2009

One-word titles rock. (Eh wait, 2009 isn't even a word!)

Today is the last day of 2009, many boring things (yes, boring) happened during this rather boring year (yes, boring, again), but, at least I'm happy with some stuffs.

Here is the list of "accomplishments" that I "accomplished" in 2009:

~ Getting top 20 in class for the first time in my secondary school life. (#19)
~ Getting a bronze medal in a Taekwondo competition. (but somehow, I don't feel THAT proud T_T)
~ Succeed in organizing quite a lot of gatherings. (Although, none of them is what I called "major")

Yes, those are my 3 MAJOR accomplishments, although none of them is really "major". D:

Now for the fun part, this is the list of "random accomplishments" that I "accomplished" in 2009:

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING LIST IS VERY, VERY RANDOM. PLEASE DO NOT VIEW IT IF YOU HAVE PHOBIA OF RANDOMNESS OR JUST FREAKING HATE RANDOM STUFFS.

~ Completed my first "actual" game- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. (I called it my first "actual game" cause it's storyline just rocks, and the ending nearly made me cry, literally. And games are SUPPOSED to have good storyline eh?)
~ Completed Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce using a level 50 Zhao Yun.
~ Celebrated my blog's 1st anniversary. (Okay I admit, I didn't REALLY celebrated it. =X)
~ Successfully tick off Bing Xing. (Yes, I know, I KNOW YOU ARE READING THIS BING XING.)

And many, many, MANY more. Just too lazy to type them all out.

Well, wish me luck for my upcoming PMR! *Eats my History book*

Dissidia: Final Fantasy for the PSP

How long WAS it since I updated this blog? Nearly a month? Yes, "NEARLY".

This, along with GTA Vice City Stories on PSP, are the main reasons I was not active. (Okay, I was NEVER an active blogger X_X)

Simple enough, if you have a PSP, old model, new model, blablabla, just GET THIS GAME.

Ok, done with the bleh-ness, time for some info:

(Credits to Final Fantasy Wiki, full link HERE)
Dissidia is an action-based fighting game mixed with RPG elements. Battles take place on fully rendered 3D fields, with characters free to roam around as they please. The environment can also be interacted with, with characters able to run up walls, grind along railings and destroy pillars and floors with attacks. In battle, players have two types of attacks - Bravery and HP. Every character has their Bravery Points located above their HP bar, and whenever they land an HP attack, the damage done is equal to their Bravery. Striking an opponent with a Bravery attack will drain their Bravery and increase the attacker's, thus increasing the HP damage they can do. If a player's Bravery is reduced to below zero, they enter "break" mode, where they cannot inflict HP damage, Bravery attacks against them do increased damage, and their opponent receives a significant boost to their Bravery. Every character has their own unique fighting style and attacks, usually based on the character's abilities in their original game.

In addition to Bravery and HP attacks, players can use Summons to assist them in battle, and can find new Summons in certain stages or as part of a stage bonus. There is also an "EX Bar" meter which fills up during battle by collecting the EX Force that appears when players strike each other, or the randomly appearing EX Cores. Once filled, the character can enter EX Mode which grants a character-specific bonus and gives access to an EX Burst, a special move that deals massive damage to their opponent. These moves are often a reference to each character's signature attack in their respective game, such as Squall using his Renzokuken or Kefka using Light of Judgment. After the battle is over, characters are rewarded with Gil, EXP, and AP. Further awards may be given if the player fulfills certain conditions during the fight itself, such as winning within a time limit or landing an attack of a certain strength.

Of the twenty-two playable characters, each maintains their own Experience level, and share the same equipment supply. Characters begin at level one with only a handful of basic moves, but as they gain Exp and level up they can learn more advanced moves. These moves are equipped to a character using CP, with a character able to equip as many moves as they wish as long as the total does not exceed their maximum CP. By earning AP, a character can master a move, reducing the CP needed to equip it, and sometimes make new abilities appear. Characters can also earn various bonus abilities and bolster their stats through equipment and accessories. Player can also earn PP, which are used to purchase special gameplay features, such as new characters or bonus music tracks.

