.000015 Seconds of Fame

So when Joystiq was looking for the most ridiculous and pathetic sign of Final Fantasy fanboy whining, what ever person could they pick other than me, the Big Dog?  In their article "Begin complaining, because Vaan is in Dissidia Duodecim", which documents the fanbase's reaction to the awful crime that is the combination of Vaan, the piss-poor so-called-"hero" of "Final Fantasy XII" and "Dissidia 2", they decided to take one of my GameFAQs posts!!  (I use the name "BlueDragmire" on their forums because my regular sig was taken somehow.)  Which sadly... is the most famous I've ever gotten.  But its something!  Its an honor to have my childish overreactions to a design decisions to a game I don't even want to play featured like this.

This is... this is the happiest day of my life.  (sniff)  Its so beautiful.  There's so many people I need to thank.  I need to thank Square Enix for making a game that just connected with me in no way a game ever has - turning me into a raving lunatic.  I need to thank my Mom, Dad, and Grandma, for always being there for me, showing me that even though I may be pretty ridiculous right now, I can always go further.  And I need to thank the Academy for always having such cliched speeches that are so easy to parody for a cheap gag.

YES!

Dissidia Playing Log: Part 9

Hello, Space Monkees!

I BEAT THE GAME!!  Oh yeah!

Following the end of the ten unsatisfying Destiny Odyssey chapters, the game then opens up the four-part finale epic called "Shade Impulse".  Instead of blindly running around collecting Crystals and finding themselves, the heroes now have to band together to save the world without the help of their fallen sexy Goddess.  You see, thanks to an extremely convoluted series of events that will take me until Christmas 2010 to explain, finding the Crystals has killed Cosmos, and now "the Great Will" (whatever that is) has decided that Chaos will win the war.  And being a Final Fantasy villain, Chaos has decided to end existence so that he doesn't have to feel so lonely anymore.  Pretty much par for the course then.

So this is looking good, the tension has finally been picked up, we get to see plenty more of Keith David, and its all flying towards an explosive final battle.  Indeed this is finally where Dissidia picks up.  Took it long enough.  So you run forward through the enemy boards, slowly killing off all ten Chaos villains one by one until finally you fly right into Chaos, for a three-part ultimate boss battle... which has some of the lamest and most inappropriate final boss music ever - but its still epic!  Keith David drowns out the music, so no worries!  Beat him, and then all the heroes return to their own worlds.  Except for the Warrior of Light, who then marches off to Cornelia in what I believe is the start of "Final Fantasy I".  That's pretty awesome right there.

Easily the best part of these chapters, and indeed, the entire game for that matter, is the touching ways that the story sends off the villains once they're killed.  Unfortunately, only three of said scenes are mandatory in the main storyline:  Garland, the Emperor, and (weirdly) Exdeath.  For the rest, you have to load up the chapters with the right characters.  So if you want to watch Sephiroth's big moment, you have to fight him as Cloud.  I, still going with Onion Knight, only got to see the one for Cloud of Darkness.  Luckily we live in a modern age, so if you want to see Kefka's end, go to Youtube and find the right video. Saves mr a Hell of a lot of trouble in leveling up the other characters who I've been neglicting.

Anyway, here's a few final scattered comments I need to make about the storyline:

• No, I have no idea what the heck is going on half the time either.  Everything is left really vague, characters are mentioned in passing, random dialogue is thrown around without any explanation.  This is all in anticipation of a sequel, I imagine.  Watch, much like the Kingdom Hearts series, things are going to get more and more complicated, darker, and more absurd in Dissidia 2.  Though I'd follow Kingdom Hearts straight down into Hell if it goes there, I don't think I'd follow a possible Dissidia series for that long.
• All game, the Emperor from "Final Fantasy II" had been built up, with plenty of claims about how he'll "be greater than the Gods" or whatever.  All this time they've made such a big screaming deal about his evil scheme... only for it to go nowhere.  He decides to fight the heroes for no good reason, and well, dies.  I'm disappointed.
• I neglected to mention this earlier, but Golbez's voice sounds ten times better in this game than in "Final Fantasy IV DS".  It was bugging me why, until I caved and looked it up.  He's changed voice actors.  Power to you, Golbez.
• The way this game treats the "Final Fantasy VII" characters, even in the end, is completely lame.  But I can accept them being out of the spotlight, this is supposed to be an ensemble piece.  Still, I would have liked to see more out of Sephiroth instead of just recycled lines from old games.
• During the end credits, there's a long orchestral piece made out of tunes from the main series.  Its like traveling through time, watching the series' evolution through the years.  Sort of like we're watching the series grow up from the mediocre NES games to the glory its become...  Well, until "Final Fantasy XI", because everything after that doesn't count as much in the universe of Dissidia.  Which curiously enough leads me to my final word and conclusion on the subject of this game:
• WHERE IS "FINAL FANTASY XII"?????  (Actually this was my original word on this game, so if nothing else I've remained true to who I am.)
  

Gameplay:  Naturally, things get more and more difficult as you go along in Shade Impulse.  You start out fighting enemies at level 20, but by the last few boards of Chapter 3, the enemies are in the 60s and 70s.  I even ran into a level 99 Garland... who I couldn't beat (I suck), so I just restarted that board and ran straight to the real boss.  This is interesting, since you'll run around fighting level 70 regular enemies, then fight the real Sephiroth as a boss, and he'll only be at level 44.  So after huge epic battles where you survive only by the skin of nose, only to fight a boss who is wiped out in ten seconds.  Then for the last two boards before Chaos, the game's difficult suddenly nosedives completely off the radar.  These final enemies are so piss easy that I thought I was playing a Mario game for a brief second there.

