Review of Dissidia Duodecim

As you guys all know, I play alot of portable games especially at work on my breaks, so naturally my home consoles barely get any love. Well, when I heard the new Dissidia Prequel was coming out, I was naturally pretty excited and to point I didn't give a flying fuck about Marvel Vs Capcom 3 (still don't). Square Enix had plenty of stuff they showed they were going to put in or do, but did it live it up to it, the answer is rather resounding "no" but a meh "yes".

Now is this game the complete same, no, there's alot of changes to core Dissidia gameplay due to how the original Dissidia was a mostly defensive game with right abilities and characters you can decimate someone is seconds. This time around they encourage more offensive and speed such an encouraging you to spam HP attacks and to be much more on your game in chase battles since they are much faster.
Now as for the new characters gameplay, all of them play pretty well and are easy to handle for new players, however discovering and playing their true strengths is much more difficult especially Kain or Tifa. The new areas, the few they added in are pretty good with exception of Crystal Tower. I say this because the AI doesn't seem to react well to Crystal Tower and will look like it's having a spaz attack because it can't figure out how to work around the tower. Now the newest addition to combat is Assist characters and EX Revenge, which are both meant to balance and counteract the Ex Mode which in the original pretty much guaranteed wins especially with proper EX Guard usage. Assist tends to be for me against me as the AI almost summons them perfectly in succession and combos me for a long time. Ex Revenge, is really hard to get use to since I was extremely versed in Ex Guarding and wasting AIs this way though it can be used properly and save you a few times.

Oddly, Duodecim's biggest flaw is "Opportunity". They had so many choices of characters they could have used and areas, however, I feel they put their selves in a corner when they put in the original Dissidia and the world map. Another area I find that annoys me is they limit themselves to the battlegrounds of the areas for cutscenes and it feels lazy. I mean a shiny hallway is better than this. Even better yet, they hyped up of how there was going to be certain characters in there but somehow didn't make the cut, you could do so much with this material. I mean they could have added interesting twists like some villains joining up with Duodecim squad and getting retconned as well (I could see Seifer, Vayne, Leon (FFII) doing this). They also hyped that we get to play from the villain's perspective but we don't, we get to play as Kuja for three fights and two cutscenes at best.

I imagine another possibility is having DLC characters and we could just explain they fell through The Rift and have their cutscene with whichever MC from FF they relate to, I mean it worked for Gilgamesh, c'mon, Square is it really that hard to pay for the voice acting or something. Now I mean you guys are charging a few bucks on fairly decent songs from the FF series along with skins, so why not?

Now for the story and trust me, it's borderline fanservice plus stupid and funny. Compared to the original Dissidia, most of the presentation and direction was stepped up in alot of departments. The story being that this is the 12th conflict thus the title name 012 / Duodecim, most of the plots are revolved to set up around the new characters and what they did during this time and sideplots which explains how certain elements and characters were changed for the 13th. For this one, the plot revolves around... The Manikins... you know those cloned rejects we fought, cried over, and leveled up several times over for, yeah. This time around, they are attacking en masse and we find out why they are a threat, as they can actually kill someone permanently unlike just taking someone to the bench before. The Duodecim's story is how they limited it and made it possible for the original Dissidia group to win through some really stupid plans like team killing.

Now one of the few things I can appreciate is the direction they took with the voice acting compared to last time where they made it more natural and heck they even redid some scenes in the original Dissidia (you can kinda tell with the video quality difference). They made it more endearing and put *effort* into it. Now the newer music tracks were pretty good as well. Though my issue with the DLC music is it sounds lower in volume than the games tracks and they barely put enough songs in each pack.

While they made the adjustments to characters in their attacks, strengths, weaknesses, the controls have not changed at all. This for veterans is good and bad due to the changes such as chase battles going way too fast for you to register a command or a thought as the AI will generally just cheese you with it. For novices however, it can be a pain in the ass literally hand cramps will be an issue.

While they did made alot of balance it and makes changes that would have made the original Dissidia better, it still didn't make this game stand out or be better than it's predecessor as it has just as many problems. This is like comparing KH1 to KH2, Smash Bros to Melee.You could say this game is the Melee version of Dissidia considering all these changes but still it doesn't seem enough for me to say buy unless you like the original or you want to try the new characters out even though the game is only $30 or you want to kick a friend's ass with your favorite FF characters.

