Land of Discord

Day 370

The more I think about it, the more I realize that Confessions of the Creator must surely be considered optional content. I've just now completed it by taking out level 130 Feral Chaos (no small feat) but the reward for my efforts was little more than a simple message saying that I could continue to play and feel free to explore as I wished. I had already viewed the credits sequence countless gameplay hours before after completing the main story chapters. 

Was it a waste? No, I really enjoyed grinding my characters up to level 100 and tracking down the best gear I could get. A lot of the enemies near the end of the game became frustrating to square off against, however, with their staggeringly high HP totals and tendency to dodge every single attack. The majority of enemies in the final areas were level 125 or more, 25 full levels above the cap for human players. This gave the AI a pretty sigificant boost in damage and survivability, leading to countless resets. Just about every fight in the final areas required multiple attempts except of course for the ultimate encounter with Feral Chaos himself. It would have been a horrifying difficult fight that would have taken me weeks to conquer if not for the simple fact that the big bulky guy can't dodge Yuna's Mega Flare to save his life.

After devoting so many hours to feverishly playing the game over the past few days, I'm glad to be done with it. It's a fantastic game with a ton of content and plenty of enjoyable characters to develop. It makes me wish more than anything that Square-Enix would make a crossover Final Fantasy title that's more of a traditional RPG. I would totally dig into that level of fanservice, regardless of how well it would be handled. Dissidia is pretty awesome, but despite all of the statistics and equipment behind the scenes, it is at its core an action game. I like it a lot, but RPGs are always going to be my favorite.

Prishe is adorable

 I don't have a lot of insight into how popular the Dissidia games are, but I feel reasonably confident they're among the most popular for an admittedly overlooked handheld. The Final Fantasy theme of course makes them niche in other ways, but they're very polished and fun to play regardless of one's familiarity with that mythos. I've never played Final Fantasy XI for instance but Prishe is still one of my favorite characters. I also love Final Fantasy VI but can't stand Terra's playstyle--and that's unfortunate, because Terra's a really cool character.

I'm not sure what's next on the agenda, but I'm considering continuing to clear out my PSP backlog. I'm kind of glad I started with Dissidia 012 because it seems unlikely any other unfinished games would take me anywhere near as long to finish. It should be smooth sailing from now on. Of course, there's also Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem to be completed, but it doesn't really fit into my backlog marathon and I'm still mostly just playing it at work. My progress on that game has been stagnant for some time, but I've definitely not forgotten it.

All Glories Must Fade

Day 368

I have the next two days off once again, which means I'm afforded plenty of time to complete the two games I'm playing. I feel confident I'll be able to finish Dissidia 012 unless Feral Chaos really throws me a curveball. I've read a lot about him and fought the level 90 version of him already. The final boss is evidently a level 135 variant with some more attacks and a summon--but I'm confident I can beat him. If worse comes to worse, there are plenty of cheesy strategies I can fall back on. I won't be ashamed to do this because I've already spent 50 hours on this game! Enough is enough.

I've finally settled on a final party that I really like after unlocking the final two secret characters, Prishe and Gilgamesh. I'd never heard of Prishe before, but she's apparently an important character from Final Fantasy XI. Her playstyle is interesting because it allows you an extreme level of customization over your combos and most of her attacks can be used on the ground and in the air. Gilgamesh is reasonably slow and RNG-based, meaning he's not really my kind of character--although he is pretty hilarious and I loved him in Final Fantasy V.

My party consists of Cecil, Yuna, Squall, Prishe, and Kain. It's a very melee heavy composition with Yuna being the only caster. Honestly, even though Yuna does have a few long-range summon spells, a good percentage of her attacks are melee to mid-range spells, so I still feel pretty comfortable with her. Her ability to control the map with a solid mix of dangerous spells at all ranges is a big part of why I enjoy her playstyle. It also really helps that I can cheese Feral Chaos really hard with her HP attacks. It's almost impossible for the AI to dodge Mega Flare--and on the rare occasion he does and moves close enough to Yuna to attack, I can throw a Thor's Hammer at his face and knock him back to the wall, where he'll be fried with Mega Flare once again.