With only the slightest bit of level grinding outside the main storyline, I was up to level 70 by the time I ran into Chaos.  So it just wasn't a fair fight at all.  He has three forms...  all of which are more or less exactly the same, though I didn't get to see enough of it to really know.  Here's a play by play.  In the first battle, I guarded against his attack, then killed him with a ground HP attack.  Over in five seconds.  Second battle, took a bit longer, but still won with ease.  Final Battle, Chaos beat me up a bit this time, had me down to 1500 HP, and then started using his Limit Break.  He suddenly grew to five thousand feet tall!  This is no job for the little Onion Knight:  we need Godzilla or the Power Rangers for this!  Luckily he couldn't hit me the first time because I broke his Brave, and the second time I learned how to dodge the attack.  Finished with Comet.  Sorry Onion Knight for doubting your ability to fight five thousand feet tall avatars of pure evil.  You're my little buddy, you know that?

Its a curious thing being much more powerful than the boss you're fighting.  Backwards, to say the least.

Now that I've beaten the main game, Dissidia has finally decided to let loose the FFXII that I've been wishing for all game.  Its just an extra mode where you fight all the main villains then Gabranth, after which you can get him as a character.  I'm playing it now, and rocking out to the Theme of the Empire.  Even so, this is certainly not enough FFXII...  not at all.  Maybe in the sequel it will be properly represented, by which I mean anybody but Vaan.  Also we need some "Final Fantasy XIII" and "Tactics" too come to think of it.

Next on the Log, the very last entry. Its nice we have ten parts, but why have ten, when you can have eleven?
 
Update:  There never will be an eleventh chapter to this.  The FFXII and FFXI sections were so incredibly boring that I simply could not bring myself to write anything about them.  Its like describing a sandwich you kinda enjoyed back in fifth grade.  I don't want to talk about it and nobody wants to hear it.

Dissidia Playing Log: Part 8

How you doing, Space Monkees?

Normally I would be talking about "Final Fantasy VIII"'s chapter of Destiny Odyssey in this post.  However, I have officially run completely out of complaints and comments to make.  I'm done.  I'm finished.  Instead of going through each and every little chapter and delve into what I admit is needlessly savage criticism, I've instead decided to lump all three chapters into one post, and move on to something else.  Honestly, I really do want to get past this whole Dissidia epic and move on to some other topic of posting.

Since I just want Dissidia's plot to finally move on already, I've actually begun to skip cutscenes once the dialogue begins to run dry.  Which is fairly often.  And since I've fought the same twenty enemies about 100 times each now, I've begun to dodge fights too.  I guess ultimately my enthusiasm for this whole thing has begun to wane.  Really, the game needs to jump up into a new level of intensity, both plot-wise and in gameplay.  How many times can you fight a level one Firion while keeping up your personal level of excitement?  Twice?  Maybe if you're really really like disturbingly into "Final Fantasy II" (there has to be at least one guy out there), but for the rest of us, it isn't going to fly for very long.  So what I wanted to do is fly right through the last three chapters and jump into Destiny Odyssey where I'm sure things will finally pick up.

But first, a brief overview of each Chapter.

Plot-wise:  There's nothing to talk about in Destiny Odyssey VIII.  There's nothing to talk about in Destiny Odyssey IX.  I really believe, honestly, that whoever wrote the scripts for these chapters just did not care at all about how they performed on any level.  If you are out there, Japanese person who wrote this game and if you poured your heart and soul into this, I am sorry for being so furious with my critique.  I guess it was somebody else's fault that the shine of your ideas didn't shine through in the finished product.  Or if you just wrote whatever got your check signed, then I guess my suspicion was correct.  And you should definitely find something that you actually care about to do, because you're only hurting others by writing stuff like this.

Surprisingly, and I do mean its a surprise, Destiny Odyssey X is actually one of the better chapters plot-wise.  Because something seems to happen.  Tidus begins his journey hating his dad, Jecht for reasons that you would understand if you played "Final Fantasy X".  By the end of it, he's gained a respect for the old man.  It may be just a replay of that plot line from FFX, but it worked there, and by God it works here.  I never thought I would like Tidus's story, since he's easily my least favorite character to appear in Dissidia.  His narration is as grating as ever, but at least its a nice homage to the original game.  And that's what these chapters should have been:  homages.  As for the others, I just don't see.  Squall kinda gets a lone wolf sort of thing, but there's no love interest to drag him along.  Nothing at all happens to Zidane, which is sad since "Final Fantasy IX" is the second-best game in this compilation.

(I still can't say with a straight face that "Final Fantasy XII" is really in this game.  One bonus character that I can't figure out how to unlock and has appeared once is not enough.)

Characters:  Squall is a brawler, Zidane is quick, and Tidus is some kind of weird compromise character with HP attacks are painfully hard to land.  Tidus is probably the worst of the three, Squall the best.  I'm basically out of things to say here too.

On a completely unrelated note, the pronunciation of Zidane's name bugs me.  For years now, I've read it with a long 'A' (rhymes with "bane"), since in the English language, when you add a silent 'E', that typically makes the vowel after it long.  However, it turns out I've been saying it wrong the whole time.  Its a short 'A' (rhymes with "con").  It just sounds wrong to me.  "Zidon" is such a weird way of saying it.  He sounds like a stuck-up womanizing French guy.  "Hello, my darling.  It is fate that has brought you here to partake in the dance of love with me, the great Zidane."  Why have a silent 'E' in the name if it doesn't do anything?  I don't get it!

So now I've moved onto the final chapter.  Its a four-part epic called "Shade Impulse".  Here the Warriors of Cosmos will have to band together to face off against the victorious Chaos after he killed off their sexy Goddess. So finally the tension has been mounted.  Hopefully, these ten stages have been nothing more than an extended intro for the main course.  The heroes merely had to find themselves before they could move on and face off against the full power of evil.  Now we shall experience full darkness!

PS:  Why do the villains fade away like members of Organization XIII when they die?  And do they even die?  Its very unclear how death works around here.  Sometimes the villains swear revenge, but other times they act like they're being killed off for real, like Jecht did at the end of the last chapter.  I just don't understand...

Dissidia Playing Log: Part 7

Hi, Space Monkees!

