interesting, since the mobile phone market isn’t quite what it is in the East. In the past, Square-Enix released Kingdom Hearts coded on mobile phones, and I was disappointed that I would have to miss out on a title in the series, albeit perhaps not the most important in terms of plot. However, there turned out to be enough demand for the game, and we were blessed with a complete DS remake entitled Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, covering the plot of the mobile title with a complete overhaul to its graphics, gameplay and extras. Aside from coded, there is another Square-Enix title that many people missed out on due to a mobile phone release – Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, the only FFVII title not to get a European release.

Following the Turks (recurring supporting characters in the FFVII universe), Before Crisis is a prequel to Final Fantasy VII. While I had previously given up hope in experiencing this title, it seems we could possibly even see something better – Hajime Tabata (director of upcoming titles The 3rd Birthday and Final Fantasy Type-0, aka Agito XIII) expressed his interest in a remake of the title in the future. On Twitter, Tabata stated “If I were to make something for 3DS, I suppose it would be a remake of Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII. I’d redo the scenario structure and game design for the 3DS. I think I’d like to make an action RPG BCFF7 where a large number of Turks players play simultaneously.“ However, this is not the official word of Square-Enix, but the man himself – yet he also stated that both Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase (important figures in the FF franchise) have also expressed interest in such a remake.

Our hopes shouldn’t get too high just yet, as Tabata said that he is far too busy for such a project at the moment – however, if all goes well, and enough interest in the title is displayed, perhaps we’ll be seeing Before Crisis on the 3DS not too far into the future.

Dissidia’s Prologus to have a late release

While we haven’t had an official release date in the past, fans eager to get their hands on the pre-release DLC prologue for Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy were in for a bit of a nasty shock this week – originally believing that the EU’s PSN would be getting a simultaneous release with the US’s, it was thought that the European PSN would receive the download on the 16th, the store update that follows the US’s update on the 15th.

However, it wasn’t until after the 16th that Square-Enix decided to announce a release date for Europe – after stringing us on to believe it would be released this week (after all, the game is out next Friday), an update on the official French Square-Enix Twitter revealed the truth – that Prologus will not be released until March 23rd, just two days before the full game’s release. If you’re looking to get 100% in Prologus, I’d make sure to free up the 24th! Of course, if you’re just after the bundled Aerith DLC, you’ve got nothing to worry about.

Hope for Final Fantasy XIII-2?

No, I’m not talking about “Hope” the character, just the idea that the game could actually turn out to be good. Many people, myself included, were very disappointed with Final Fantasy XIII – the graphical work of art plagued by linearity and tedium to the point that I literally couldn’t stand to play it due to boredom. So naturally, when a sequel was officially announced, aptly named Final Fantasy XIII-2, I was a little disappointed that they would be continuing to create another title based upon it.

However, I believe there is hope – stating that there were enough assets left over from XIII for another whole game (god knows why none of it was included in the original), it seems that Square-Enix may spend less time worrying about graphics in the sequel, focusing more on the important aspects – the storyline and gameplay.

With Square-Enix stating that XIII-2 will exceed XIII in every aspect, this could potentially mean we’ll be seeing the FFXIII that never was. While the original title’s battle system bored me to tears, perhaps we’ll be seeing something fairly different? After all, Final Fantasy X-2 had a complete overhaul from its predecessor – replacing the Sphere Grid with Dresspheres, a modern-day take on the Job System from Final Fantasy III and V. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be seeing something fairly different – either a much improved Paradigm system, or perhaps something else altogether.

But, assuming they can make the battles fun, perhaps even more exciting to me is the prospect of losing a little of the linearity. XIII consisted largely of straight paths leading from one battle to another, with no room to explore or return to anywhere interesting, and no towns or cities to roam, either. Since XIII had it’s protagonists on the run, it made sense with the plot – however much I disliked it. But with a sequel, we could be seeing something else – with a new plot, the protagonists don’t necessarily need to be constantly moving forward, so maybe we’ll be seeing something more in the vein of Final Fantasy X. I actually liked most of the characters in XIII, so it would be really nice to play a game with them in that I actually enjoyed. I’ll be keeping an eye on this for sure, but I’ll try not to get my hopes up.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 is currently set for a release this winter.