In storyline gameplay, players move about a token representing their character on a tiled gameboard, and move up to objects and enemies and interact with them using "Destiny Points". Every time the player moves their character, they must use one Destiny Point, and can sometimes earn more by defeating enemies. If the player is able to finish a stage without using all their Destiny Points, they earn a special bonus. When the player reaches the Stigma of Chaos at the end of the stage, the stage is completed and the player is awarded Gil and PP depending on their remaining Destiny Points, HP, and other factors. Sometimes at the end of a stage, the player fights another character; in all ten "Destiny Odyssey" stages, after five stages the player fights their character's nemesis in the arena from their original game, such as Cloud fighting Sephiroth at the Planet's Core. When all ten Destiny Odyssey stages are completed, the player is given access to the Shade Impulse storyline, which leads the final boss of the game, Chaos.

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Ok, now that was just a filler, no kidding, since technically only those who love FF but doesn't have Dissidia will read that.

MY SUMMARY OF THE GAME:

Dissidia is a fighting game, a 3D one. No, not like Street Fighter or Tekken or whatever, think those Naruto fighting games in pure 3D. They're ALMOST the same (note the word ALMOST). There are two types of attacks, no, not offensive and defensive, they are Bravery Attacks and HP Attacks.

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My own summary of Bravery Points/Attacks and HEALTH POINTS/Attacks:


(Images are taken from either GameFAQs, Final Fantasy Wiki or Wikipedia)

BRAVERY POINTS/ATTACKS: (This will be VERY LONG) See those giant 58 and 127(5) numbers on the bottom of the screen? Those are Bravery points. Press the O button to execute a Bravery attack to deplete your opponent's bravery points and increase your own. Sounds simple? Yes and no. The thing is, when using a bravery attack, the opponent's HP won't deplete, means you can't technically KILL an opponent with bravery attacks alone. Bravery points affect your attack power, example, if your bravery points is 800 and your opponent's is 400, you'll deal 800 damage to your enemy when using a HP attack and he'll deal 400 damage to you. What happens if your/your opponent's BP was reduced to zero? He/she will enter BREAK mode, which makes their HP attacks does 0 damage, and their opponent gets a GREAT boost in BP.

HEALTH POINTS/ATTACKS: Directly below the BP is a bar, that's your HP bar, below it, written in small numbers (78/1500 AND 1310/1550) are your HP points. When it reaches zero he/she will DIE (yay). HP attacks are done by pressing the SQUARE button, the higher your BP, the higher your HP attacks power. Simple enough eh?
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Other than that, there are SUMMONS, YESH, YOU CAN ACTUALLY SUMMON MONSTERS LIKE PIKACHU, RAYQUAZA, EVERYTHING, well, not EVERYTHING I suppose. Summons can help you drain an enemy's BP or HP, or even boost your power. I suppose that's clear enough.

Now for the FUN part- EX MODE. See the bottom left part? There's one "VERY HANDSOME" guy there. On his left is the EX bar (ok, there's one on the bottom right as well, but the picture is a little too big so). Well, you probably know what it does. Hit enemies or getting hit boosts it a little, but getting EX cores located randomly on the battlefield boosts it by a HELL lot. When it's full, pressing R+SQUARE button will transform you into EX MODE.

...

Well, you should probably know what it does right now. EX Mode either super-transforms your character into a cooler/uglier version (most probably "cooler"), or super-transforms your weapon into a MUCH COOLER version. Pictures? See below (If you wanna compare them to their original version, just go to FFWIKI and search their names)

Cloud Strife's EX mode, Equipped Ultima Weapon (Only his weapon changes)


Kefka Pallazzo's EX mode, Power of Destruction.


Cloud of Darkness's EX mode, Flood of Darkness.


