Game Review - Final Fantasy Dissidia : PSP : SquareEnix

It's finally here! Final Fantasy Dissidia for PSP. I feel like such a fanboy, Monday night I stood in line at GameStop waiting till midnight on a work night, for my copy just so could get the special GameStop exclusive collectors edition slip cases. Got to love some pretty cardboard that makes you do stupid things.

Here is a picture of the packaging with the slip cases:

As you can see, the game case comes with a reversible case sleeve. One side depicting the Heros of the Final Fantasy franchise, the other depicting the villains. I really think this game is a real great fan service on the part of SquareEnix. They have really done an impressive job on the packaging. The thing I noticed most was the lack of focus on Cloud or Sephiroth in both the game and the packaging. I think that SquareEnix is really committed to all of their great characters in this title and that is apparent by not giving any of them more cover space than then rest. 

The game is beautiful. It actually surprised me there was no flashy intro video. I was actually scared at first when all I got was an in-game clip of the Warrior of the Light at the beginning. Not the best graphics, on par really for the PSP in-game graphics and pretty much what I expected for dialog sequences in a SquareEnix game. But for a first video, the first sample of the sweet sweet amazing experience I have come to expect and love about the Final Fantasy franchise? Well, I was not let down. After the first little prologue tutorial, you are brought to the ACTUAL main interface for the game, with options like "Story Mode" "Arcade Mode" and "Dual Colosseum". Selecting story mode, I was blown away. A fully rendered clip that I was hoping for appeared. Some of you may have seen this video before release as I think this was one of the videos (or at least clips from it) that was released at an earlier showing by SquareEnix to promote the title. Regardless, it brought some tears to my eyes believe it or not. To see all of my favorite characters brought together in a single title, I was excited, but to see them in full rendering together for the first time ever in the 20 years that the franchise has been in production. That I believe is a true fan service to a dedicated community.  It was about 2-3 minutes long and was spectacularly action packed. The best part was not a single time in the clip did Cloud and Sephiroth cross swords. In fact, I am not sure, but I don't think any of the matching heros/villains attack each other in the video (intentional? hmmmm...). 

For actual game play, I am happy to say I really am enjoying it so far. I have not had TOO much time to play the game, as I am still in Grand Rapids at my home office, on a tight schedule on the current project I am working on. This is my last week here and I am having to put in the over time to get our release done in time. This saddens me of course as I would love to just sit here all day and get through a few of the individual characters story lines. Yes, story lines, plural. There are 10 hero story lines to complete (I am assuming that there will be 10 villain story lines to complete as well once all 10 hero story lines are completed. Ok maybe I'm just hoping) and I am on the first one as of right now. 

I was originally concerned about SquareEnix making a "Fighting" game about Final Fantasy. I am not disappointed though, on the contrary, I am very pleased. It really feels like an action game mixed with the RPG elements that make Final Fantasy what it is. Nothing is really lost in the translation, and in fact it feels very much like Final Fantasy XII in a one on one sort of setting. The board concept is interesting, and I am still trying to get used to the DP system that is used for determining bonuses for the level. 

The game definitely does not lack for all the small little systems that are built into each state of the game. Every screen it seems is loaded with all of these little components or mechanics that use the common set of stats from your characters base stats to the number of battles you have partaken in. An achievements list in the game is loaded with stuff to beat, numbers to push for. It's almost like each time you play the game you can strive for different goals, minimizing turns used, completing as many battles in a calendar day as you can, or trying to get every item in every map. Speaking of calendars, this is my favorite mechanic so far. The game actually uses the day of the week to determine special bonuses and effects that change the way the game is played. This is a great concept, modify difficulty and rewards based on the day of the week. Even more interesting is that the player gets to choose one day during the week that is their "Special Day" where bonuses are increased. This is asked when you make your profile as to what day you play the most. This day is marked in the calendar in game as a special day when you are in the mognet area of the main menu. Another of the great mechanics is the chocobo walk. In the customize menu, a screen is displayed with a chocobo either sleeping, walking, or flying. As you progress through battles, the chocobo will move along the scene. The more battles you fight, the farther he gets. Depending on your difficulty path, that distance changes. If he reaches the end, you get a special item. For the hardest difficulty, it takes 60 battles to reach the target, the kicker is that these battles must be performed in a single 24 hour period, or the chocobo will go back to sleep at the beginning of the path (Fun Fun). Other bonuses are awarded based on other things the chocobo can find along the path. This really adds a little more variability to the game and is really ingenious.