I mean there is a good addictive game underneath this don't get me wrong, there is just alot of flaws and potential to be had here but not quite achieving it by the end of the day. I mean the game is a great buy for fans others not so much. This game is meant for the fans and is treated as such. Overall, it's okay but way under expectations.

And my computer refused to change...

If you are reading the title, obviously, my computer had finally given up the ghost permanently. The first sign of trouble was it not turning on though this had happened a few times before where all I had to do was switch the plug ins around on the surge protector. An hour later I figured it was not getting enough power which is what happened before but still no blue light on the power button. So I hit Best Buy, then check and said the 12 V is rather low, so they try a new power adaptor, no response. Then they tried the graphics chip, nothing there either. It was mystery to them as it was to me. So their best guess was the motherboard since everything else seemed to be fine for the most part.

At this point they left me, two choices: get a new motherboard which could/could not work or get a new computer all together. So I went all over town, checking to see which computers I could look into and well, the results were I could get like this uber model at Radio Active or the lower end they had. Best Buy had one more in the middle with a slightly reasonable price so I went with that. Though next time I am never taking my brother shopping with me for computers again because he seems to pitch in as well as the sales floor guy.

So for those watching my youtube stuff, depending on when I put my old hard drive in or get the data transferred to the new one whichever the case maybe, I may have to rerecord some things or not, KH1 is the most affected of the bunch since I recorded a huge chuck last week alone. Though I will not mind redoing it since KH1 is really short for RPG standards. Besides we are still trying to find a time to do the comms with Xero and if not, we'll find a suitable replacement like Eizen. I am not waiting 6 months finish a com, nope. The rest for the most part were backed up and saved elsewhere. Other than that, not much else except I am considering reviewing Duodecim and well, you may be in for a shock when that comes around.

I remembered I had a blog...

It's been awhile to you all. It's been nuts I'll say. Let's start off with that little bill that could possibly put an end to Let's Plays, streams, or gameplay videos in general. This also affects the main entertainment industry as well. My thoughts are that this law is technically unconstitutional as it violates the first amendment (as it is censoring our freedom of speech) and will pretty much have the government tell us what is good or bad or whichever company is willing to shell the money for favorable coverage if they are allowed that. So thus I say it will not pass, however, considering things with our government, it is not on the whole, good. So say if it does pass, then odds say I am either booking or praying for a loophole or change in the works. This also bites companies in the ass who get ad revenue from us and so on and help show off and sell a product. Though this also goes in vise versa.

Anyways, how has thy personal life been? Well, pretty damn screwed up and reversed (maybe this is not my earth, I am on Bizzaro World). My family came by for the 4th and surprisingly I had a pretty good time though my cousin's kids got on my nerves a few times. Then work got worse each day to the point that I expect a new level of incompetency or wall banging stupidity, I mean 3-5 times in a row stuck by myself with a whole lot of carts with the really hot temps right now is really suicide driven. The operation to drive me to murder is getting out of hand with this. To make it all better, I have not heard from a certain friend in over a week and I am getting really worried for her safety due to being in a really bad ecomonic times.

Other than that, not awhole lot, paying bills, playing my PSP alot (and maybe game on other systems but I wonder if they exist really), and reading alot of manga. I recommend Rosario + Vampire, Ouran High School Host Club, and Genkaku Picasso. And things are back to normal again since they are gone. I am back to recording despite that bill trying to put an end to things and if I can't record Screenshot or Normally with it around, I'll just blog it here while I play it like I did a long time ago when I was a mod on a forum. I am working my butt off on KH2 whenever I get a moment with it since I want it done and quickly while I plan my next few projects that I will finish next. Anyways I need sleep I have been nodding off bad this whole time so I'll see ya then.

Picking up The Pieces

It's been awhile but alot of things have happened so in case you don't know, here it is. My desktop and my parents laptop both had a near simultaneous failure in more than a few regards. My desktop kept blacking out at the Windows XP start up screen and staying blank, reason: 112 infections. Now the laptop for some reason rebooted itself and wanted to reinstall the OS disc and reason: 12 Trojans and spyware up the ass. Now they are fixed and I am $200 less *sigh* though considering it happened earlier before everything else got hiked up, this maybe a hidden blessing in disguise.
Now even better, I have to get two new sets of tires for driving since my normal tires and my snow are really worn down and odds say my breaks are getting shitty too. This added to my loan bills for this month, I will be making no money this month whatsoever, fun.