-Leon

Dissidia: Final Fantasy was an excellent PSP title for fans of the Final Fantasy series. For the first time, players could play as many of their favourite characters from the series – from the Warrior of Light from the very first title, through the Squalls, Clouds and Zidanes of Final Fantasy VII-X, even a pair of characters from Final Fantasies XI and XII. With an equal amount of villains from said games to fight them, Dissidia was an FF fan’s dream mash-up of the forces of good and evil stuck together in a handheld fighting game. The games battles revolved around one-on-one battles in open arenas, with characters able to pull off various combos, and signature special attacks such as Squall’s Renzokuken, and Cloud’s Omnislash. The story mode itself worked as a kind of chessboard, with characters moving around a grid defeating opponents to progress, with cutscenes to expand upon the game’s plot as it went along.

While Dissidia was a lot of fun, there was only so much I could play it before I’d eventually felt like I’d seen it all. After levelling many characters up to Lv99 and facing off against Chaos for the 100th time, it obviously got a little stale as most games do. However – I thought Dissidia was a very enjoyable experience, and have been looking forward to its sequel - Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy – for quite a while now. It’s only a couple of months until the March 25th release date now, so I think it’s about time I told you what we can look forward to.

New Characters

While Dissidia boasted a decent sized cast of 22 warriors, it’s sequel will expand upon that to more than 30 characters - all the originals returning - and pulling in even more from the Final Fantasy omniverse:

Kain Highwind - From Final Fantasy IV, Kain was Cecil’s friend and rival. Known for his trademark dragoon armour and spear, he is a skilled fighter – but often finds himself confused about where his loyalties lie. I’m sure we’ll be seeing some drama between the two over the course of the game – but trust me, Kain is as cool as they come.

Gilgamesh – First appearing in Final Fantasy V, Gilgamesh has since appeared throughout the series in many forms. While details of him in Dissidia 012 are fairly scarce so far, Gilgamesh is famous for being a lone warrior with a taste for treasure. You can be sure he’ll have a large assortment of weaponry, and perhaps his loyal companion Enkidu – a faithful attack dog. As opposed to the other announced characters, Gilgamesh is the only new villain announced so far.

Tifa Lockhart - Perhaps Final Fantasy’s most recognised female, Tifa is beautiful and deadly – always a good combination. The first fist-fighter to enter the Dissidia mix, I can’t wait to try her out – and it’s also the first time she’s been a playable character since Final Fantasy VII – unlike Zack, Vincent and Cait Sith who’ve since had their parts in spin-off titles. A love interest for Cloud, I’m sure their relationship will be tested amongst other things over the game’s course.

Laguna Loire - Another first for Dissidia, Laguna Loire is a gunfighter, and secondary protagonist from Final Fantasy VIII. I won’t spoil his exact role in the original title in case you haven’t played it, but just know that Laguna is an upbeat soldier, loves fighting alongside his buddies Kiros and Ward (no word if they’ll make a cameo), but he’s got a soft spot for the ladies. I for one am really looking forward to seeing Laguna back in action – it’s about time. He’ll even have the unique ability of having a rapid fire attack that can be performed by holding down the attack button.

Yuna - Appearing in her original style from Final Fantasy X (as opposed to X-2′s more adventurous version), Yuna is a summoner with the power to call forth huge beings called Aeons to fight by her side. This ability looks as though it’s going to give her some very impressive attacks, so she could be quite a formidable opponent. Again, her relationship with Tidus will no doubt have an impact on the game’s plotline.