Finally, as a design point, I think it is great that they have drawn on all of the old art work from the last 20 years of gaming. Each help menu uses different images, character portraits, character images, and item portraits straight out of the original games. All of the characters from the series are there. I saw a picture of Steiner already, and he told me how to equip weapons. This really helps fill out the games feel in my opinion, as well as I think alleviate some of the complaints that I know have been going around about not including one character or another as a playable character. 

Of course, all artwork in the pictures above belong to SquareEnix (God bless). I take no credit except for the "Wonderful" pictures to show off the sweet artwork on the cases. Sorry for the quality, I took them with my IPhone in my Hotel room which is not all that well lit. 

If you have the game and are looking for people to play online with, drop me an email at crsteinb@gmail.com. I don't really know anyone else with a PSP that has the game, so I would definitely be willing to try out the multiplayer with someone. If you don't have the game... WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??? Go go buy it now!

Dante's Inferno - First Impressions

I perused the EA site today after listening to one of the podcasts that have been done by EA and Visceral. They had mentioned that they were working on the Dante's Inferno title, and the thought of making a game based on that old literature intrigues me. I think it is a fascinating concept and setting for the type of game that they are making. Looking at the game play footage, I have no doubt that the title will be fun to play.

The game play, reminiscent of God of War or Heavenly Sword, looks to be fast pace and action packed. However, my concern is that like the other two titles mentioned, it will be a button smashing game with no real strategy to the attacks. Although, the attacks may look nice and pretty, these types of games tend to bore me after a while, and usually end up causing me some hand cramping. I generally prefer a little more strategy in my combat, titles such as Hitman, Mad World, or The Mark of Kri. All of these titles did more than just provide a button mashing kill fest. However the game did provide a brutal feel that I think that many new games are going for. The difference is that even though the brutality of these titles were present, it wasn't mindless killing (well, its pretty mindless in Mad World, however the fighting system led more to some quick thinking to perform the brutal kill you were going for that would provide you with more points).

Hitman and Mark of Kri relied more on assassination, the silent kill, to complete the mission. These allowed you to avoid the all out frenzy of being detected, and rewarding you as such for doing so. The interesting thing is that these titles also still allowed you to experience the frenzy of many on one combat, and did not really punish you if you wanted to run through the mission and be detected by everyone. I think that Assassins Creed tried to have this mix, but I felt as I played it that it was not very good at allowing you to do the stealth kills as well as I would have originally expected. At times it felt clunky and what would seem like an obvious kill would go unnoticed, where as a well planned and executed kill sometimes set off alarms.

I am hoping that Dante's Inferno will have a good balance of the brutal combo kill, button smashing, and the strategic areas where more skill and finesse is required. I am realizing that game developers, with their multimillion dollar budgets, have a need and desire to appease a wider audience of gamers, and providing "easy to understand" control schemes goes a long way to doing this, and by uncomplicating the combat system also pushes a game into more hands. I just feel as if players who wish to learn complex combat systems and strive for perfection in their gaming are being ignored due to them being in a much smaller demographic. I mean, where are games like the old Tenchu?

Developer Podcasts

I've recently bought an IPhone, and I was never exposed to the podcast community until I was forced into using ITunes (not that its not a good piece of software, sometimes I just have some disagreements with it :) ). Since I have been browsing the ITunes store I have discovered the beauty of the podcast as a means for me to listen to something different than the 2 cds I have ripped on my phone, or the pandora app that I use on a nearly daily basis.