Work will be really fun when my best friend at work is leaving to go to Teletech, so I will be killing myself for nothing, more than usual, busting my ass pulling them carts and having no way of transferring. Speaking of work, they finally changed my hours after I sent the changes and guess how long that took? three months -_-, the only reason I was asked for the change was during the time they had no Wednesday closers or Sunday I think because the guy who usually did it was working overnights for some reason or other. Though now he is back with us now. Though I actually have 2 straight days off now so it isn't that bad and I fucking hate working Tuesdays because it is usual scheduled me vs everyone who comes in or out with a cart by myself at a Super Center no less and with carry outs and anything else they can make us do.

Though due to this, I have less time to spent with a really special good friend due to her schedule being just as busy as mine and being about 30 minutes to an hour away from where I live. This also means less time on videos too for the youtubes. Now another problem there why I have not been doing much videos other than Dissidia 012, because they are easy to do for the most part. The reason for this is: Trying to find all the codecs to make my videos work again on the video and audio again and trying to get my editing software to recognize it is a pain in the ass. Now all I need is Vegas 7 -9 since it almost accepts anything damn nearly so I can get back to that. I am though regretting making so many RPG LPs because it has gone on for THREE YEARS with FFVIII and IX and Parasite Eve (I know I need to get back to this one though I need a map through Chinatown). That is insane, though I know they will be good quality for the most part, though PE started off kinda crappy, lol. I figured I would have more time when I started them, but this is ridiculous on a whole new level considering the lack of hindsight I had then. Well, I'll see what I can do until then. Can't really stop now since I am so far sadly, lol.
I want to do other projects right now like Scott Pilgrim but co-commentary is becoming hard to do these days due to reasons above and their reasons as well so right now I can only work with Adam on Parasite Eve 2 for the time being. Though me and Bohepans will be doing Super Metroid whenever I can grab him and so we can finish SMB1 and SMWorld so we can actually do something interesting as well. Anything else is on the wait and the recording and uploading block. Anyways, I think that's about it other than me having fun with Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Pokemon Black/ Soul Silver / Platinum, Final Fantasy IV, and anything else I can get my hands that I actually should beat in my vast collection. I seriously need to hang out more, lol. Well, I'll see ya then! :)

My thoughts on Mega Man ZX

Mega Man ZX, oh ZX, ZX, where do I begin with you, it's is so hard to. I guess I'll go with the presentation. The presentation is very good and clean, the backgrounds were always interesting to look at and lively. The detail was very good. I like the fact they added alot of stuff for nostalgia and I appreciated that (the Rush Car from Battle and Chase, the W Tank from MM7). The anime style cutscenes were alittle pixelated though they did their job of helping tell the story. The sprites are all well detailed and lively and it just looks good.
Now the music and the sound, I really like the soundtrack in this one. It always managed to please my ears except when I failed a mission after restarting then the Guardian Base music would kick in and I would be like "Stop mocking me!!!" Now the sound is more Star Wars like and the alot of the effects are borrowed from the Zero series. The game only has voice acting for when you're doing something or when a cutscene happens, though I admit I got tired of Vent saying "Achmed or Rockmed?!"though it reminds me of Klonoa for some reason.
The story leaves off where Zero 4 left off.... about 200 years later. You play as either Vent or Aile who work with a delivery company who happen to be protecting some valuable shipping which of course, things go wrong and they discover the biometals of X and Z and so the story goes from there to fighting a man claimed as a hero and becoming involved as a sidenote to the "Game of Destiny" (ZX Advent). The story is actually good and follows up very well to the Zero Series.
Now the gameplay *insert Data "oh shit" here* if you got use to the gameplay in the Zero series as well as everything else, well, here it's quite different. The game plays like a very vague Metroidvania style game except not as rewarding but equally as painful as some of the harder ones. The core gameplay is "quests" which you pretty head to an area kill mavericks move on to the next quest. However the problem is finding the areas in general so you'll be running back and forth through alot of areas just trying to see where there are new changes in the areas to get into said area. The areas themselves are challenging and variety with ways you can use your Biometals in alot of ways, though odds say you'll be sticking to Model H and P. Another problem is if you can say find the boss door or the area and you end up in another area with a boss door, why can't I just fight him instead so I can reach the transerver and get the hell out, nope gotta go ALL THE WAY BACK. Unlike all the game, you use Biometals which will transform into the X Guardians or X and Zero (more or less), each with their own elemental, special abilities, and so on and you get these through fighting the bosses. The controls are really solid for the most part a few hiccups due to some areas that I don't think that were well tested.