Cecil and Yuna are both level 100, but the other characters are lagging behind. I imagine all five will be at 100 before I'm done with the game, but I have a ways to go particularly on Prishe since I only unlocked her recently. If I wanted to, I could spam some matches against level 100 Gabranth and level up very quickly--but I'd rather take some time to redo some earlier gateways and level up slowly, getting used to Prishe's playstyle as I go. She has a ton of moves.

Paladin Force

Day 366

I've ended up playing Dissidia 012 a lot more than I'd originally intended. After completing the primary story mode I likely could have stopped right there and counted the game as beaten. I assumed the Confessions of the Creator mode would continue and conclude the storyline established in the original Dissidia game and be a logical progression in difficulty from the main story mode. This has turned out not to be the case, at least as far as the difficulty goes. The difficulty has so far been significantly higher. My primary characters Cecil and Yuna are at level 100 (with only passable gear, mind you) and I'm still definitely having some issues. A large part of the problem lies with me being terrible at fighting games, no doubt.

I really do like the game a lot and think that it's reasonably deep and well designed, although I am perhaps not the best person to comment on such a thing. I'm definitely not an authority on the genre and aside from the gameplay itself I find myself drawn to the customization aspects of the game--both with equipment/accessories and abilities. These elements add a lot of variety and strategy to the game beyond the raw mechanical skill required to succeed in combat.

The main story mode was difficult at times, but it was a joke in comparison to what Confessions of the Creator has to offer. There were many instances in the story mode where I could get by by spamming HP Attacks until my foes were vanquished. Confessions of the Creator is forcing me to time my dodges appropriately lest I be punished by counterattacks, to block incoming attacks to force staggers, and to space appropriately. Playing all out offense is no longer a viable strategy unless I significantly outlevel the AI opponent, and sometimes not even then. The odds are frequently stacked heavily in their favor, depending on the circumstances surrounding the match.

I don't think I'd ever be able to play Dissidia competitively. I'm not convinced I don't have the skill to reach the level of proficiency required to compete with better players, but I just don't have the patience to do it--at least not for a game that has a pretty marginal scene at best. A cursory investigation of a few online Dissidia communities reveals that although the scene was once vibrant and growing, it is now approaching stagnation. This is kind of sad because I feel like Dissidia is a game with a lot of strategic depth and fun characters, but I can understand when something like this happens. The scene will likely die out completely if Square-Enix chooses not to release another title in the series.

I'm not going to consider Dissidia 012 finished until I finish Confessions of the Creator, even if the credits rolled after the main story mode. It seems like a copout to call that a finished game when there is so much content left to finish. I dreaded taking on Chaos in that mode because of how difficult he was in the original Dissidia but in this particular case he was shockingly easy. I can't imagine the same will be true for the final boss of Confessions of the Creator. I can imagine being stuck there for weeks--which is annoying, because there are a lot of games I'd like to pick up on after I'm finished with this one.

I play a lot of games that are very simple to finish but this is not one of those games. I do enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes from finishing a game like this one, but I am getting a little antsy here. I'd really like to finish Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem as well, a game that is a similar roadblock to clearing out my backlog. I did finish Divinity: Original Sin last night though, and I'll probably talk about that a bit tomorrow!

Chances Are (Day 363)

My co-op partner and I are in the middle of the final battle of Divinity and it's looking very likely we'll be finishing the game tomorrow night. We would have gone ahead and tried to finish tonight but it was getting late enough as it was and there was still a lot of strategizing to be done. It's most likely going to be pretty tough, but I think we'll pull through. I'm glad we've finally made it to the final encounter because the amount of content in the game is truly intimidating.

I've also finished the main storyline of Dissidia 012, although I'm conflicted on whether or not that's really an accurate description. The individual characters' chapters are mostly just retooled content from the original Dissidia title, except of course for the chapters of the new characters contained in their own game mode. After defeating Chaos in The Final Chapter, a new mode called Confessions of the Creator was opened. It feels more like optional postgame content considering the level of difficulty, but I don't know that that's necessarily accurate either. There was a lengthy credits sequence after defeating Chaos but I'm not sure I'd feel right saying I've beaten the game.