The biggest thing that I am geeked about (and surprisingly so) is the couple of game company podcasts that are out there for listeners. EA is the big one that I have been listening to. They only have 5 episodes out as of right now, but the interviews that they have done have been very interesting, especially to someone like me who works in a corporate atmosphere (at GE Aviation) and has an interest in getting into the gaming industry. I can relate to the corporate day to day that these people have to deal with, and yet it is fascinating to hear about the inner workings of a large publisher and its sub-derivative developers such as Visceral.

I wish that other larger developers, such as Capcom, Atlus, or SquareEnix would do this as well. I would be a devoted listener of any of these three major companies if they were to do a podcast of this nature. I would really like to hear more from coders and level designers on these podcasts to hear what they go through on a day to day basis, working with 3rd party engines or building their own. I think there is also some room for growth in these areas when dealing with play testing a game and how bug tracking and feature planning are handled in the development cycle. I think that interviews like these could help independent game developers, and aspiring corporate game developers learn techniques and behaviors and strategies that can not be learned in a academic setting with professors who have never been in the fast pace industry.

I would also like to see some podcasts be created that follow speaker sessions at some of these larger conferences. I am aware that there are feeds that are broadcasted at events like the Apple conference and some of the coverage of E3, but there are many of these conferences such as siggraph and GDC, that I feel do not receive enough outreach to the public. Obviously a podcast could never replace actually going to one of these conferences, as I have been to a few conferences and the experience was always breathtaking. However, due to the cost of travel and the cost of admission, it would be nice if some of the speakers were covered in a publicly accessible forum.

I recommend anyone who is interested, check out the EA podcast, they are interesting to listen to and much more interesting than any political talk radio that you are going to get listening to the real radio.

Art - New Logo

For the Anime Rename File Utility, I decided it would be nice to make a little piece of art for the about window. Nothing too fancy. But, I wanted something related to the use of the application. I decided to learn a little more about Photoshop as a result and got a little more familiar with the pen tool.

Here is my attempt at a logo:



I think it turned out decent. Much better job than I have done in the past. I think I am getting a bit better at using the tool. I don't know if I like the text so much but perhaps this is just a first draft. Later revisions may be popping up. I may also decide to go with this art style in the future for a game idea that I am starting to brew in my brain. We shall see :)

Download - PC : Anime File Rename Utility

Hello All, It has been a while. GE has been keeping me busy in Grand Rapids this last month and I have been working some major overtime on my current project at work. Thus leaves me little time to work on my side projects (as usual). To top it off I bought an IPhone and that has been a bit distracting in its own right (reviews to come).

Anyways, I did take this weekend to write some software to rename files for TV shows (specifically Anime series). Now of course I can not condone piracy, it is illegal and it is wrong. However, there are many Anime series that have become available on the web via sites such as Anime Take (pronounced "Ta-ke") which follow DMCA policies very closely. I have noticed that many of these are done by release groups that tend to "tag" their files in a very ugly manor. As a result, I have decided to take it upon myself to write a file rename utility that will parse all of the garbage out of the names of files and order them by numbers.

This may be useful for other reasons as well. Picture files perhaps. It is not limited to only Anime, but it was my source of inspiration. The software does not in any way shape or form allow illegal downloading of shows, so please do not ask me where to get illegal Anime. This software is provided free "as is" and if you have any suggestions for improving the software, let me know and I will consider updating it for that purpose.

You can download the installer for Windows PC here.



The software is very simple, once it is installed by running the setup installer. Open the application and click "Browse". Navigate to your folder with the series in it and press ok. This will populate the path field and display all of the files in the folder. The application attempts to use the first file name to deduce what the expected series name is. If this is not what you would like to name it, change the name in the "Series Name" field before doing a rename. The "Numbers in Name" field is used so that series that have numbers in their name like "Super 7 Ninja Magic Yea!" (name totally made up btw :), you can put a 1 in that box and the application will know to skip over the first numeral character in the file name before trying to deduce what episode it is. You can use the "Rebuild Name" button to have the application "guess" the series name after a change to the number field.

You can use the preview button before doing an actual rename to see what the paths for the files will be changed to. These replace the entries in the file list box on the left. Finally, "Rename" actually performs the rename of the files.

Drop me a line if you are having problems with anything.
Later!