Prishe – Another hand to hand fighter, with magical powers, Prishe is a trash-talking Elvaan from Final Fantasy XI. While Dissidia only had Shantotto as an FFXI hero, Prishe is another hero from the MMORPG title, with no villain currently announced as part of the roster.

Vaan - Although the original Dissidia had a single representative for Final Fantasy XII – Gabranth – Dissidia 012 introduces the game’s lead role as a new character in the story.

Lightning - The latest heroine in the Final Fantasy series, Lightning Farron is the lead role of FFXIII. Equipped with a gunblade and an iron will, Lightning is a cool character with the ability to switch between Paradigms – various classes that give her different abilities for different situations. So far there has been no rival villain character announced for FFXIII, but we’ll have to wait and see if FFXIII will have a representative for the Chaos side.

Updated Battle System

While new characters are always one of the biggest selling points of a sequel, of course it can’t end there. The old battle system will be returning, albeit with some updates. The main addition to the game is the new “Assist” function, which appears in the form of a new gauge next to the health bar. Using points built up in battle, players will be able to summon assist characters to aid them in battle – either to perform an attack, or to defend an incoming assault. It seems main characters will be able to be used as assist characters, but there may be extra assist-only characters as well – in Japan, players may download the demo for Dissidia 012 for a low price, and will subsequently unlock Aerith in the main game as an Assist character.

This was the only Aerith screen I could find. Seriously.

Along with the Assist characters, there are also new counterattacks being introduced – some of which use Assist characters in the process. Calling an Assist character to block an EX Burst (ultimate move) will perform an EX Break, forcing them out of EX Mode. On the flipside, attacking an opponents Assist character will result in an Assist Break, with them not being able to re-call that character again for a period of time. Lastly, an EX Revenge allows you to sacrifice your EX Burst to break an opponents attack and deal out a devastating combo.

New Story Mode

While the original game ran on the chess-board style story system, perhaps one of the biggest upgrades in Dissidia 012 is an all new 3D world map mode with a party system similar to that of Final Fantasy VI – with characters joining and leaving the party as the story progresses, no doubt affecting which character you can use, and which Assists. Battles will still take place within an arena – with characters entering fights when they interact with manikins (crystal clones of the game’s characters) on the map.

With a long story mode planned – it gets even better. Not only is there a new plot (which is in fact a prequel to Dissidia), but the original’s plot has also been rehauled and included into the game using the 3D world map system – leaving us with a story mode that will supposedly last us around 60 hours. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s really a bit less than that, but it should be a decent length by all accounts.

Overall, Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy is shaping up to be one hell of a title. Taking the original formula and making it more involving and exciting, it’s looking to improve the title in all aspects and hopefully perfect an already brilliant idea.

Oh, one last note. While Aerith is unlocked in Japan by downloading the game’s demo, Square-Enix have yet to confirm how other territories will unlock her – but I’m sure there will be news on this to come.

- Leon

You may have read my previous article on the demo of Dissidia, so I knew what to expect in terms of gameplay – however there is so much more to the game than I had expected. The story involves a war between two gods, Cosmos and Chaos, deities of Harmony and Discord. The gods each summon eleven champions to each of their sides, comprised of heroes and villains of the Final Fantasy titles, and get locked in a war of never-ending death and rebirth – until finally the balance tips in the favour of Chaos, and Cosmos is wounded in battle. As Chaos threatens to destroy existence, the warriors of Cosmos must each track down a crystal that will grant them the combined power to fight the encroaching darkness. The game starts with an FMV depicting the battle between both sides and is particularly impressive, with graphics close to that of Advent Children, and I particularly liked that they mixed and matched the fights - Squall battling Sephiroth for instance – rather than putting them all with their regular counterparts.

