We haven’t heard a whole lot about the North American release of Dissidia: Final Fantasy.  Its a action/fighting/RPG title for the PSP that pits characters from many games in the Final Fantasy franchise against each other in a typical “good vs. evil” battle.  What interests me is that each of the “hero” characters have an individual storyline that in some way relates to the character in their original title.  So, its a fighting game of sorts, and is reported to take roughly 40 hours to complete?  This should be interesting.

Needless to say, I haven’t played the Japanese version, or seen anyone play it in videos, so I’m unsure how everything works, but it looks like we’ll get to find out next week (July 23) when the demo is expected to hit the North American PSN.  It could get delayed, of course, but who wants to be pessimistic like that?  You can bet I’ll give my impressions of the demo here very soon after the download is available.

[Via Joystiq.]

Due to its abysmal sales in North America, I’m surprised Sega is putting together a sequel to Valkyria Chronicles. Don’t get me wrong, I’m terribly glad they are – that title is probably the best RPG to grace the PS3 since the system hit the market. Its just a shame not many people got to experience it, since it was released last year during the holiday season when just about every other triple-A game of the year came out. Because of that, it didn’t get much attention from the typical gamer. I guess it’s a good thing Japanese companies don’t make or break a game by sales figures in other parts of the world. 

I’m glad they’re releasing a sequel on the PSP – the art style, game play and setting of the story holds so much potential it would be a shame not to attempt to expose more people to its grandeur. Looks like its aiming for a winter release in Japan, so we’ll likely see it on this side of the Pacific next year sometime.

The PlayStation Portable seems to be doing very well lately.  It, along with its counterpart the Nintendo DS, seems to be a haven for quirky RPGs of all sorts coming out of Japan.  If you like music and like RPGs, perhaps the latest JRPG announcement for the PSP might pique your interest.

NIS recently announced that Princess Antiphona’s Hymn: Angel’s Score Op.A will hit the hand-held in Japan in October.  Unfortunately, I have not played similar music-RPG fusion titles, like the PS1 and DS game Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure (published by Atlus, unsurprisingly), but the more I read about it, the more interesting it sounds.  A lot of people might find a game that has musical numbers in its cut scenes a bit…off.  And it is, for American gamers.  But, not in Japan, where previous musical RPGs have garnered a huge following.

I’m reminded of the musical numbers in various episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  I thought they were odd at first, but it didn’t take long and I realized how well they fit into the idiosyncratic nature of the series overall.  Then, I think of something like that in an anime-style RPG and a smile spread across my face.

Here’s hoping Nippon Ichi intends to localize Princess Antiphona (for short) for a North American release sometime in the future.

I’ve always loved Atlus, their localization team has always been great. Nothing impresses that more into my mind than Crimson Gem Saga. At its heart, it’s a very traditional JRPG and the sequel to the game Astonishia Story. (Basically, its Astonishia Story 2, but with a new title both in Japan and North America.) Although it’s a sequel, you don’t need to have played the original title to figure out what’s going on – its laid out very clearly in the opening acts of the game.

You play as Killian von Rochoff, who, at the beginning of the story, graduates from Green Hill Academy in the hopes of becoming a chevalier. His dreams do end up becoming a reality, although not in the way he hoped. He’s swept into the secret search for the Wicked Stone, formerly known as the Crimson Gem. Along the way, of course, you pick up various party members with other skills to round out your band of warriors. I can’t say the story and characters aren’t cliché, but the dialog is so amazing you won’t even care. Atlus did an excellent job of localizing this title. That’s all I can really say. They did an awesome, awesome job. Many of the little quips the characters make made me laugh out loud.

The voice acting isn’t top notch, but its not horrible, either. The voices fit the characters pretty well, but still fall prey to being overly dramatic and sometimes tiresome when the same phrase is repeated over and over again in battle. The music fits the mood that the characters find themselves in, as well, but there’s nothing that really stands out. Overall, the audio is well done, but not amazing.

The visuals are stunning on that little PSP screen and the character sprites are well animated and enjoyable to watch. Keep an eye on Spinel on the battle screen right after a fight, as they’re doing their little victory dance – perhaps her sprite is a bit too animated, if you know what I mean.

For a battle system, you have typical turn-based fare, with a couple improvements to liven things up a bit. This isn’t a new mechanic, by any means, but requiring you to “tag” the enemies (which are seen on screen, no random encounters here) so you at least start on equal footing will keep you on your toes. If you manage to sneak up on an enemy, your party gains a fairly sizable advantage in battle. If the enemy sees you first, you have a few seconds to reach it, but if you wait too long, it will come after you with a vengeance and gain an advantage for itself.

Combos with the different characters during battle also spice things up, the only downside is that both the characters have to learn the combo skill before you can use this. This gets me in to a lukewarm part of the game mechanics – the skill system. As you battle, you gain skill points, and these are put into a pool that any of your party members can draw from. Each character has their own skill tree that is geared toward the type of attacks they’re designed to use – magic, physical assault, healing, a combination, etc. The problem isn’t that set up, but it’s the fact that to just uncover a skill and see what it is it costs you skill points. Then, you have to spend even more points to actually learn the skill. This strikes me as overly problematic because it will (at least for me) lead to mandatory grinding in mid- to late-game.

It would have alleviated the problem somewhat if each character had their own pool of skill points or, better yet, just have the entire skill tree exposed from the start of the game so you can at least plan in what order you wish to learn the abilities. This is really my only major gripe with the game. And, truth be told, if you enjoy a major grind-fest, it might not bother you so much.

One other small issue I have to comment on is the lack of being able to move my character at a 45 degree angle on the field screen. The movement always seems slightly off. Its hard to describe, really. Its also not that big of an issue, but probably the one thing that always got me saying, “What is up with these controls?!” every time I picked up the game to play.

Crimson Gem Saga is exquisite in so many ways that even the one major issue I have with the game pales in comparison to how great the title is overall. Its definitely one of the best RPGs for the PSP. It might be too old-school or grindy for some people, but if you enjoy those types of games, you can’t miss this title.

Score: 8.5 (out of 10)

I’m always trying game demos, although I haven’t had the chance to try many this week.  Let’s talk about the two I did try, however.

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite: The Japanese, with their small-ish hands, probably have no problem with the horribly awkward camera controls in this title.  A friend of mine wanted me to try the demo and buy the game, since it would be something fun to play together and I’m the only other person he knows with a PSP…but there’s no way on Earth I’m going to play this game with that mess of camera control.  There’s also no way to remap the buttons, which makes things even worse.

The graphics and general game play are what originally got me thinking this might be something I’d like to try, but not at the expense of my sanity.

Phantasy Star Portable: Like Monster Hunter, I’ve never played any Phantasy Star games, either.  As soon as I booted up the demo, I was greeted with a ton of customization options in creating my anime-inspired character and I was thinking, “Hmmm…this will be fun!”  It was, until I actually got control of my character.  Then I was presented  with the same horrible camera controls I found in Monster Hunter.  Seriously?!

The saving grace was that, in Phantasy Star Portable, the camera actually did a better job following your character and rotating so you could keep track of what was going on.  You also had a first-person mode to try out, as well.

Both demos were rather disappointing, but I now feel the need to rent both these games and review them.  Out of both titles, the one I’d be most likely to enjoy is Phantasy Star Portable – sci-fi setting, the camera isn’t near as wonky and the customization is great.  (Yes, there is customization in MHFU, but they didn’t show me that in the demo!  Plus, I enjoy the anime style visuals in PS better than the realistic style of MH.)