so I went to wal-mart last week and when you walk in to them, around here, they have little cardboard signs for games and movies.

I saw this on display.

What is it actually? The display box just showed people from different FF games, I thought it was a display for Kingdom Hearts but there were no Disney toons.

It is a fighting game, with RPG styled elements, with characters from the Final Fantasy series. It's what Ehrgeiz for the PSX should have been.

A battle between Chaos (god of evil) and Cosmos (goddess of light) draws in the protagonists and antagonists from the Final Fantasy games to be their warriors.

You start out with playable characters of the main protagonists from FF1 through FF10. You can unlock the main Antagonists from 1 through 10 through purchasing them using points earned through battles and story mode. Other characters can be unlocked through other means, like finishing various story modes. I don't know exactly how many characters exist.

Your characters earn exp through battles, learn new techniques, get equipment and accessories to increase their stats. There is a Story mode, Arcade Mode, quick battle mode, and wireless multiplay.

I was doing ok until I had to fight Jecht from FFX (Tidus' father).
He completely owns me. I don't know what I'm doing wrong (other than losing).


The game focuses on two types of attacks. Hit point attacks and Bravery attacks.
Each player has Hit points and Bravery.

Bravery determines how much damage your hit point attacks do. Hit points are obviously your hit points. Bravery attacks increase your bravery and decrease your opponents (pretty much a one to one transfer of points). Hit point attacks deal hit point damage to your opponent.

So as a melee character, you can chain together bravery attacks, increasing your strength, and then wallop them with a hit point attack to do some massive damage. Unfortunately for me, Jecht has this market cornered so far. He has a very strong move that seems to be a bravery attack chain with a hit point attack finisher. If he blocks my attack and then counters, I can be pretty much guaranteed to fail.


Beyond that basic intro to the combat system, there are a few other things. Wall climbing, dashing, etc. Terrain usage is very good. Lots of "flying" around, running up walls, jumping and dashing through the air, "grinding" on special terrain to charge toward the opponent or to run away from them.

They made movement so easy to do in the game that many of the times I find myself not even using the directional movements (which can be set to Dpad or analog stick). Instead I just use my surroundings to charge and flee from the opponent. I don't know if this is good, maybe it's why I lose so much against Jecht? But it is much faster than manually running around.

There are also "Limit Break" type moves, called your EX Gauge. Filling it up allows you to go into "EX Mode" giving you stat bonuses and some HP regain, and allows you to use an EX Move, which is a very powerful attack.


I tried one long range user, Kuja from FF9. I failed miserably. He seemed very difficult to use compared to the Warrior of Light (generic warrior protagonist from FF1).

I've go to try out a few more characters. Cloud is obviously pretty powerful melee user. Same with Sephiroth. I need to practice a few magic based ones like Terra (FF6).

At first I thought the game was draining my battery life more than usual. But I hooked it up to the AC charger, and looked at my play time and noticed almost 13 hours. So it wasn't that it was draining my battery power faster, I was just playing longer without realizing it.


Edit:
You can also trade "friend cards" with your friends, and have access to their leveled up characters as opponents. They will be stored on your system so you can fight them offline, but still fight their characters (same level, equipment, etc).

I don't know if you can do this over the internet, or only direct PSP to PSP. I've only done it with my brother, with our PSPs right next to each other.



Kingdom Hearts, Birth By Sleep better be as beautiful as this game is.

Edited, Aug 22nd 2009 10:02pm by TirithRR

:)

Dissidia Final Fantasy

I just picked up my Dissidia bundle, and can't wait to play it when I get home. I got the bundle since I didn't have a PSP yet, so I spent last night making some backgrounds for it, so it wouldn't be nekkid.

I'm looking forward to all of the things there are to do in the game, it seems like you can spend either a lot of time playing, or just a little, and still feel like you've gotten something done. Plus, it's Final Fantasy Overload. How can you not love it?

So, for those of us who aren't rabid FF fanboys, or Fighting game aficionados, is there enough of an RPG tone to the game to interest RPG lovers?

Meh... pass.

I am not a fan of fighting games. But Dissidia's fighting system is very fluid. There are no huge button combos to remember.

O = Bravery Attacks
Square = Hitpoint attacks
Triangle = Dashing abilities.
X = dodging abilities.

Different skills are set to different directions + button. Toward/Away and Button, Up/Down and button.


There is also a Command Battle system, similar to old styled FF menus. But I have not used it. By the time you unlock it, you are already used to the default system.

You can download a Demo of Dissidia from the PSN I believe, and test it out yourself.

Just got this last night, installing now, cant wait to play.

From the demo it felt like it was really easy to pick up, but hard to master at the same time.