During EX mode, well, you gain boosts like Regen (recovers HP), attack boosts, new attacks, and most importantly, the EX BURST.

Well, I'll let these two videos explain the EX Burst.

Cloud Strife's EX Burst- Omnislash

Sephiroth's EX Burst- Super Nova (WAAAAAAY shorter than his FF7 version)

Yeah, they're super moves which requires some button presses.

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Other than pure fighting, there is a Story Mode, where you progress through the story as one of the ten main Characters- Warrior of Light, Firion, Onion Knight, Cecil, Bartz, Terra, Cloud, Squall, Zidane and Tidus.

There are four "parts" in story mode, which are Destiny Odyssey, Shade Impulse, Distant Glory and Inward Chaos (All of them are yet again, split into "Chapters" except Inward Chaos, for more info, read THIS, scroll down to the bottom of the page for the other 3)

Well, you move on a board similar to the chess board, and you... (Seriously, you need to PLAY to understand this.)

Note that the storyline here isn't as "deep" as the other Final Fantasy.

Also, click HERE if you still don't get it.

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Of course, there are tons of arenas and characters for you to choose, 12 arenas isn't really "a lot", but it's actually pretty fun to play with, there are 22 TOTALLY different characters as well, no clones, each move are exclusive to one another.

There are five modes in case I haven't mentioned: Story mode, Quick Battle (more like a "training mode"), Arcade Mode (Obvious), Connection Mode (using Ad-Hoc) and Duel Colloseum.

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REVIEWS TIME:

Gameplay (8/10)- Hardcore Final Fantasy fans will find this interesting, new Final Fantasy fans will TOO, find this interesting. Imagine controlling your own character, chasing the opponent, dodging that OMGWTHBBQ-ing large meteor and EX BURST. (This game made me a Final Fantasy fan and actually made me search FFWiki for the storyline of each character)

Replay Value (8.5/10)- Fighting games are not considered as one if they don't have replay values right?

Learning Curve (Normal)- No scores for this one, it's not easy to master the controls, but keep playing it and you'll finally be able to dodge that OMGWTHBBQ-ing LAZER.

Sound (8/10)- Aw, there's no original One Winged Angel, just some remixed version. But they are still cool.

Controls/Camera (8/10)- Minor (very minor) flaws with the camera, but the controls are responsive, no "accidentally-dying-due-to-control-flaws" situation.

OVERALL- 8/10

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PICTURES: Click HERE. (Bleh, lazy to upload them one by one)

FAQS:

Q: I don't have a PSP, is this game worth the PSP alone?
A: I can't really answer this question, but there are many other cool PSP games out there, getting a PSP just for one game isn't that worth it. D:

Q: How many playable characters are there?
A: If you're talking about arcade mode, 20 characters and 2 unlockables. For story mode, only 10.

Q: Why does every character has so less moves?
A: Play this game long enough and you won't be asking for more.

Q: How to evade attacks and block?
A: Press R+X and the direction you want to evade to. To block, press R (it's more like a parry since you can't just hold down the R button)

Q: Where should I find more info about this game?
A: HERE. (WARNING: INFO OVERLOAD)

Q: How to run on walls/glide on "rails"?
A: When you see a yellow arrow pointing to a wall/rail/whatever, press and hold TRIANGLE to do so.

Q: Will this be released on other consoles/PC?
A: ABSOLUTELY NO. This game was made exclusively for the PSP, no PSP, don't play. D:

Misc FAQS:

Q: OMG KEFKA'S LAUGH IS SO...
A: Yeah, I understand.

Q: Why doesn't Sephiroth turns into Safer Sephiroth during his EX mode?
A: He'll be too imbalanced that way. Don't worry, his Dissidia version of Super Nova could already destroy the Sun.

Q: LOL.
A: *Shoots*

Credits go to:

GameFAQS: For providing a hell lot of images.
Wikipedia: For providing some of the images and info.
Final Fantasy Wiki: For providing some of the images and majority of the info.