The bosses on the otherhand, are a whole new matter of pain. In Mega Man games you are expected alot of things especially dying, the game is especially no exception. The patterns of some of these bosses are really distinctly unfair and overpowering to the point I have to wonder if Capcom was playing the Zero series and said "These bosses suck... Let's make them overpowering and kill any chance for novices or people who are used to the Zero series engine regret it, MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" I am not really one who like using my subtanks or much at all but for this one, I had to question how the game programmer expects anybody new to get into the game and face some of these things. Now I will say this I kinda like this and some extent understood this though the ranking system of these boss fights is rather crude and cruel. Lv. 4 Victory being highest and Lv. 1 being lowest, the way this is determined is via whether you are hitting their weakspot or not. These weakspots are generally a part of the boss that relates to their attacks and are very easy to hit though when hit, you tend to piss the bosses off and possibly result in a quicker death. Now this is entirely optional but this will affect the condition of the biometal when you get it I do believe and add plushies to Prairie's room. Another thing to add is you just can seem to chain damage as well as you did in MMZ so you might want to try the old hit and run strategy since the bosses generally react very fast and most can not be chained so this might be a good alternative.

If you want rather good albeit very unfair challenge (eye of the beholder here), then this is your game. If you want a game that will make you hit the imaginary giant red "FUCK" button then this is it too. Though to be fair, if you want a more refined game, I would get Advent instead. I can't really say to stay away from this one since it is really cheap and will help pass the time.

My Thoughts on Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded or KH: 2.5 A

Now as you guys know I am a fan of the Kingdom Hearts series for a few reasons which are stated here >

-Awesome music
-fun and easy to get into gameplay
-being able to beat the living beejeezus out of your least favorite villains in disney history
-well done presentation and an impressive roster of people behind it
-an interesting story that anyone can get into

Now for the reasons I may hate it >
-Prequel / Sequel asspulls (though I like them but it just seems ridiculous after awhile when trying to get the whole history of KH together)
-Certain disney worlds being used over and over
-Sora is the CENTER OF THE GODDAMN UNIVERSE
-Nomura's fetishs and flaws (like zippers)

Now let's examine the history of KH like this:
Birth By Sleep (KH Zero)
Kingdom Hearts
358 / 2 Days (KH 1.5A)
Chain of Memories (KH 1.5B)
Kingdom Hearts 2
Re: Coded (KH2 2.5 A)
Kingdom Hearts 3D (KH2 2.5 B)
Kingdom Hearts 3

Now the order they came out in is this:
Kingdom Hearts
Chain of Memories
Kingdom Hearts 2
Re: Chain of Memories (I almost consider it almost a separate game)
358 /2 Days
Birth By Sleep
Re: Coded
Kingdom Hearts 3D

You confused yet? yeah. Well, it seems like Square is doing what they can to over saturate this series to what they can to cover up any plotholes or continue with the story in anyway possible. Oh wait, we should be talking about Re: Coded shouldn't we? Yeah, let's do that.

Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded is a rather nice mixture and throwback to the things we liked about the KH series and manages to pull it off in a weird fashion. Let's talk about the gameplay, the battle system uses the Birth By Sleep Deck Command Engine where you can fuse commands and pull them off with the triangle button without delay and it even has it own version of the Overdrive system with the Overclocked meter which fills up each time you strike something and it levels up your keyblade and eventually lets you use your keyblade's limit. Confused, okay, simple time, hit things equals meter goes up equals limit break and repeat. However, each keyblade has a unique set of abilities you have to consider before going into battle that you can set in the menu or on the touch screen which can make combat alot easier or harder.
Now the Overclocked Limits are unique as some require button commands at the right time or some allow for some unique changes like going into FPS and shooting fireballs.

Now the leveling up engine is quite different from any other game though it will be familiar if you played FFX or anything with a similar engine. As you battle you gain Level Up Chips which you can install on the Stat Command Board however you can also gain other chips to increase certain stats and connect them to CPUs to double their potential or commands or accessory slots and so on. Now the board also has "cheats" which have certain effects of lowering your HP to double the chances of getting items and so on, you can even customize the difficulty to your hearts content... Wait a minute, this sounds very familiar, oh right, "The World Ends With You" used a very similar engine, a title they have forsaken due to Square only sticking to their guns for the money.