I've been playing Dissidia for awhile now, and I've been extremely unhappy with the storyline so far.  Of course, no matter how disappointed I've been with the plot in the past, not a single one of my complaints come anywhere near how absolutely furious I am over the complete and utter waste of a chapter that is Destiny Odyssey VII.  Before, it was just laughs, now its pain.  This chapter is little more than a soup of mental excriment and last-minute ideas.  Its almost as if the inspiration, "Final Fantasy VII", was just not a sufficent source of plot material.  So instead of using that game's excellent and classic plot, they instead went with several conversations on the meaning of fighting, and then they brought up that stupid rose motif again.

I am sick and bloody tired of hearing about that goddamn rose!  The first time they said it, I got a chuckle because of how silly the whole idea was:  your big goal in life is to plant a bunch of flowers?  But now its come up over and over again in every chapter.  By this point, its breaking me down into hysterical tears every time its comes back again.  Even the simplest of simple plots, pure good vs evil, is not this mind numbing!

I mean, why should Cloud Strife, of all people need to sit around contemplating his belly button about his reason to fight.  He's the last person in the world who needs motivation around here.  Let's review his life story:  Cloud was a lonely kid so he used heroic stories of Sephiroth as escapism, but then his childhood hero proceeded to burn down Cloud's village, kill his mother, injure his best friend, nearly kill his childhood love, succeed in killing his second love, take control of Cloud's mind to bring about the apocalypse, come back years later as a disease that infected both Cloud and his adopted children, and nearly kill him about a dozen times.  I mean, isn't that enough?  We don't need any more motivation, game!  Let's just cut to the action already!

But enough complaints, now I shall try to improve!  Here's how Destiny Odyssey VII should have gone.  Cloud is really pissed off at Sephy for all the awful shit that's happened to him.  So, just like in FFVII, Cloud spends the entire chapter in a mad furious dash after his foe.  But then, in maybe by the fourth section, Cloud finally confronts Sephiroth, but it turns out he's actually has been used as a puppet this entire time.  Cloud has a bit of emotional turmoil, which is solved from some cryptic comments from Cosmos or Golbez - doesn't matter what the advise is or who says it.  He then goes after Sephiroth, beats him, gets the Crystal.  Simple, simple, simple.  Basically just a replay of FFVII's story, only with the other games' characters hanging around.  This should have been the best chapter of the lot!  Instead its just worthless!

Who the Hell wrote this game?  I really do need to talk with the guy who wrote these lines, because there are a few conversations in this game that just don't make any sense at all.  Cloud and Sephiroth's big confrontation is a masterpiece of confusing dialogue.  There's not a line, not a single line that I could completely figure out.  I can't help but feel that this doesn't make any sense in the original Japanese either.

It doesn't help that any quality of the voice acting is ruined by the worst case of Lip Lock syndrome I've ever seen - even worse than "Final Fantasy X"!  Lip Lock is a way of dubbing foreign language works by making the English sentences fit the mouth motions of the original language, the other way is "Godzilla-style" where you just ignore it  alland have the characters speak with no relation to the motion of their mouths.  Done with skill, and you won't even notice it like "Final Fantasy XII" (even then, it wasn't perfect), done badly, and you get this.  There are some pauses in the dialogue here that are long enough to fit a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier through.  How did they mess up the dubbing so badly in this game?  They had nine months to localize this internationally.  Nine months!  You couldn't find a way to make the dialogue move more naturally?  You couldn't use that time to go back and reanimate the mouth motions to avoid this problem?  Remember, this is a handheld game; half the time I can't even see the mouths that clearly.  You lose a lot more than you gain.  And when you have awkward pauses on dialogue spoken on a character facing away from the the screen, then I get pissed.

Well anyway, let's move on to something that doesn't annoy me as much.  Umm... Cloud himself as a playable character!  He's okay, a nice brawler.  A little too easy to dodge though.  I really didn't get to try him out all that well since Destiny Odyssey VII is the easiest chapter in this entire game.  I think he could be more useful after some more moves are learned.  Onion Knight is still my boy!

I also played this chapter using the Command Style gameplay.  You see, Dissidia is an action game marketed towards a fanbase that plays RPGs.  So I guess Square Enix thought that maybe some players would be so weak at playing video games from using menus their entire lives that they couldn't control an action game.  (Square Enix does not view its players with very much respect.)  So instead of direct control of your character, you get a command window like in a turn-based RPG.  Yeah... I think that's the stupidest idea ever too.  But it was worth at least one try.  Its garbage, forget about it.  The computer does react surprisingly well to your commands.  It actually works a lot better than I thought it would.  But you still lose direct control, and the computer is a moron sometimes.  I lost to Sephiroth about six times because when I ordered Cloud to use an HP attack, he would just use it six miles away from his foe, leaving him wide open for a counterattack.  So unless you only have one hand to play with, I recommend using the normal gameplay.

So that's that...  I was warned that this game would only get worse, and it looks like it did.  At this point I have absolutely no hope for the last few chapters, but as long as the gameplay stays acceptable I can deal with a shitty storyline.  I'm going to finish this bitch, one way or another.

Dissidia Playing Log: Part 6

Hello, Space Monkees!!!!

Welcome to part six of the possibly endless playing log of "Dissidia Final Fantasy". So far we've had a few laughs, quite a bit of tears, and if I must admit, more enjoyment out of this title than I expected. But merely beating my incredibly low expectations cannot be enough for a final judgment, oh no. The show must go on! Enter "Final Fantasy VI".

In the past, I may have badmouthed "Final Fantasy VI" quite a bit, but that's what I do really. When you're writing a walkthrough on Wiki, basically the only thing to keep your brain from leaping out through your eye sockets is to entertain yourself by criticizing every little detail of the game. Also, its just a lot of fun to argue with people over whether FFVI or FFVII is better (the answer is obvious - VII, and everybody who thinks otherwise is filthy and wrong). What we have here is an excellent game, the second-best RPG you'll find if you're deathly afraid of 3D graphics and all innovation in human society since about 1995. I overuse the world "classic" in these tales, but that's only because there are just so many things to call classic in this wonderful world of fiction, and FFVI definitely is a classic.