Just got it, Best Buy had an bonus 16 month Dissidia themed calendar you get for free

Wish I had the PSP at work now...

.

I wonder if Tales of VS will be able to compete with Dissidia? (If it ever comes to America?)

Agreed. I've gotten 5 chars through the first story chapters, and am working on the sixth now, and have done the first chapter for Shade Impulse. There is so much to this game, it's really unbelievable at first, and I know I haven't even scratched the surface. I love all of the little details, the different characters that pop up in the menus, how each fighter feels true to their character in the original game (fighting style, skills, etc.). This is really like a giant love letter from Squenix to the fans.

Yeah, some of these fights make you wanna toss your PSP across the room. They should include a wrist strap like they have for the Wii-motes

I want this game so bad. I won big at the casino a few nights ago, so I'll be back to post about it after I pick it up!

Should wait until the Go comes out then snag a cheap older one. I have 2 PSP's, one with official firmware for UMD's and downloads from PSN, one with hacked firmware for Homebrew

actually in the one mode i belive you can level up the villains too, but i think its pretty much an arcade mode only you get to use your items/summons and stats from story mode.

Got this game the other night and I love it. I also pickd up the strat guide for kicks, knowing that I will indefinatly want to go back and get the ebst items and such for my guys.

Ive beaten Cloud, Zidane, and Squalls story already int hef irst 7 hours of play time. Im working on the final chapter thing and Tidus's story currently. This game is long and has a nice customized and advanced architecture to it. Being able to buy one set of equipment and useing between people without un equiping is great.

As far as balance goes, mage characters have the advantage by a long shot especially if the projectile attack is quick. It is really hard to get inside to mage character when they can spam AOE spells. Other then that its great. The movement controls are responsive and fighting never really falls into a "grind" unless its on a weaker character.

The avatars also throw in a nice twist to things by having lots of neat abilities like blocking out the Bravery numbers or swapping bravery. I also enjoy that most levels have destructible items in the way. So instead of just running into them you cna blow through them.

I think we should setup a tournament useing the arcade characters first, then possibly useing everyones leveled up characters at cer tain levels or something, not sure how the online sutff works just yet.

Well I finally made it to Chaos, jesus this game is long. Gonna spoiler the rest of this.

Zidane is my main fighter (level 50ish). Ive done aout 4 levels outside of the story mode so the curve of difficulty compared to level is pretty good. I am currently stuck on Chaos though.

For those who dont know he as 3 forms basically, which you must beat while carrying over your health and such, while their is no reprep for yourself. The sad thing I have found is that you can do the entire game not using dodge of guard and are now required to use them to prevent his HP attacks.

I'm going to take zidane and level him some outside his the story sense his defense is weak, and his hp attacks are also weak which should let me practice my dodging and blocking.

Never had any problem with a rush tactic with Zidane or anyone. Only time I ever ran into any kind of problem were against the stones that were 20+ levels higher and that had a SMN that would make their Bravery, but even then I only didnt beat a few of those.

Ive seen Vids of coud beating Chaos with zero equipment, Smns, or anything and enver getting hit. Cloud is very strong and easy to chain with.

The only problem with Zidane is, its an air game with him and most of his attacks send the opponent into a chase which is almost useless. He has projectile attacks but they are either stupidly slow, or insanely inaccurate. He does combo well and his best HP attack is the one he starts out with, its quick, multi directional, and low cool off.

I think a few more levels will do the trick until I can get ebtter and dodging and blocking.

I borrowed this game from a friend who buys most games that come out for SE.
I've been toying with it for the last week or so, but what is the best way to Level up?
I just took his UMD and not the case (and booklet) cuz I am a lazy friend lol

Do I just restart the character's story mode over to help gain some easy levels?

The trick to leveling the fastest is this.

1: Unlock Exdeath
2: Unlock the level caps in the pp store, the higher the better
3: Go into quick battle and set ex death to the highest level and make his mood survival, i think.
4: Set your PSP clock to your special day and try to get your chocobo story on an EXP boost.
5: Equip any XP boost accessories and start the fight.


With this setup EX death should only do his bravery attack and his teleport attack. He doesnt come after you or do much of anything. Just wait for him to do a move and then HP attack. If you want the win, set the Magic Pot to manual and steal his bravery once it reaches max and then hp attack. Rinse and repeat and you can do 1-100 within in 10 fights or less. Ive seen 1-50 in one fight.

Only problem with this method is the AP wont level up correctly so you will spend time leveling that up.

Sony Characters? Square(soft) Enix... dumbass

Also, SSB wishes it could be as good as this game.

Clearly CestinShaman never even played the demo.