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.]

I haven’t really seen a lot of desktop wallpaper around for Final Fantasy XIV yet, and that’s a shame because there’s a piece of large, gorgeous concept art out there that is just ripe for the picking.  That being said, I took that piece of art and broke it down into three separate wallpaper images, each including the FFXIV logo.  I’m not a genius with Photoshop, so they’re very simple.  I’m sure other people can do better.  But I like them…I’ve always been one for simplicity.

Feel free to use them on your desktop if you’d like.  There’s three in a standard resolution (1280×1024) and three in a middle-of-the-road widescreen resolution (1440×900).  Enjoy!

1440×900 (Widescreen)

1280×1024 (Standard)

Let’s speculate for a moment or two. Collector’s editions, pre-order bonuses and downloadable content for games seem to be par for the course these days. Assuming the eagerly awaited Final Fantasy XIII has all of the above, what would I want them to be? Now, don’t get all uppity, this is all pure speculation and desire on my part, there haven’t even been rumors about these things yet. As a Final Fantasy fan and gamer, here’s some things that might be nice (and a few things from which they should stay away).

In a Collector’s Edition or as pre-order bonuses I would like:

• I love art books. Give us one. You have no choice, Squeenix. Resistance is futile.
• In-game items are awesome – new character outfits, special weapons, a new area to explore (similar to the Assassin’s Creed 2 pre-order bonus). This isn’t a multi-player game, so balance isn’t much of an issue. Go crazy.
• A spiffy metal case like the FFXII CE had. I still have that game in that case. I love it.
• A soundtrack CD. Give us one of these, too. I know, I’m a demanding fanboy, I admit.
• A behind-the-scenes DVD with a lot of good content would be nice, too (check the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King WoWexpansion CE’s for good examples).

I tend to like to not like most physical items that are given with Collector’s Editions – key chains, bookends, necklaces, duffel bags, etc. They don’t get used (by me, anyway) and are usually cheaply made. If it’s a very well made item, then maybe, otherwise, forget it. What I do like as physical items are art books, soundtrack CDs and behind-the-scenes DVDs. Throw those in whenever and wherever you can.

What about downloadable content? For some reason, I seriously doubt this game will have any, but it is the first major Final Fantasy title of the DLC generation, so who knows. I could be surprised. If there was though, what would I want?

• New areas to explore with deep, involving side-quests.
• New outfits to play dress-up with (I swear I should have been born in Japan).
• Uber-powerful bosses in the world (its likely these will come on the disc, but you can never have too many optional challenges to overcome).
• A Japanese language track (for the 360 version, which won’t have it on the discs). This should be free.

What I don’t want to see in any way, shape or form as DLC:

• Purchasable levels or experience (*cough* Tales of Vesparia).
• Items that you will get anyway if you play the game the way its supposed to be played.
• Stuff that’s already on the disc.
• Anything resembling a multi-player mode.
• Multiple difficulty levels (if its already in the game, fine, but don’t make us pay for it).

There you have it, all my desires for FFXIIIgoodies and DLC laid out on the table. Will we see any of it? I doubt it. But there’s nothing wrong with dreaming.  We’ll see how wrong I am when (if?) these things are actually announced.

The sights and sounds of the Dragon Quest franchise are near and dear to my heart. The very first title with that name (or Dragon Warriorin North America) was the game that introduced me to RPGs and was game that jump-started my love of the genre. “A Slime approaches!” is all I think about when I see slime-type enemies in these newer titles.

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride was never released outside Japan until this DS remake, so having not seen any of the original game, its hard to make comparisons about anything, really. A few things were added and, obviously, the graphics were improved. Touch-screen controls were added, but they aren’t necessary by any means. In fact, while playing games like this (Chrono Trigger DS and Final Fantasy IV DS are two other examples), I would much rather use the buttons than the stylus any day of the week.

The story is rather unique for a standard JRPG. As the journey begins, you are a young boy, accompanying your father on a few errands here and there. Eventually, time passes and you grow up into a strong young man with greater responsibility. The option to marry the girl of your dreams presents itself about half way through the game. You’re allowed to marry one of three girls – each has their own strengths and weaknesses. That girl will travel with you for the rest of the game, so base your decision on more than the color of their hair. You have other faithful companions that stick with you through thick and thin, as well.

The graphics were updated to look pretty spiffy, most notably the terrain, towns and dungeons. The lighting effects in various areas are rather impressive for the DS. I really can’t say much about the character sprites. Some of the characters always look either angry or like some sort of alien, whichever you prefer. Although, the anime-style character portraits are nice, and should be a style familiar to fans of the DQ franchise.

What I enjoy most about this title is the story and the straight-forward battle system. There are no frills, no skills learned from equipment, no special combo attacks with various party members, nothing. Its simply old-school, turn-based RPG goodness. The variety comes from the choices you can make as to how your party is set up. This comes in two ways: 1) I already mentioned you get to choose a female character for your mute main character to marry, and each of the three girls available has different strengths and weaknesses, but also 2) you can get monsters to join your little band of travelers and build your party with the strengths and weaknesses you want. If you only have two set party members and want a melee-strong party, fill it with two monsters you acquired who focus strongly on melee attacks, if you want a magic-heavy party, do the same with monsters that are casters, if you want some buff/debuffers, do that. The choices are literally endless. Throughout the early part of the game, your main character is likely the main healer and damage dealer, but the entire party together, assuming you start adding monsters to it, can handle just about anything, and then some.