The battles themselves work in a 3D environment, simulating battles not unlike those seen in the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Each character has access to various attacks, consisting of two types of attack – Bravery attacks and HP attacks. Bravery attacks are performed by pressing the O button, and allow you to perform basic attacks which raise your ‘Bravery’ score and depletes that of your opponent. These attacks do no actual damage to your opponent however, but determine how much damage your HP attacks do – these are performed with the Square button, and are generally the more ‘signature’ attacks of the characters, such as Cloud’s ‘Braver’, and Squall’s ‘Rough Divide’; the figure of your Bravery translates to how many hit points of damage the attack will do – if the figure is high enough it’s even possible to KO the opponent instantly, so it’s important to keep an eye on the figure. The X button allows you to jump, and the L and R buttons are used for locking-on and blocking respectively, and tapping X and a direction whilst guarding will let you evade in that direction. Triangle allows you to ‘quickmove’ which lets you use the environment to move with speed – such as running along walls and grinding along various rails and edges to get around quickly.

Sometimes, when you knock an enemy far back with an attack, an X will appear on-screen and you can perform a ‘chase’. This will make your character follow the enemy with a dash, and you will enter a sort of ‘mid air battle’. In these sequences, characters take turns to attack each other, and the other must try to evade. Bravery attacks are quick, and HP attacks are slow – so depending on which is performed depends on the timing for evasion. If you successfully manage to evade the attack you will be able to attack yourself – but time it wrong and you’ll get hit hard.

When characters fight, small blue orbs called EX Force are released, which can be collected to fill a gauge next to the character’s icon at the bottom of the screen. Occasionally, bigger EX Cores appear which collect EX Force, and you can collect them to fill your gauge by a large amount. Once the gauge is full, you can press R+Square to activate EX mode. In this mode, characters have various boosts dependant on the character - some bestow health regeneration, others gain higher attack power. The gauge depletes once the EX mode is activated, so its a race to make the most of it. One of the biggest features of EX mode is the EX Burst – when you hit an enemy with an attack while in EX mode, a symbol will appear on the screen – pressing Square at this point will activate the characters most powerful move – this is generally based on the characters ultimate move from their original game, such as Cloud’s ‘Omnislash’ and Tidus’ ‘Blitz Ace’. As a nice touch, every character’s style of performing this move reflects their original game, such as Squall’s ‘Renzokuken’ which involves having to tap the R button in time with a gauge that appears on the screen.

Initially, you are granted access to ten of the heroes – lead roles from FF’s 1-10 - who each have their own story to play through, chapters called ‘Destiny Odyssies’. In these stories, each character must fight through five maps comprised of grids that comprise of various opponents – ‘manikins’, crystal-clones of the various characters, and bosses comprised of the various storyline fights with the real versions of the characters aligned with Chaos. Many of the heroes and villains cross over into each other’s stories, yet they all have to face their own counterpart at some point – and their stories mirror that of their original games to a degree - Kuja has a degree of despair due to a feeling of inferiority, taking it out on Zidane, and Sephiroth naturally likes to goad Cloud and mess with his head. The plot is fairly simple but it does the job, giving a bit of depth to an all-star brawling game.

You do not recover health between fights on the same map, so you must choose your battles wisely – enemies are of various levels and difficulties – some optional yet guarding various treasures such as items or summon stones. You also have access to a few abilities such as Cure and Matra Magic which allow you to heal yourself or damage an enemy one time each, to assist you a bit along the way. The maps also offer a system called “Destiny Points” which give you greater rewards at the end of each map if you tactically progress through a stage while spending your turns wisely and meeting certain requirements in battles to keep your score high (such as beating the enemy in a short time, or winning the battle without recieving damage).

Upon beating each of the characters individual plotlines, their stories converge and a following story mode opens up which can be played using any hero you choose. In total, the plot is very long for a fighter-type game and allows for plenty of play value with extra additional story modes which can be unlocked after beating the main plot, and each of the chapters needs to be played multiple times in order to unlock everything and achieve 100%.

