Dissidia Playing Log; Part 4

Hello, Space Monkees!

I fear that these posts are going to grow shorter and shorter as I run out of comments to make about the game's system. So I'll leave all that with this final word: having variable levels and abilities in a fighting game is complete rubbish. Being able to customize your character is indeed a good idea, but ultimately it should only be used in a limited manner; as in, streamlining the character to fit your fighting style. That's it. There should never be a situation in any fighting game in which it is mathematically impossible to defeat your opponent. Whoever thought of this RPG-fighting system was off his rocker. I knew I would hate this element of Dissidia, and this is why I avoided playing it up until now.

But at least its not a deal breaker... I think. I still haven't played (and most likely never will play) another human being, so I don't know how one of those battles might go. My worst fear is that in order to be at all competitive in this game you need to level up to 100 or something. Other than that, it is very cool to fight Advent Children-style battles in the middle of some crazy battlefield. And even though the camera is a broken mess, luckily the game avoids corners so its only a problem in one map.

Now onto Cecil.

"Final Fantasy IV" is not a great game. In fact, I'm a little unsure if I can even call it a good game. "Passable" might be the only word for it, though I'm leaning more towards just calling it straight-up "bad". However, if you wanted to hear my opinions of that game, you should probably read my walkthrough, which is here: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Walkthrough:Final_Fantasy_IV/BlueHighwind . So honestly whatever happens to the FFIV characters is not going to make me care one bit. Actually, I'm more interested in the "Final Fantasy VIII" portion that FFIV, and should be shocking to anyone who has heard me go on for hours about how much FFVIII sucks. At this point I'm just playing through the chapter as quickly as possible to get on to something more interesting, like "Final Fantasy VI". ("Final Fantasy V" isn't very interesting either.)

The storyline of Destiny Odyssey IV is a return to the regular nonsense we saw before Onion Knight's section. Cecil and his big bro, Golbez, are the enemies this time. The only weird thing is, Golbez is actually on the side of Cosmos. So actually they have absolutely nothing to fight about, and the only thing that's keeping them fighting is... I don't know. Its never really made clear why characters fall into one side or the other. Mr. Zaku-Face is not evil, all he ever seems to do is guide along the heroes towards self-discovery, which is metaphorically represented by a Crystal. Cecil's bit of self-discovery is that he should not rely on his friends, or something. It isn't explained well. In fact, Cosmos is started to piss me off in spite of her ridiculous hotness due to the fact that you can never seem to get a straight answer out of her. She just says something cryptic, and somehow this inspires one of her heroes who then goes out to beat up one of Chaos's warriors. For example, Cecil goes out and kicks Golbez's ass for no particular reason. Then a Crystal appears, chapter over.

I think awards must be given out to Destiny Odyssey IV since it marked something of a turning point for me. I finally got so sick of this nonsense dialogue that I decided to skip a cutscene, specifically the one right before Cecil fights Golbez. Don't worry though, I saw the asskicking segment.

Cecil Harvey has a unique fighting style in Dissidia in that he's actually something of two characters in one. He can switch between his Dark Knight and Paladin forms by performing an HP attack in either the air or the ground. I kinda wish the game thought up a more convenient switching system, because sometimes I don't want to attack, I just want to switch forms. HP attacks leave you open for a counterattack right after you use them, so it can be dangerous to even switch forms. The difference between Dark Knight and Paladin is basically this: Paladin fights better in the air, Dark Knight fights better on the ground. And since in this game I seem to be constantly in the air, I used the Paladin form more. Dark Knight Cecil at least has a ranged attack, that's sort of useful. Beyond that, he's a good physical attacker, better than Onion Knight. Even so, I think I like my little Vegetable Buddy better in the end.

That's all for that. In other news, I bought the alternate costumes for Onion Knight and Terra so that they'll show up in the correct form. Onion Knight now has Luneth's hair cut so that I can pretend I'm playing as the real hero from FFIII, and Terra has green hair. Some people seem to be under the mistaken idea that Terra is actually blond, such as art designers for this game and FFVI. But if you actually play FFVI, you'll know that she very obviously has green hair, more a teal really.

Discussion over. Green hair. Shut up.