Its just too bad they didn't make it in 3D... or with voice acting. Impossible back then, but certainly possible now! However, Square Enix, if you get the idea to remake FFVI, be sure to do so after that FFVII remake I've been waiting for since the PS3 launched. Thanks, you're a peach, Square.

So here we are, finally Dissidia needs to handle something with care, because if they mess this up, I'm actually going to get mad this time. You see, before I really couldn't care less what say, Cecil did or didn't do. I was actually pleasantly surprised about how well Onion Knight turned out to be. But this time, you might be in for some serious FANBOY RAGE!! Remember all that bitching I did about Terra's hair color? Yeah, it can be pretty ridiculous at times.

Terra Branford is weirdly enough the only female protagonist in this entire series - so far. The as yet unreleased in English "Final Fantasy XIII" has Lightning, but she's not in this game, so I don't know why I even brought her up. All its going to do is annoy me that she's not here. Anyway, being the only girl, for some reason Dissidia makes her out at first to be a character that is in desperate need of being protected. A kid, Onion Knight, purely thanks to his ownership of a penis, comes into the idea that he must guard her from all the evils of this game. And he fails pretty quickly because it just wouldn't be any fun to play as Terra if her allies did all the fighting for her. Here Terra is very wispy and unsure of herself, which is exactly how she acted in FFVI, to my annoyance at times. But at the very least some actually events occur in this chapter. She get's mind controlled, then snaps out of it by kicking Cloud Strife's buttocks. And you get to play as her while she's very briefly working for evil! Yay! Finally some nice moral grey area.

Of course, my happy feelings are ruined by what has to be the single worst dialogue scene in pretty much anything when Cloud and Terra discuss... (sigh) dreams. Yeah, we're back to Firion's ridiculous fantasy about filling the world with roses. Except Terra wants to put in other flowers. Is this what this game is really about? The epic struggle between light and dark is all a dispute over gardening? Hey, Terra, if you want some flowers, I can get you some flowers. Its a simple walk maybe three blocks, BAM, you're at a flower store. What do you want? Poinsettias? Lilies? Orchids? I can get them for you like that. Give me a few hours and you'll have a very nice little grove. This is not a life's ambition here, nor a reason to save the world.

Plus, Terra's big lesson to learn is that you need a "dream" to live a full life. Of course, Kefka has a dream. He says it every few seconds - he wants to destroy everything. He has his shit figured out. Merely having an ambition is not a good thing on its own. Who was the moron who wrote this storyline? Is this really what Final Fantasy was all about this whole time? Perhaps it was all a waste of time on my part.

.......yeah, that may be going a tad bit too far. Let's change the subject.

GAMEPLAY! Terra is something of a beast when it comes to gameplay. Her HP attacks are very difficult to dodge, and have excellent range. Tornado will hit anybody anywhere near Terra, and if you can get them stuck in a corner you can just repeat this move over and over again until they stop twitching. And Flood hits any character at any distance, no matter how far away you are from Terra. Unless you jump away, you're going to get hit by it. Her magic is just nothing to be trifled with, as Terra is a monster at a distance. Her main Brave attack is this Blizzard bullet, like Firion's, only hers can deal real damage. However, Terra's only physical combo is a complete waste, absolutely awful. With this combination, beating her chapter is a breeze - and its supposedly just as hard as Destiny Odyssey I!

I think I still like Onion Knight better. Then again, I can't really judge any of these characters since I still haven't unlocked even half of their moves.

Well, floral adventures aside, I'm actually very excited about the next couple of chapters. Next up is my favorite game out of the ten, FFVII! Its only by default since "Final Fantasy XII" isn't around in full, but that will do. And even better, the game gave me a preview of what looked like a battle between Squall and Warrior of Light! Could it be a real plot development to something more interesting? I sure hope so! Dissidia could pull out a win in the end anyway!

Dissidia Playing Log: Part 5

Hello, Space Monkees!!!

Careening out of the mediocrity of "Final Fantasy IV", we now enter the brand new mediocrity of "Final Fantasy V". FFV is the kind of game that you play halfway subconsciously while on an airplane. It really only deserves half your attention while playing it, because really there's nothing to actually warrant the focus of every brain cell in your skull. There isn't much of a plot, honestly you can't say its much deeper than FFIII. At least there are characters this time, and one of them is easily the greatest character to appear in this series before the advent of the PlayStation - the one, the only, Mr. Battle on the Big Bridge, GILGAMESH!!! At the very least the battle system is quite good; far deeper and enjoyable than that load of shit that FFIV was trying to pass off as entertainment. This is the best Final Fantasy title there ever was... well, before the series started getting actually good.

So how has Dissidia done in transferring the feel of this early 90s 2D game to the modern 3D world? Terribly. Why? There's only one reason. I have one complaint with how Dissidia treated this game, one complaint: no Gilgamesh. Why in God's name would you not have Gilgamesh appear in your celebration title of the Final Fantasy universe? Are you seriously going to try to stare me right in the eye and say with complete honestly that Exdeath deserves to be here more than his lovable incompetent right-hand man? You can't. You screwed up, admit it.

Getting past that little bit of a personal issue I have, we will now move on to talking about the FFV representative for Destiny Odyssey V.

Bartz Klauser was not a well-crafted, deeply developed character back when he first appeared on the Super Nintendo. In fact, he has only one personality trait to speak of - he's kinda stupid. Remember, FFV did not really have a plot (I honestly believe they made up the entire thin storyline on the fly after the game had been put together), so you're lucky to get even that. In his newest appearance, he's retained his denseness. There is no lesson for Bartz to learn, I doubt he'd be able to even comprehend it. Instead all he does is race against "Final Fantasy IX"'s hero, Zidane to get a Crystal first, and wind up getting tricked by his arch nemesis, Exdeath. Then he fights said arch nemesis, and wins his Crystal. So I guess the game managed to boil down FFV's plot style by making it all really thin, and completely pointless.