Confessions of the Creator allows you to once again assemble a party of characters, all of which retain their experience and abilities attained in the other game modes. This time around, you can even choose to include any of the game's many villains in your party, significantly opening up your options. Unfortunately, all of the villains are at level 1 by default and the only real way to get them leveled up for Confessions of the Creator's difficult level 50+ content is by spamming Quick Battles outside of Story Mode. There are some pretty decent options for leveling quickly, but you still miss out on AP for reducing the cost of your characters' abilities and of course it becomes quite a bit more difficult to learn the characters' playstyle as you go.

I wanted to include at least one villain in my party for Confessions of the Creator but a cursory inspection of my options turned up nothing much of interest. Cecil is still by far my favorite character. For the moment, my other party members are Vaan, Yuna, Firon, and Bartz, but I feel I'm not even using them that often. I like several things about each of their playstyles, but I don't have the same confidence that I do with Cecil--an important distinction considering the difficulty of this new game mode.

I'm not sure how long it'll take me to finish Dissidia 012, but I'm not going to try to rush it. I'm still having fun with the game and I've been playing video games constantly lately. If I have less to talk about because of this, that's fine--because I'll always find something to write about. Some days it's harder than others, but I'll generally always pull through. I'm coming up on a year of writing this blog and I still feel like I'm going strong.

Back Out on The... (Day 361)

I have the next two days off, so it's time to make as valiant an effort as possible to finish some of the games I've been playing. It's been about two weeks (maybe a little less) since I finished Front Mission 3 and I feel like I'm not adhering to the breakneck pace I'd prefer! Granted, I'm playing a couple of ridiculously long games right now (Dissidia 012 and Divinity) but--well, I guess I'm still making pretty admirable progress. Considering the length and depth of those games, I've gotten pretty far into both of them in a two week period, although I'm still only inching along on Fire Emblem, as it remains relegated to short stints of play at work.

I've already logged 51 hours in Divinity and I don't yet see the end in sight. I feel like I've covered a lot of of ground but I haven't approached anything resembling a penultimate encounter. Honestly, I hope I unlock some more ridiculously powerful spells before the game is over. One thing I really liked about the latter stages of Baldur's Gate II is that you start to unlock some pretty ridiculous spells, some of which can instantly kill or even freeze time. I haven't encountered a lot of spells just yet that give me that "wow" factor. In fact, our melee character seems to be far surpassing our casters in strength at this stage of the game.

As for Dissidia 012, I've reached the final part of "The Final Chapter," which I've come to find is a very misleading name. The Final Chapter comprises the stories of all the playable characters from the original game with an added world map and some expanded features. After that's all done, you assemble a party and battle your way further across the world map until you encounter Chaos, the game's final boss. I'm not sure how differently it'll be handled this time around, but I'm slightly worried he'll be as difficult as he was before. I remember the intense frustration that fight caused me when I played the original Dissidia several years ago and I don't relish the thought of reliving it.

Still, the fact that I was able to construct a party of some of my favorite characters is pretty cool. I once again decided to go with Cecil Harvey as my main character. His versatility and playstyle really appeal to me. The other four characters I chose were Squall, Cloud, Firion, and Bartz, all of which I enjoyed a lot during the story mode. Honestly, the only characters I didn't particularly care for were Terra and Zidane--which is a shame, because I really enjoy the games those characters come from!

Underneath the Skin (Day 357)

Man, I woke up way too early today considering I have the day off. It turned out for the best though, as I had no food in the house and it seemed like a pretty good opportunity to go pick up some breakfast. After gorging myself on Hardees biscuits, drowsiness almost overwhelmed me--but I didn't let it happen and instead tried to make some more progress on Dissidia. I completed Terra and Cecil's chapters today. Terra is really not my playstyle, but Cecil is pretty fun. I'm not sure I'll be using him as much as I did in the original Dissidia, but I'm certain he'll find a place in my final party, if such a thing even exists.