The game offers a lot of customisation and character development – as you level up you can earn new attacks which can be assigned to your character; there are twelve slots in total – six Bravery and six HP. These consist of three aerial and three ground attacks of each type, although some of the attacks (such as Rough Divide) have both ground and aerial versions. You can also buy equipment to improve your stats in classic Final Fantasy style, and equip accessories for additional boosts. There are also Summons to equip, which can be used to tactically affect bravery in various ways – such as Odin who uses Zantetsuken to cut the enemy’s bravery to 0, and Ifrit that boosts your own bravery to 150% of its current figure with his Hellfire ability. Summons come in two types – Automatic, which will activate when a certain requirement is met (such as having a certain bravery figure, or getting attacked) and Manual, which you can activate any time by pressing R+O.

The characters have been done very well – the more recent ones such as Cloud, Squall, Zidane and Tidus are all faithful to their original versions, many of their moves looking the same as they used to (such as Cloud’s Cross-Slash), or being converted well to fit the game’s system (such as Squall’s Blasting Zone that summons a pillar of light that he smashes down onto the opponent).  The older characters, however, have allowed the designers a little more freedom in character design and style due to the huge update in graphical power and gameplay, yet they have made them relevant to their original counterparts – the Warrior of Light appears as a very noble knightly figure, while Bartz has exchanged his Job-based gameplay for a style that utilises a mix of each of the other characters’ moves and weapons.

The game has plenty of things to unlock – as you play the game you recieve PP, which can be used to unlock various content. This content includes unlocking the villain characters, alternate outfits, extra modes and other upgrades. More things get added to the PP catalog as you progress through the game so theres always plenty to unlock.

The game also incorporates an in-game calendar – when you first load the game it will ask you which day you play most often – once you have chosen, you will recieve double EXP, Gil (FF’s currency), AP (ability points) and PP for that day every week. You will also get random bonuses on random days to these individual rewards, and the can buy upgrades with PP to increase the frequency of these bonuses. The feature isn’t exactly necessary but its a nice addition and gives you more reason to play regularly. The game also offers an “Accomplishments” section which acts like an in-game achievement/trophy list and gives you an overall percentage of game completion.

Aside from the story, the game offers a basic Arcade mode with random battles at predetermined levels, Quickplay which lets you pit your customised characters against opponents of your choice, and other unlockable modes such as time-trials and harder difficulties. There is also an Ad-Hoc multiplayer mode which allows you to battle another player, and collect their “Friend Card” so that you can see your previous results, and also battle a “Ghost” of whichever of their characters they have assigned to their card – your ghost will have the stats of the character as it is in your own game, including equipment and abilities, and you can also choose it’s tactics from a list such as “Cautious” or “Viscious”. Once a friend’s card is saved to your PSP, you can fight their latest saved ghost as many times as you like, and even earn items and points for doing so.

The game looks great, utilizing the PSP’s power well. The characters depict their original designs well, but many of them do have a few alterations to their outfits or designs, and all fit in together as a whole. The stages, like the characters, range from interpretations of old areas such as the Chaos shrine, and good adaptations like Zanarkand from the end of Final Fantasy X. The game’s music is equally good, with many familiar tunes such as remixes of the boss and battle themes, and well recognised tracks like ‘One Winged Angel’.  Although combining elements of many games, it all blends together seamlessly and feels like one complete title rather than lots of different segments stuck together.

Overall, the game is bursting with content, offering hours upon hours of gameplay. With a vast story mode, plenty of extra modes, accomplishments to earn and a ton of things to unlock, there’s always something to do. If you have a PS3, you can even download Ad Hoc Party to play online – but otherwise you can still play locally. This game is a must-have for any Final Fantasy fan, and I’d even recommend it as a good fighter for someone who isn’t – although they would miss out on a fair amount of references to the original titles. One of the best PSP titles released so far, good fun, and has a long lifespan that will keep you entertained for quite a while.