Also, the game never does tell you who won the race. It bugs me.

As a playable character, Bartz is supposed to represent the Mime Job Class from his game. Mimes were definitely one of the best classes out there, since they had a few more slots for you to put in magic commands. FFV had like seven kinds of magic, and they all took up a slot on your command menu, so Mimes were perfect for mages in this respect. Oddly, Bartz is not a mage, but rather a physical fighter. What he does is mimic the combos of other fighters. So he'll swing around the swords of his fellow Light Warriors. It is indeed very cool to start off a combo with Cloud's Buster Sword and end it by shooting an opponent into the sky with Squall's Gunblade. Though being a Mimic I though that I could copy the actions of my opponents somehow, or at least add their swords into my combos. Dissidia has no such system, the Mimic thing is nothing more than visual style. Bartz actually fights like all the others. He's more of a physical fighter than anything else, and he's quite speedy. All of his HP attacks are borrowed from allies, but they're pre-set, so you can't decide which ones the game gives you. I'd love to have Terra's "Tornado" and Onion Knight's "Comet", but its all up to game as to which ones I might end up with. I saw Cecil's "Darkness" attack and a "Wind Shear" attack. I don't know which character that last one came from.

One thing I do like about Bartz is his EX Mode. Three stars appear over his head like you'd see in FFV's menu when you Mastered a Job Class. Then his Limit Break is named after my favorite strategy for FFV's endgame: Spellblade + Dual Wield + Rapid Fire. That right there is the recipe you need to defeating all of FFV's endless numbers of superbosses and difficult enemies in the last dungeon. If you do it correctly, you'll get eight hits, just like that combo would pull off.

Ultimately, I still like Onion Knight better. Though I've tried out Terra, and she can be quite lethal. Perhaps when I enter the glory of "Final Fantasy VI" this game will finally start to pick up? Ask anybody, Final Fantasies VI - X were much better than I - V. So I'm sure that the game will be much better after this to reflect upon that trend. Or maybe not... We shall see. We shall see.

By the way, I've bought all twenty characters. Now all that remains are those two secret characters. I guess to unlock them you have to beat the game or something. So let's get right on it then! Destiny Odyssey VI is next. You're going down, Kefka!

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.

Dissidia Playing Log: Part 3

Hello, Space Monkies!

"Final Fantasy III" was without a doubt the best Final Fantasy title on the original Nintendo, and it was certainly a treat to play back when it came out... if you were Japanese. You understand that the game took no less than sixteen years to finally be released outside of Japan, and even than only a Nintendo DS remake. Not that there's anything wrong with remakes, the original NES versions of these games are absolute abominations to look at and play - even the most deluded and nostalgic man in the world has to admit that. FFIII was not without things that really pissed me off (no Save Points within dungeons, and a seriously fucked-up magic system), and it didn't have a plot - at all. But it still holds enough love in my heart for me to care a great deal more about it than the earlier two games. Hearing the overworld theme play in Dissidia was a nice moment for me.

The hero of Destiny Odyssey III is "a boy with the legendary title of Onion Knight", instead of the game's actual hero, Luneth. I guess they went with this anonymous blond character with candy stuck in his air over grey-haired Luneth because Luneth was an original character created for the DS remake. So bully for you Japanese who could play the original Japan-only version. Even so, I came to like this Onion Kid, even if the "legendary" title of Onion Knight is a total Narm-fest. He travels around with "Final Fantasy VI"'s heroine, Terra, protecting her from Chaos's many baddies. I don't know why mighty Terra, master of gamebreaking magic combos needs protecting, but that's a minor issue. Not-Luneth's mantra is simple: "don't fight battles you know you can't win", and I have to agree with him. At one point Onion Breath runs into Exdeath, and decides inexplicably that this foe is too much for him. So instead of fighting Onion geodes Exdeath's immense ego and makes the idiotic villain go home without a sword being drawn.

Stuff like that is what makes this chapter far superior in pretty much every way plot-wise to the other two. Onion Knight and Terra actually seem to have some kind of comradely and a real relationship. Something actually happens this time instead of just empty running from place to place ending up with a Crystal gained. I mean yeah, that happens too, but at least actual events take place. You see, Terra is still suffering from her mind control problem, which Kefka is all too willing to exploit with the help of the half-naked Cloud of Darkness. (It can't be a fighting game without fanservice.) She is eventually turned into a puppet by the enemy, and during the game you wind up fighting her! Yeah, you're fighting one of the good guys! Its pretty sad that this game has gotten by expectations down that low that this little bit is enough to get me excited. Onion Knight gets a pep talk from Cosmos, and then saves her. It isn't the most complex plotline, but its better than merely passable. This is an example of what the first two chapters should have been like.

I mean yeah, the moral of Onion Knight's story does amount to basically "ignore reason and listen to your heart", but I can forgive even that load of nonsense pseudo-philosophy with a plot this good. Its all balanced out by a few scenes of Kefka acting completely bonkers as usual.

Fighting wise Onion Knight is probably my favorite character so far. He has a nice bit of speed and great air and ground combos. Even better, magic actually can deal some damage this time! Best of all is his aerial HP move, "Comet". You aim Onion Knight's furry of deadly magic meteors, giving you a much better chance of hitting your target. I think its range is a little less than what Firion's HP attack could do, but range is an acceptable trade-off for precision guidance. The only problem I have with Onion Knight is that his Brave combos are incredibly weak, and they don't seem to ever send the opponent flying.