Now the combat in the game is also on par with Birth By Sleep and KH2, very smooth and fast paced compared to it's slower brethren 358 / 2 Days. So fun times to be had just the way we are used to? Not quite, each world you are thrown into, you have to clean out the bugs as well as solve the problems of that world due to some villain using the bugs to their own advantage or some other person letting them mess around with it. To clean out these bugs you must go into the Tron-like world of the datascape and clean them out, however, not all that simple, certain areas have challenges that use a betting system to reward you for whatever is required or not (this is what New Game Plus involves alot of).

Now another thing is each world has a certain gameplay mechanic that will be somewhat forced on you due to the bugs of these worlds. Traverse Town will end on 2.5D Platformer, Wonderland will end of a scrolling shooter, and so on. Now, most of these are implemented well and quite fun though the 2.5D Platforming segment is probably the worst considering you have two annoying boss fights and they are all auto-scrolling levels (vastly hated by any Mario / Platformer Lover).

Now the story involves Jiminy's First Journal (KH1 and COM) which only has one phrase that Chain of Memories cherished and KH2 made fun of it. However, they find one last phrase in it that is alittle scary and needed to be looked into. So Mickey and the gang investigate it and find the journal is full of bugs and they need to send someone in so they call up Sora from Journal to investigate and get rid of the bugs and decipher the mysterious message and possibly fix up the Journal. You will go through the all too familar worlds of Destiny Islands, Traverse Town, Wonderland, Colosseum, Agrabah, Hollow Bastion, and Castle Oblivion.

Now I guess one of the problems that some address is these places have been used to death and use the same design as before though I can argue that Traverse has only been in 2 games before this one, Wonderland being in 3, Destiny in 2, Agrabah has been in every game except BbS, Hollow Bastion being in every game except 358 / 2 Days, and the Colosseum being in every damn game (Thus why I hate it's theme and everything else except the concept of being an arena to fight tons of things and get cool stuff).
I heard they also complained that none of the layouts had changed though Wonderland uses the version presented in 358 / 2 Days and the Colosseum is very different and the Cave of Wonders in Agrabah was very much modified. Though I can argue that most of this is because is based off the KH1 adventure and changing it would not make sense considering it's a near exact replica of that world from that time. My only gripe with this is we have done these worlds before more than twice over and there better be some new worlds in 3D and 3 soon because it's getting to be over-saturated for this series.

Now what maybe a problem for this game is it focuses alot on platforming than the rest of the other games due to these worlds and bugs (which appear in the form of blocks or enemies complete BLOKed up) these blocks will involve alot of platforming trying to get to the good stuff or bypass an area. This becomes quite a problem in some of the later areas where they put a huge ton of blocks in the most assholish way possible making the platforming almost as bad as KH1.

Now probably the strongest point of this game is how it thrives on some of the strongest moments in the series and attributes that were at one time lost or not given to us gamers outside of Japan like Maleficent gaining her super villain position and showing to be competent and Pete as a possible threat for once and fighting against Riku and the emotion behind it or fighting against #13. The ending of the game reveals all and reflects on Chain of Memories ending as well as what is to come in the next KH game. The music is almost completely borrowed from KH1 and duplicated in near exact quality (the DS always surprises me with it sound quality and what it can produce). The game doesn't drag itself out like some of the other games, it keeps the pace and stays at it.

Overall the game is beautiful for DS standards and smoothed out compared to 358 / 2 Days and oddly they took another nod from TWEWY with the conversation scenes and used actual cutscenes comparable to KH2 quality (which some will bitch why it is not on the PS2). All in all, the game is pretty short even for a KH game and or an RPG clocking in about 15 hours of normal gameplay (due to the pacing and shorter than FF PSP) and possibly extended through NG+. The game is very fun and addicting though is it worth $35 dollars (Average price for new DS game) right now? That is really hard to think about considering the shortness though the fun at hand. For most I would recommend alittle wait of dropping it to $30. Overall, it's a really fun and good title that can be surprisingly deep with it's gameplay if used correctly. It's made for kids but made with the adults in mind (like me). Overall, worth checking out (once the price of admission goes down a hair) and very fun