-Leon

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

September 2009

Final Fantasy Dissidia – PSP

Dissidia is the all new Final Fantasy fighting game starring heroes and villains from most of the games of the series, allowing epic battles between FF fans favourite characters in strange matchups such as Cloud vs Kuja and Sephiroth vs Kefka. Boasting a story mode and RPG-esque levelling system, Dissidia looks to be an exciting title with plenty of impressive visuals and fancy battles. Definitely one for the FF fans out there! Dissidia is released tomorrow, so you won’t have to wait for this one!

WET – X360/PS3

A fast paced, third person shoot ‘em up that seems to be the love child of Max Payne and Stranglehold, the beautiful but deadly Rubi is out for blood. Featuring crazy moves and plenty of slow motion shooting, WET’s over-the-top action and Tarantino moments could turn out to be something quite special. The game is currently due for release on the 18th September.

Halo 3: ODST – X360

Everyone’s favourite shooter returns, although with a new hero. Master Chief steps down for a rookie of the ODST unit, in a spinoff title that is set alongside the plot of Halo 3, with an all new campaign mode. However, I’m sure there will be just as much alien-shooting and online multiplayer as ever before, as Halo will no doubt take the online gaming world by storm once again. ODST is due for release in the UK on the 22nd of September.

October 2009

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days – DS

A spinoff of the Kingdom Hearts series, 358/2 days is set between Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II, starring Roxas and covering his own story between his creation, and leading up to his role in the second title. The game will be a full 3D title in the vein of  the main KH titles, with Roxas fighting alongside members of Organisation XIII in various worlds. The game will introduce new styles of character customisation, and offer some form of multiplayer. The game is due for release on the 9th of October; expect to hear more on the title beforehand.

Brutal Legend – X360/PS3

Starring Jack Black as the voice for the game’s lead character, Eddie Riggs, Brutal Legend is a third person title set in an open world where Rock is the law. Eddie finds himself transformed, his rocking abilities giving him supernatural powers as he fights using his guitar, an axe and his self-built hot rod to fight the evil powers that threaten the land, and no doubt save the day. Featuring cameos from rock legends such as Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest’s Rob Halford and The Runaways’ Lita Ford, Brutal Legend looks like a must have for any self-respecting rocker. Brutal Legend is currently scheduled for release on the 16th October.

November 2009

Assassins Creed 2 – X360/PS3

Assassins Creed 2 will take all the good things from Assassins Creed – a free roaming world, stealth kills and parkour-style exploration, and improves upon it in many ways. The new lead, Ezio, is able to swim unlike his predecessor, has dual hidden blades, can use a myriad of different weapons and gets access to a host of contraptions from Leonardo Da Vinci, including the flying machine. Assumedly with an improved AI, and more varied missions, AC2 is looking beautiful and hopefully something well worth paying for. Assassin’s Creed 2 is due for release on the 20th of November.

My next post will cover what there is to look forward to next year, so stay tuned!

-Leon

The demo has only been released on PSN in the US so far (although admittedly Japan’s had the game since last December). After some hassle, I managed to upgrade my current PSP firmware to 5.50, download the demo via a US PSN account and get going.

Right from the off, the demo starts with a tradtional “Final Fantasy” title screen and a familiar tune, and upon pressing Start and choosing Normal difficulty, I’m fairly surprised – expecting the demo to consist of one, maybe two playable characters, neither of which would be the “crowd pleasers” of the bunch, I find myself with a selection of not one, not two, but five playable characters to toy with. Four heroes – Onion Knight (generic FFIII character), Cecil (FFIV’s tortured lead character), Terra (FFVI’s human-esper hybrid) and Cloud (FFVII’s beloved buster sword-wielding hero. And if that wasnt enough, they also threw in a villain – Sephiroth. Not only were they content to throw in the most loved character of them all, they cast his nemesis into the fray. I will cover each of these character’s specific abilities at the end of the article.

The demo is fairly simple in terms of functionality – although Dissidia boasts a story mode, the demo throws you into the gameplay with a few (apparently random) rounds to fight each time you play with no cutscenes or explanation – think a short “Arcade” mode. Before each battle, the game explains how to play while it loads (the times of which aren’t too long, at that).