What really makes me happy is Onion Knight's Limit Break. While in EX Mode, he'll change Job Class to either Ninja or Sage (sadly my favorite Job Class, Dragoon, is not included). Previous Limit Brakes had generic systems for pulling them off: spam the O button, hit this combination on the D-pad, the usual. But Onion Knight has this system where you have to enter turn-based RPG style menus and look for the right spell or item to use. Its great to see this game have a sense of humor and parody the difficulty of menu-fighting that this series is all too-often guilty of. Man, I have plenty of horror stories about rushing through the menus to find the write spell and accidently hitting "Death", wasting my turn.

Random battle system complain time: EX Cores. These items will randomly appear on the stage and will boost up your ability to go into EX Mode. However, they appear in random spots, usually very far away from where you're fighting. Its impossible to find them if you can't see them, but the Computer characters can naturally sense their locations. So as soon as Core comes into play, they'll make a B-line for them before you can even react. Usually I'm so focused on fighting that I miss the message. The only times you'll get a Core is when they appear right before you. So the computer will go into EX Mode about twice as often as you will. This wouldn't be a problem against a human, but alas, I'm all alone here. Looking at the comments for these entries proves that fact.

So altogether, this was a much better chapter for me. I'm still not 100% sold on any one character yet, and I have been trying them all out. I just need a few more hundred PP and I can get the last four villains to play as. Next up is Cecil from "Final Fantasy IV". Can his Dissidia appearance prove to be more satisfying than that circus of mediocrity that was FFIV?

SHAPE THE FUTURE!! ROW ROW, FIGHT THE POWAH!!

Dissidia Playing Log: Part 2

Hi, Space Monkees!

Here we are in part 2 of the running log of my Dissidia experience. This time we're delving deep into the utter mediocrity that was "Final Fantasy II" by playing as the rebel against the Evil Empire, Firion. FFII wasn't exactly a bad game... it was just frustrating, and confusing, and had barely a storyline, and was just a waste of time. Okay, it was something of a bad game, but that's not what we're talking about here! Its Dissidia time!

Firion is played by none other than Johnny Yong Bosch, of "Trigun", "Power Rangers", "Devil May Cry 4", "Last Exile", "Akira", "Eureka Seven", "Code Geass", and "Bleach" fame. If you have an anime, and it needs an English voice actor for its protagonist, then Johnny is your man. He's pretty much the only man who could possibly make a non-character like Firion sound at all compelling. And he doesn't really suceed. I don't care if you're Sir Alec Guinness, Commander of the Order of the British Empire himself, you can't possibly deliver lines like "I dream of a world filled with beautiful roses" without making me bust a gut. At the very least, I liked Firion a lot more than Warrior of Light personality-wise. And he at least had some semblance of a character, so there's that. You'll still get annoying soul searching lines and angst, which is frankly neither needed or required. I fear that the entire game is going to be like this.

One thing that bugs me about this game is the locations. All fighting games have only a few stages, that's normal. In this game, all the stages are locations within the final dungeon. So you got the bottom of the Northern Crater, the floating castle in the Rift, and the throne room in the Temple of Chaos. Its all okay, and in fact kinda cool to seem them in full 3D. But its not just the fighting that takes place in these spots - its every action in the entire game. Supposedly Firion and his companion, the protagonist from "Final Fantasy X", Tidus are on a journey someplace. But they never make any kind of progress. You're always just shifting around these same spots. The only movement takes place on the game board, there's no real visual clue that any progress is being made. There's hardly a plot either, you just wander around, fighting pallet swaps. Right before boss fights the game remembers that there's a storyline and you'll have a bit of dialogue.

Then again, this is a fighting game, so why the hell am I going on and on about the storyline?

Let's talk more about gameplay. During the battles, you'll find every so often that one character will be launched into the air. This starts a little sequence where both fighters will float next to each other trying to get a hit off. Most of the time the computer will be too dumb to remember that it can dodge, but sometimes if its supposed to be at a high level, it will dodge every strike before giving off a pity hit after like the eightieth time. This worries me since I imagine that if you get two really skilled players into this floating thing, both guys will just dodge each others attacks forever. Also, HP attacks are really freaking slow to charge, they'll take you almost an eternity to get going.

Onto Firion specifically. In FFII, you can basically move things around in a complicated system so that pretty much any character can perform any role. I made Firion my healer/weak attacker. In this game, they seem to have decided to make him the ranged fighter. That's fine, only that his ranged attacks are terrible. You can only perform real Brave Attack combos on the ground - if you're in the air, even just by a foot, he'll instead use this horrible weak homing Ice spell. The ground combos are okay, only that the buttons are terribly confusing. Firion can use more long range combo if you hit Square, but he'll use combo without any range when you hit Square and nudge the nubby thing a bit. Its the exact opposite of what you might expect, and trust me, you'll never get used to it. His only HP attack is "Straightarrow", a super long-range attack that can snipe targets from across the stage. However, with unlimited range comes a really slow charge, and enough distance so that any good player will know to dodge it.

I hear that Firion grows more useful after he's learned more abilities. This doesn't make me any happier since this is a fighting game, remember?? I shouldn't have to learn my abilities! They should be there right from the start! Checking on my former wiki, the only way to unlock those abilities is to level up, in some cases up to level 40 or so. During the course of a chapter, you only gain about ten levels, so I have no clue how in the world the game expects me to get up to level 100.

With this in mind, I decided to try out the Arcade Mode, hoping that in this mode all the abilities would be already unlocked. I can't say if they did, since all the battles basically went exactly the same. I still can't find all the button combos. Other than that, the Arcade Mode is actually a lot more fun than the main game. You don't have to deal with any of that annoying game board or cutscenes. Instead its just a rush mode, you fight five opponents and then you're the champion. And its real characters this time, none of those silly pallet swap crystal things. That makes it all the more satisfying. Too bad the only way to unlock a more difficult Arcade Mode is to buy one. Why does everything in this game have to be unlocked beforehand? The characters, the moves, the chapters, even equipment, character icons, and I think even some stages. Its almost like the game doesn't really want to be played - like its trying to stop me by putting up all these barriers.

