BearCracker's Blog

I guess this is a better place than any to whine about the games I'm playing. Well, I loved the first Dissidia to death. It was a simple fighting game that had a great soundtrack, some fun characters, and a somewhat interesting story. So, here's my question Squeenix: What the hell happened here!? Dissidia 012 is absolutely terrible. I was looking forward to a bunch of new characters and an awesome prequel to the original game. What I got was a bunch of crap characters and one of the worst cash-ins in writing history.

Let's look at the new characters:

FFIV - Kain - Spoiler, he betrays people. Anyone who played FF4 can tell you that. We knew it was going to happen from the moment he was announced. To add to that, he's really awkward to control. His jump is kind of cool I guess. And why is he purple? He's supposed to be a shade of aqua.
FFV - Gilgamesh - Haven't gotten him yet, looks promising.
FFVI - NO ONE - SERIOUSLY!? How can you drop the ball on this one? VI has the biggest cast in FF history and you give us NO ONE!? If you were so worried about someone being another copy-cat character, then add Edgar with his tools! It's not that hard!
FFVII - Tifa - Fun character to play, but her voice is still annoying. And the way she talks is just...ugh.
FFVIII - Laguna - I knew Laguna would be my favorite the moment he was announced. He's fun to play, cheap as nuts, funny, and has a great actor.
FFIX - NO ONE - AGAIN!? Not even Quina!? What the hell is wrong with you!?
FFX - Yuna - Overpowered, not even interesting. She looks pretty and is unique at least.
FFXI - Prische - Haven't gotten them, don't care about XI.
FFXII - Vaan - Okay, who seriously wanted Vaan? I'll give him this, he's more interesting in 012 than he was in XII. And the only way I can stand him is if he's in his alternate where he's wearing a shirt. As for gameplay, he's just a more clunkier version of Firion. And not nearly as interesting.

FFXIII - Lightning- Okay, my biggest gripe about 012. Before I go on, I just want to say I was one of the few who actually enjoyed XIII. It was fun and entertaining even if it was different and not all that great. However, Square's incessant need to stuff Lightning down my throat has gone beyond annoying. She was never that interesting of a character! Even Square admited it themselves that she was nothing more than a "Female Cloud." And not even the good Cloud! The crappy Kingdom Hearts/Advent Children Cloud! She's not clever or funny, she's just a bitch.

When you start the story, you're playing as Lightning who is traveling with the new characters. ALL THEY CAN SAY IS HOW MUCH THEY JUST LOOOOOOOOOOVE LIGHTNING AND HOW COOL SHE IS AND THEY WANT TO BE JUST LIKE HER! It was painful to listen to, it made me want to toss my PSP out my window! If Square had just not added their own characters having fangasms over her, I would probably be okay. She has a scene later with the Warrior of Light that was actually pretty cool, and I enjoyed it. But when the other characters are fainting at the sight of her, it's officially become worse than fan fiction.

/rant

I'll give her this: She has an alternate costume that makes her look like the lead character from The Third Birthday which is actually pretty hot. Which reminds me, I really need to try the Parasite Eve games.

Alright, the other game I've been playing is Final Fantasy IV Complete. This would probably be the 50th time I've played this game, and that's not even an exaggeration. IV was the first RPG I ever played. I didn't like it at first and proceeded to play Chrono Trigger instead, and would later pick up IX. Years later I would go back and play IV again and fall deeply in love with it. To this day it's my favorite of the FF series, right after that being VI and IX. Playing it again, well, you're going to have to add a lot to keep me interested for the fifty-first time.

The graphics are gorgeous. They're using a similar graphic style to the PSP version of FFI and II. They look fantastic and the game loads up really smoothly. I haven't gotten to play a whole lot (I'm about to go fight the Antlion), but so far I'm enjoying it. Is it the best installment in FFIV? No, absolutely not. It's probably the best version to get a casual player into. It's the easiest of all the versions I've played so far (and IV was notorious for being ridiculously hard). However, I still think the DS versioin, though super-deformed, was the best version for its voice acting, cinematics, and original difficulty. Though I wouldn't condemn anyone for picking the PSP version instead, it's just my personal preference.

The part that makes this version "Complete" is the addition of FFIV Interlude and After Years. Interlude is a new campaign that takes place between the original game and After Years. After Years is a sort of continuation, following Cecil's kid. It was originally in an episodic format on the WiiWare. I never got to play it, so finally being able to do so has me excited. However, I've heard that the difficulty is really easy too, but I think I can live with that.

So, in short: Don't bother with Dissidia 012, if you've never played FFIV get the new PSP version instead of 012.

Imma try to get ahold of Third Birthday this week and jump into the Parasite Eve series. Also, Mass Effect 2 DLC comes out later today. I'm excited for that, too!