The game plays in a 3D environment, in which you can move freely, playing in a style reminiscent of Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi, with each stage being of a fair size allowing the battles to take place over various landscapes. The controls are fairly intuitive and shouldn’t take long to get used to. Characters can run along various parts of environment, even up walls, allowing them to traverse at a decent speed. Some of the stages I recognised (such as a ruined part of Zanarkand from FFX), but I am unsure whether or not they are all based on old FF locations, or whether there were some “original” stages in there.

Each character has three values that are displayed – HP, Bravery, and an EX Gauge. HP is health as with most fighters – and is displayed by a bar, and smaller crystals below that denote how many bars of HP that character has in total. The value is also shown as a number below the bar, so is easy to keep track of. Bravery is something new – a characters bravery decides how strong they are – the higher the value, the more damage that character will be able to do. Using a certain type of attack, characters can steal Bravery points from each other to raise their strength and lower that of their opponent. The EX Gauge is like a “Limit” gauge which gives each character access to their most powerful attack (EX Burst), and is filled by collecting items called “Force” and “Cores” that appear around the battlefield.

There are two main types of attack in the game – Bravery and HP attacks. Bravery attacks look like basic attacks – generally quick attacks with a sword, or whatever weapon that character has. These attacks do no actual damage, but are used to steal Bravery and gain the upper hand on your opponent – so its vital that you decide which attacks are best to use. HP attacks are more impressive looking, damage dealing attacks. For the majority of the “newer” FF characters, these attack animations are various limit/overdrive techniques such as Cloud’s Braver and Cross-Slash. Other characters or villains have other “signature” attacks, such as Sephiroth’s Octoslash (from Crisis Core), and Terra’s magic attacks. These moves all do damage depending on your Bravery, and are your main power in the damage-dealing department.

Characters also have the ability to jump, lock on, dash, or use evasive maneovers, alongside the ability to “Quickmove” along the environment. Whenever you are near a wall or rail an arrow icon will appear, and pressing Triangle allows you to do the relevant Quickmove – such as running up the wall, or “grinding” the rail. This is invaluable for getting around and reaching higher ground. You can also Guard with R, which needs to be timed correctly – but if successful can stagger your opponent. There are also other features such as being able to dash towards an opponent you have sent flying in order to do a follow up attack, which the other player may counter if they succeed in evading it.

The last, perhaps most impressive ability is the EX Burst – the Limit attack. When a character has collected enough Cores and Force to fill the gauge, they can activate EX Burst by pressing R+Square.  This puts them into a state of overdrive, and the bar slowly starts to empty. In this mode, each of the characters changes in appearance, depending on their character – for instance, Zidane turns into his Trance form from FF9. If the player succeeds in connecting a HP attack (Square) in this form, a symbol will appear afterward allowing them to follow up with an ultimate attack. This is one feature I really enjoy – as each matching Hero/Villain share their own style of EX Burst attack that is performed in a unique way depending on the game. For instance, Squall’s EX Burst involves a Renzokuken style attack where you have to time button presses with a meter on the screen, and Cloud/Sephiroth’s involve having to mash the O button to fill a FF7-style limit gauge. If you fail this, you will do a strong attack, but if you get it perfectly, the character will unleash a super attack with a more impressive animation – such as Sephiroth’s ultimate Super Nova attack which sends the sun hurtling into the enemy. These attacks do big damage and can turn the tables of the battle or finish it completely.

The demo offers two difficulty modes – Normal and Hard. Although I expect we’ll see more modes in the real thing alongside Story mode, Normal is fairly simple whereas Hard is definitely more challenging. The game is easy to pick up and play, but I feel theres room for mastery and some epic battles with some practice. I don’t know a huge deal considering the story of the full game, but I assume it’ll go something like “Dark power gathers villains, and Light power gathers heroes to stop it.” Hopefully I’ll shed more light on this upon the game’s release. Also, I know that characters will have alternate costumes – these are not available in the demo, but should be good – such as Cloud’s FF7: Advent Children model, and Squall’s old school uniform.