Before I leave, I must first depart a nice little horror story from the game. In the second stage, you run into an enemy that is about twice your level. Its a pallet swap of Exdeath, the "Final Fantasy V" villain. I've heard that Exdeath is the joke character of the game, but man this enemy is hard! He starts out with twice as many Brave Point as you have, and no matter how many combos you perform you can never Break him. Breaking is this mechanic in the game where you destroy all the enemies Brave Points, which cripples their ability to use any HP attacks, and greatly boosts your own Brave. That points you in prime position to go on the real offensive and crush them with a serious HP hit. But this time, no matter how many combos you perform, you'll only take out many 100 - then he'll regenerate them somehow. I don't know how it works really. But if you get anywhere near him, eventually Exdeath will pull off a combo of his own, giving him well over 1000 Brave Points, more than enough to toast your ass. The number of Brave Points is equal to the strength of your HP attack. I tried fighting him every which way until eventually I found the only strategy that worked. Instead of fighting him directly, I stayed far away and spammed "Straightarrow". Your Brave always returns to around 130, so you can keep on doing damage. Exdeath has 2500 HP. That means you need to hit him twenty times at least to win. Annoying, yes. But I still beat him. And there is no better satisfaction than pounding that peon's face into the ground.

So that's really all I got to say for now. Next up is a character from "Final Fantasy III" who strangely is not Luneth, the main character. We got a better character this time in Firion, but he's worse gameplay-wise. Hopefully FFIII can deliver both. Even if it doesn't, I'm on this train 'til the bitter end!

Dissidia Playing Log: Part 1

Hello, Space Monkees!

First thing I have to report is probably the coolest discovery I've made about this game so far. You can reverse the game's cover! So in case you want the villains on your PSP box instead of the good guys, here's your option.

After an unbelievably easy and slightly too long prologue tutorial session, the game opened up no less than ten playable chapters for me to enter. Each one is based around the ten main characters of the first ten games of the main series, and they're all named "Destiny Odyssey" in that old timey pretentious Final Fantasy spirit. So for the very chapter, I decided to go for "Destiny Odyssey I" since according to its name, it was the very first chronologically. I mean, it sure looks like the very first chapter, since it has the roman numeral for one in the title.

Turns out that is not the case. In fact, I just played through the last chapter, and possibly the most difficult. The game gives you little stars at the bottom of every storyline to warn you about difficulty, but I just ignored it. I was not going to let five red stars stop me from playing this game in the right order. And so I jumped right in, once again playing as the Warrior of Light, one of the playable characters from "Final Fantasy I". Yes, his name actually is "Warrior of Light".

On the Warrior of Light: first of all, I'm glad to see that Dissidia has been faithful to the non-existent character of Warrior from FFI by leaving this character a completely uninteresting and one-note jumble of dullness. I think the guy knows about three lines: its either "Cosmos!", "I want my Crystal.", or "I'm going to end this war." That's really all we got about this guy. He wants to save the world for the Goddess of Light, Cosmos, by getting his Crystal. Along the way several villains pop up to try to discourage him, but they are wasting they're time. They don't know that Warrior of Light is basically a robot, with no other programming but to fight evil and get his Crystal. And its not like his voice acting is doing Warrior any favors either. Not to mention that this script has dialogue so embarrassing that there are times that I wish I could switch the language over to Japanese. For example: Warrior comes in and meets Sephiroth. Sephiroth decides to ask him really stupid questions like "Why do you fight?" This would call for a snappy answer in my book, but instead Warrior decides to once again tell us why he's fighting, just in case you forgot. Remember the Crystal? Don't worry if you forget, since he's going to remind us about it in every single scene. Then Warrior fights Sephiroth, and they go on their separate ways.

Another thing I have to say about Warrior is this: I'm not entirely sure this guy actually is the main hero of FFI. At the start of the game, you pick out four characters out of six job classes, and one of them indeed is Warrior. But I'm perplexed why Warrior was picked. Anybody who has played FFI will tell you that Monk is a much better physical fighter, Black Mage seems more popular, and White Mage will save your ass more often than anybody else. I think they only went with Warrior just to keep up with this game's theme of heroes with swords. I mean, everybody here has a sword - except like three characters.

At the very least, the battles here finally give a real challenge, and its actually pretty fun to fight. Sometimes. It really depends, since battles here can end in a matter of seconds. I remember that the Sephiroth battle ended in ten seconds flat: I went into some kind of super mode called "EX Mode", used a Limit Break, cut him down, battle over. You wander around each level, which is a board game, fighting pallet-swap enemies and eventually reaching a boss fight. Since Warrior's level happens to be one of the harder ones, the enemies aren't kidding around. Usually they're all many levels above you. So you'll be one level 1, and they're on level 7 at first. It isn't easy, especially when I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing. I just rush in, beat them down with Brave attacks, then mash the HP hitting one.

Warrior happens to really tick me off by having just one HP hitting attack that I could figure out: Light Shield. He takes a million years to charge up a blast of light that most enemies just dodge like its nothing. Actually, I could only figure out two of his moves. That Light Shield thing, and his regular Brave combo. I once got him to do a fireball attack, and I have no idea how I did it. Happily my former wiki is no help at all in figuring out how to perform Warrior's moves, so its onto GameFAQs, which doesn't help either. Great. For most enemies I still win somehow, but for some its just impossible. Jecht is that enemy. He instantly blocks whatever attack I want to use, then crushed me with a Falcon Kick. And I know that I said no more Smash Bros comparisons, but I know a Falcon Kick when I see a Falcon Kick. That's a Falcon Kick. Everybody else I could fight with some competence, though for some enemies I lost... a lot. Sephy's crystal form managed to take me out about seven times because I had to start that battle in critical HP. It was only later that I realized that damage carries over from battle to battle. Also it took me an inexcusably long time to figure out how to run along terrain. I'm just not that good...