Cecil is interesting because of his ability to transform from dark knight to paladin and vice versa through the usage of HP attacks. HP attacks on the ground transform him into a dark knight, where he possesses a variety of hard-hitting combo-oriented ground attacks and dark magic. HP attacks in the air will transform him into a paladin, an agile form focused primarily on aerial combat as well as some light magic. Dark Knight attacks in the air typically focus on bringing the enemy to the ground, whereas paladin attacks on the ground focus on knocking the enemy into the air. It is the balance between these two forms that make Cecil such an interesting character to me. It also helps that I like Final Fantasy IV a lot.

Square-Enix (or whatever internal dev team was responsible) took a lot of liberties with Cecil's combat capabilities. Although the spirit of his character is definitely preserved from Final Fantasy IV, a lot of that game was about his quest to overcome his dark knight side and in fact he is a paladin for a good three quarters of the game and can never go back to what he was. He also used pretty traditional Western swords instead of the stylish lance sword he wields in Dissidia. Truth be told, if they were to ever remake Final Fantasy IV (and let's be honest, they've done this too many times already) I wouldn't mind if Cecil's weapon had this unique design. It's apparently inherited from Yoshitaka Amano's original artwork. His art was often pretty bizarre and it's clear he had a thing for draping his pale, slender characters in as many colorful extraneous lengths of cloth as possible. It does make his style very unique and recognizable, though.

It's pretty interesting what Dissidia has done with these early Final Fantasy characters. In many cases, there was little to no personality to draw on and only the barest of gameplay elements to translate into a moveset. Firion from Final Fantasy II, for instance, is one of the first named characters in the Final Fantasy series, but I would be lying if I said he had any kind of defining personality traits. Characters from that game also had no defining gameplay traits, because it was all determined by how they were used in combat, how their stats were developed, and what spells they were taught. In this case, the developers decided to go with the "jack-of-all-trades" approach and again drew on Yoshitaka Amano's original artwork, resulting in what is essentially a new character, but an interesting one.

The same is true for Warrior of Light and Onion Knight,  representatives from the first and third games in the series, both class-based Final Fantasy titles with no actual named characters (barring the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy III, of course). These characters are both really fun and definitely draw inspiration from Amano artwork, but for the most part, their combat styles are designed from scratch. One notable exception is Onion Knight's EX Burst, which has him doing a Class Change into either a Ninja or Sage depending on the spell used to initiate the attack. To execute the attack properly, you'll have to cast Holy or throw a Shuriken through a traditional Final Fantasy menu. I thought this was a really nice touch.

Baby, You're In Luck (Day 356)

I'm pretty impressed with the amount of content that Dissidia 012 has to offer. I've only completed what might be considered the prologue scenario so far, which introduces all of the new characters and concludes with a chapter in which those characters form a party together. Even just that took me about 10-11 hours to complete--and now I have chapters for each of the characters returning from the original game to do. I would assume that once that's all done, I'll be able to play yet another chapter where I'll be able to assemble a party of my choosing.

My favorite character from the original Dissidia was definitely Cecil Harvey of Final Fantasy IV, whose HP attacks would change him between his paladin and dark knight forms depending on whether or not he used them in the air or on the ground. After completing all of the characters' chapters in that game, I focused primarily on leveling him up for the final encounters of the game. In 012, I'll likely have to rotate between a few different characters to achieve the same goal, but I imagine I'll definitely be using Cecil again. Out of the new characters, Vaan seems really appealing--but many of the returning characters have also been tweaked in some way. As overrated a game as Final Fantasy VII is, I have to admit that Cloud is quite fun to play.

I really love that the characters in Dissidia 012 level up and acquire new moves over time. I've already swapped out a couple of moves to better suit my playstyle on Vaan, for instance. His moveset focuses primarily on switching through a large variety of different weaponry--an homage, no doubt, to Final Fantasy XII's License Board system, which allowed any character to use any weapon, provided they had the right licenses unlocked. Vaan's attacks have a primary effect that is static and then a secondary effect that only occurs if you're swapping weapons. For instance, if you use your Katana attack in mid air and then follow up with Sword and Shield, you'll throw out a block right before executing a flip attack.