The game looks good for a PSP title, on a similar level to that of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. Characters are detailed although as you often see them from a distance it can be hard to see them clearly – however the super EX attacks give you some good close-ups that look fantastic. The sound quality is brilliant – mainly remixes of the old battle/boss tunes from the various titles which fit in perfectly – from the recognisable battle music from FFVII to the electric-guitar brilliance of “Otherworld” from FFX. The voice acting is equally good, the majority of the FFX, FFVII: Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts cast seem to have reprised their roles; Steve Burton as Cloud, James Arnold Taylor and Gregg Berger as Tidus and Jecht, while the other roles seem to have been casted well – finding voices that match characters that had been silent until now.

Overall, its got fairly simple gameplay with some interesting features and a lot of potential. I can’t wait to play the full thing.

And, if you’re interested – here are some details concerning the characters that are playable in the demo.

Character Details

Onion Knight
Alignment: Hero
From: Final Fantasy III
Gameplay style: Small character fast, light attacks.
EX Burst form: Job Change!; Turns into a random class (i.e. Ninja, White Mage)
EX Attack: Depending on the class you turned into, you will be asked to perform a certain attack – the Ninja throws Shurikens, the mage casts Holy, and so on. Once the attack activated, an old FFIII battle menu will appear on the screen, and you will have to select the attack from the menu before time runs out (i.e. Throw > Shuriken, or Magic > Holy).
Verdict: Not a character that appealed to me, but surprisingly fun. Fast character, and a clever nostalgic super attack.

Cecil
Alignment: Hero
From: Final Fantasy IV
Gameplay style: Attacks with a sword, switching between Dark Knight and Paladin forms on the fly depending on the type of attack.
EX Burst form: Job Augment; a glowing aura.
EX Attack: Soul Shift; The player must press a sequence of three pairs of icons – simultaneously pressing a direction on the D-Pad and a symbol button three times consecutively (i.e Left+O, Down+Triangle, Up+X). If successful, Cecil will attack the enemy multiple times switching between Dark and Light forms.
Verdict: A cool looking character. Gameplay doesnt feel as though he has any feature in particular that is special, but feels good all round.

Terra
Alignment: Hero
From: Final Fantasy VI
Gameplay style: Attacks with magic – quick orb strikes and various elemental spells. Fairly fast and good range.
EX Burst form: Trance; turns into Esper form.
EX Attack: Riot Blade; The player must mash the Left and Circle buttons together to fill two bars on the screen at the same time, and Terra attacks with a magical slashing attack in Esper form
Verdict: Another surprising character, feels very fluid to use and has a good range of attacks.

Cloud
Alignment: Hero
From: Final Fantasy VII
Gameplay style: Attacks with huge Buster Sword with strong attacks. HP attacks consist of signature Braver and Cross Slash attacks. Ranged fire spell.
EX Burst form: Equipped Ultima Weapon; holds the ultimate sword from FF7.
EX Attack: LIMIT BREAK – Omnislash; The player must mash the O button to fill a Limit Gauge on the screen. If successful, Cloud will hit the enemy with a barrage of slashes and finish with a powerful downward slash.
Verdict: Unsurprisingly an excellent character – good speed, powerful blows, good range of attacks and a cool special.

Sephiroth
Alignment: Villain
From: Final Fantasy VII
Gameplay style: Attacks with a masamune katana, with wide range slashes, and some magic attacks.
EX Burst form: Reunion; Sephiroth gains a single black wing , can glide.
EX Attack: LIMIT BREAK – Super Nova; The player must mash the O button to fill a Limit Gauge on the screen. If successful, Sephiroth send a wave of flames and a huge sun flying into the enemy.
Verdict: Again, another very good character – his Octoslash HP attack is formidable and he continues to appear as one of the most formidable characters of the series.