So anyway, I still beat it all. I went through Hell and back, but I beat up Garland, the main FFI villain, and took my Crystal. So it is doable. And with one storyline chapter beaten, I can now say with all honesty and integrity that I'd rather be playing Smash Bros. No, no, no, no! Blue, stop it! Smash Bros is gone, forget about that game! We're playing Dissidia! Move on!

...Sorry about that.

Oh, here's a fun bit of spoilers for you. Right after Warrior completes his mission and gets his Crystal, all the other heroes pop up with their own. Actually, you don't even have to play any of their chapters because the game unlocks the final level right after playing this one. However, lets stick to the storyline. During the fifteen minutes or so of pure cutscenes, Cosmos appears before the heroes and is burned to a crisp by her rival God, Chaos. Chaos is this big evil dude with four arms and is played by none other than... KEITH DAVID!! That is so friggin' awesome that I'm almost at a loss for words. I know he's basically a low-rent Lou Gossett Jr., but still, its Kieth David. By the way, he's acting circles around whoever is shaming himself by playing Warrior of Light. Its so refreshing to hear emotion behind lines that I can go on gushing forever.

But I won't. Let's end this here. I do have some other good news. After every battle you win or lose, you get some PP. And with that you can buy the villain characters to use. So first thing I did was buy Sephy and send him out to beat up a super weak Tidus. However, the battle was over after just two combos, so I didn't get any real satisfaction at all.

Next up: Destiny Odyssey II. Me, Firion, and Johnny Yong Bosch are going out to beat up an evil Emperor. Maybe Warrior of Light just isn't my character, maybe the game will get better in other chapters. I'm still hopeful, but is it all in vain? Find out in next part of this series!

Dissidia Playing Log: Prelude

Hello, Space Monkees.

This is the start of what will be a needlessly long and tiresome series of playthrough comments about the recently released fighting RPG, "Dissidia Final Fantasy". I'll be doing a log of every single chapter of the single-player game once I complete them, along with all my gripes, complaints, and assorted other commentary about what has preceded in game. So along with this one, there's at least going to be ten more logs, and expect them all to be very very detailed. You see, I would just do a playthrough but there are three good reasons not to: 1) I would hate to embarrass myself by showing off my horrible gaming skills, 2) playthroughs are annoying and not very funny unless you're the Spoony One, and 3) I have no clue how to make a video playthrough on a technical level. Also there's a sneaking suspicion that if I show my face on the web that I'll never be able to obtain respectable employment. But considering that I'm the writer of THIS blog, I should have long since abandoned any hope of fitting in with normal society.

So LET US BEGIN!

As you may or may not know, I'm something of a fan of the Final Fantasy series. I've beaten most of the main series, except XI for being an MMO and VIII for being shit. Hell, I wasted my high school years working at the Final Fantasy Wiki at Wikia. I wrote nine walkthroughs there. Nine! Ouch, that does not say much about me now does it? So, I guess I'm something of an expert on Final Fantasy stuff. Its not a bad series; five of the games are actually bonafide classics, most of the rest are pretty okay. Its not Zelda, but what is? So when a fighting game featuring the heroes from all the games comes out, naturally I would have to be there. And thanks to the good work of Norman the Hanukkah Penguin, I am now the proud owner of "Dissidia Final Fantasy" for the PSP.

I'm not exactly too big on the fighting game crowd though. The only fighting game I was ever good at or even played all that often is Super Smash Bros. And even there I'm only good with Star Fox. At my dorm, we play the original Smash Bros all the time. Its awesome, the N64 at its best. Obviously I should stop comparing this game to Smash Bros already, so I will. It will only make me pine for what is certainly a better game than this.

...though really, I could go for some Smash Bros right now. Come on Fox, let's air juggle some poor jerk's ass!

There are a few problems, right off the bat. First of all, I'm not sure how a handheld fighting game is supposed to work in multiplayer. Actually, this won't be a problem, since I'm the only person in all of New Jersey apparently who owns this game. In fact, I'm the only man in my dorm who even has a PSP. That poor PSP, it doesn't get any love. So that means that multiplayer is out. Already the game fails as a fighting game, since if I can't play multiplayer its just nothing. However there is a deep and detailed single-player mode, so I guess I can treat this as just another action RPG. Fine enough, but here's another issue. Where is "Final Fantasy XII"?? I see I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, and X all right up there, but FFXII only gets one secret side character, and its not even Balthier, the sexiet and coolest man of all video games.

I heard that in development the creators considered putting in Balthier, but instead they went with Judge Gabranth, because he was FFXII's logo. Look Square Enix, you don't think about putting Balthier in. You just put Balthier in!! Do I make myself clear?

Of course, I could bitch about character choices, like how Tidus is here instead of Yuna, and how the new girl Lightning is nowhere to be found, forever, so I'll stop right now. We can always save that for the latter logs. Another key issue I have here is the tagline: "Who will you fight for?" This must be some kind of rhetorical question, since there doesn't seem to be a choice. In the storyline, you can only fight for the good guys. That's it. I know you might want to play as Sephiroth and bring about 1000 years of darkness, but this game isn't going to let you do it. Also, like all fighting games, most of the roster is locked at the start. It sucks, but there's nothing you can do.

At the moment of writing this, I've completed the prologue (which actually takes place before you can even watch the opening cinematic or see the title screen). Basically all you do is wonder about some game boards and fight a few piss easy enemies. I'm saddened to report that the enemies here are all just pallet-swaps of the twenty-two playable characters. So that means twenty-two enemies, that's it. Its too early to really judge the fighting system, but I can at least comment on the graphics - they're really good. Just about the best that the PSP has ever done. Also the music is pretty cool too. I never do get tired of the Final Fantasy victory fanfare. Never.

So I'll stop here. Tune in later for what will be many more logs about "Dissidia Final Fantasy". I also got to review everything else Norman brought. And there are lots of good movies coming out too. Thank God I got all Winter Break to waste this time and deconstruct all my favorite nonsense. See you later, Space Monkees!