However, this game isn’t all roses, there’s quite a few thorns, most of which are likely holdovers from the original release, and can be blamed on its age. Way too often its way too difficult to figure out where to go next. You’ll finish one “quest”, one part of the story, you end up in the town where it all started and…well, you just have to figure out where to go next. You either have to talk to every person in town (sometimes multiple times) or explore around the world map until you find someplace that might be your next destination. If this was in a new game, I would knock it down a notch, but that’s just the way RPGs were back when this game was originally developed. Its still incredibly frustrating.

Also, something about the text bothers me. There’s way too much of it. When I want to save the game, I don’t want the guy at the church to go through his whole schpeel. Every. Single. Time. When a major event happens to my party, like a main character joins or leaves, the dialog stays on the screen for what seems like an eternity, while music plays in the background. No, hitting the “A” button won’t close the dialog box. This happens often, as well. Really, the only part of the game that should have anywhere resembling a novel’s worth of dialog is actual story segments. In that case, it wouldn’t be a problem. But, if I want to save, just let me save, without all the extra time spent scrolling through dialog boxes.

I also would have liked to see maps of interior locations, dungeons mostly, and a better, clearer world map. As it stands right now, its hard to tell exactly where you’re going or plot a direction to go on the pixelated world map. I dislike the requirement to only full-save the game at a church. You can quick-save anywhere on the world map, but to completely save your game in the regular manner, you must be at a church.

Overall, I quite enjoy Dragon Quest V, and will likely continue playing it until completion. The thing that irks me, though, is that while the developers are remaking the title, a lot of these little annoyances should have been taken care of. After all, they went through the trouble of adding touch-screen support, and even a new female character and all the dialog that goes with it, just for this remake. It would have been nice if they made the game a little less rough around the edges while they were at it. If you’re into very traditional JRPGs, this is a goldmine of quirky fun and turn-based adventure definitely not to be missed by fans of the genre.

Score: 8 (out of 10)

I posted some Borderlands wallpaper yesterday.  Today its Final Fantasy XIII’s turn.  Here’s some nifty wallpaper from that game that I’ll be using to spice up my desktop here at home.

Final Fantasy XI was the first MMO I played.  Ever.  I got into it because of the “Final Fantasy” name, of course, but was quickly sucked into the world of Vana’diel, never to look back (until I dropped it for WoW, but that’s a whole other post).  It was great at first, but slowly and surely sucked the life out of me – forced grouping, brutally losing experience upon death, a headache of a crafting system and an infuriating end-game all finally took its toll and I quit cold turkey.

Ever since FFXIV was announced at E3 a couple weeks ago, I have thought long and hard about what they can do to improve this time around.  According to the developers, they do want the game to appeal to a wider variety of people.  I take that to mean they want to steal some thunder from World of Warcraft.  That being said, targeting the more casual player is probably the way to go.

No Forced Grouping – For the love of Cloud’s spiky hair, don’t force us to group to level up quickly.  A solo leveling track for all classes from level one to whatever the level cap is would be preferred.  How they go about it really doesn’t matter, as long as it is possible.  It doesn’t always have to be questing, some can be grinding, I don’t care, as long as there is no forced grouping.

Story-Driven Questing – I loved the story segments and cut scenes in FFXI, but now they need to expand that to quests.  Give us a hundreds of easily accessible and visible quests that each tell a unique story.  Sure, there can be a few that tell the tale of an old farmer who wants you to go kill 10 wolves so his sheep will be safe, but don’t focus on those boring MMO standby quests, either.  Make things interesting.  Experience for the quests would be nice, but its not required as long as the rewards are good and they stick to my first point.

Crafting that Means Something – This gets requested with every new MMO that comes along, and I don’t think any have actually succeeded yet.  When I spend the time and in-game currency to skill up a crafting profession, I actually want it to mean something.  I want to be able to sell what I make and make more money from it that the materials cost.  I want it to be useful to my character in more ways than just a few things every now and then.  Also, please no more “you have to face this direction at this time of day and on this day of the week to yield maximum results” or losing expensive materials in a crafting failure.

Faster Travel – Finally, something that’s not such a big deal to people, but was one thing that ended up being the straw that broke the camel’s back – the speed of travel.  In FFXI, if you missed an airship, you had to wait 12 minutes just for a new one to come in, let alone the additional five minutes for it to fly to its destination.  Chocobo rental prices always fluctuated based on their use, instead of being a fixed price that people could expect and plan for.  The means of transportation is fine, because it fits in with a typical Final Fantasy world, but the time it takes is a bit on the ridiculous side.

Those are my four major hopes and dreams for this new MMO effort by Square-Enix.  Will any of them come to pass?  Only time will tell.  Rumor has it the beta may be starting this fall.  I’d like to get in on some of that action.