I have to admit I never cared much for Vaan as a character. Even though he was the protagonist of Final Fantasy XII, he was largely irrelevant to the game's overall plot. I've heard rumors that Vaan (and his friend Penelo) were only included in the game in an effort to appeal to a younger demographic. Other playable characters in the game are integral to the plot and--perhaps more importantly--are noticeably older. I would have been much happier with having Basch as a playable character in Dissidia 012, but it wouldn't have been right to include a secondary character over a protagonist when no other characters from Final Fantasy XII have appeared before him. Still, his playstyle ended up being really fun, so I suppose it's all for the best.

When It Begins (Day 352)

After playing a series of tactical or otherwise turn-based RPGs, I thought it might be a nice change of pace to play something a little more action-oriented. Borderlands 2 was great, but I haven't played a good single-player action game in quite some time. After spending some time trying to decide what game I'd like to tackle next from my backlog, I came across Dissidia 012, the second in a series of fighting/action games based on the Final Fantasy series. As is evidenced on many previous entries of this blog, I'm a big Final Fantasy fan even if I am quick to acknowledge the series' many flaws. I really enjoyed the first Dissidia game because of its unique combat system and fast pace. In that regard, Dissidia 012 is much the same--with several new characters to boot.

New character Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII, then a new release

 Like Dissidia before it, 012 is a fighting/action RPG hybrid that features a skeletal storyline supported by some minor exploration--as well as a puzzle game board system that allows your selected character to encounter opponents. Most opponents are mannequin copies of other playable characters from the game, of which there are many. Winning battles will award you KP, which can be used to purchase equipment from the moogle-owned shop. Defeating opponents in sequence will award additional KP, but this can only be done if your character is adjacent to multiple enemies on the game board or through using an item like Cross Chain or Round Chain which allows you to engage multiple enemies in a certain pattern.

Yuna from Final Fantasy X on the game board

The combat system is very fast paced and non-traditional for the genre. Like Super Smash Bros, opponents cannot be defeated simply through reducing a life bar to 0--or rather, they can, but there's more to it than that. There are two types of attacks in Dissidia 012: Bravery attacks and HP attacks. Bravery attacks are typically quicker and can be woven into combos, whereas HP attacks generally have a large windup and can be dodged easily. Bravery attacks steal the opponent's Bravery and the higher one's Bravery, the more damage an HP attack deals. It is frequently possible to build up enough Bravery to defeat an enemy with only one HP attack.

Yuna in combat

The main draw of the game for me is the fact that there are so many RPG elements included, none of which detract from the experience. I can think of a few games in which RPG elements are shoehorned in for no real extra value. Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy--a game in which those elements are completely superfluous--comes to mind here. In Dissidia 012, all playable characters level up and acquire new skills. A character can possess six Bravery skills and six HP attack skills, three apiece on the ground and in the air. These skills can be set to whichever buttons you choose, allowing you to customize your character to your personal preferences.

Chapter select screen

As has been the case in many of the games I've played recently, my primary attraction to Dissidia 012 is the gameplay--but that's not all the game has to offer. There is actually a fairly extensive plot attached to this game that intertwines the plots of all the various characters together--but let's be honest. The story is kind of terrible and I tend to zone out during just about every cutscene. Don't get me wrong--I love several of these characters--but I'm not in love with how many of them are portrayed. Terra from Final Fantasy VI in particular is portrayed as a weak damsel-in-distress kind of character and I've never felt that's what she was.

As I said before, I've beaten the original Dissidia game and my primary character of choice was Cecil Harvey from Final Fantasy IV. This was not accomplished before defeating the game's final boss, who was hellishly difficult. I'm not sure I've ever faced a final boss as difficult as that one and I've played a lot of video games in my time. I'm a little worried that I'll eventually hit a brick wall in this game and not be able to progress any further--which would be quite the detriment to my plan to complete as many games in my backlog as possible this year.