Dissidia 012: Duodecim Final Fantasy (PSP)

Dissidia 012 is a sequel to a critically acclaimed game: Dissidia. Dissidia 012 is basically Square Enix's attempts at a 3D fighter for the PSP. You can pick characters from The Warrior of Light(Final Fantasy) all the way to Lightning(Final Fantasy 13). The game sound like an interesting idea, but does it uphold all of its promises?

The story is simple. There is a waging war going on between harmony and discord. Cosmos: The symbol of harmony and Chaos: The symbol of discord both call chosen warriors to fight for them. Each side is trying to win each battle. Cosmos wants to finally end the continuous cycles of fighting once and for all. She gathers up chosen warriors to hunt for specialized crystals that will aid them in destroying the cycle. Unfortunately, evil metal replicas aka manikins are slowing them down in finding the crystals. Chaos's warriors further delay the collection of the crystals.

In the story mode, you'll be playing as Cosmos's warrior such as Lightning and Tifa Lockheart. The story mode isn't that well crafted and planned out. The overworld is direct copy from the original Final Fantasy but in 3D. You'll use the overworld to go through gates to get to the crystal. In these gates, you'll usually find manikins to fight through. There are cutscenes along the way, usually at the end of these gates. Basically, you'll be going through continious battles with limited contact with other characters.

The graphics are not very impressive. In fact, they are pretty basic for a PSP game. The most impressive thing about the graphics is the fact that there are so many things going on without an inch of slowdown. You'll be attacking with swords, bows, guns, and even casting many magic spells in these battles. The stages themselves are well textured and have nice looking backgrounds. The character models are decent for a PSP game. There is a CGI intro along with a couple CGI cutscenes throughout the story. They look really good!

What I love about this game isn't the story or the graphics, it is the gameplay. You are thrown into a Final Fantasy battle field from Kefka's Tower or Ultimecia's Castle. There are two types of attacks in this game. A bravery and HP attack. Bravery attacks will increase your bravery number and HP attacks will deal how much bravery you have to the opponent. Use this to your advantage as bravery attacks will decrease your opponents and could even end up "breaking" it causing you to gain a load of bravery. You should never stay too low on bravery. Unfortunately, using an HP attack will set your bravery back to 0. The higher the bravery you had using your HP attack will increase the amount of time it takes to replenish itself. There is also another type of attack, an EX MODE attack. When you fill up your EX bar(EX orbs are made when you attack an opponent, and EX CORES summon throughout the battle)you can enter EX mode. You'll regain HP along with dealing higher critical hits. If you do an HP attack, you can do a finisher which deals tons of damage to your opponent. Another option is to use EX Mode while being attack. You'll enter EX revenge which will break you out of a combo and slow down time. This gives you chance for a free attack. Last but not least, you can use summons. Summons have many different effects from gaining free bravery or shuffling you and your opponents braverys.

In the sequel, they threw in a new gimmick; assists. When you attack, you fill up the assist bar. If you use an assist, you can chain combos with the assist to deal bravery damage. Having two assist bars will deal an HP attack. You can also use assists while being attacked to break out of your opponent's combo. Assists are useful for offensive and defensive purposes.

Dissidia has a lot of nice tracks to choose from. A lot of the older tracks are remastered to take advantage of today's technology. All of the tracks are from Final Fantasy along with a couple tracks specially made for this game. You can easily recognize the tracks from previous Final Fantasy games and enjoy the nostalgia.

The re-playability is very high for this game. You can level up every character to level 100. You'll become much more stronger and gain more abilities and attacks doing so. There are a ton of stages and characters to unlock. You can also unlock additional music tracks to be played during battles. After you beat story mode, you unlock the story mode from the first game. You also unlock secret reports that you can play and read. Along with that, there is a quest creator in which you can make your quest and trade it with friends. last but not least, you can do wireless battles with friends to show off your skill.

 This is one of the best games out there for PSP. The gameplay is just so fun and addicting you never want to stop playing. I already have 150 hours clocked JUST for this game. There are many characters to choose and master. This is a must for your PSP collection! Even if you own the original, you should still upgrade to the sequel. You can transfer your save from the first game too.

Rating: 8.5/10

Been on a looong Break...

I've been on a long break from making a blog post. I haven't really felt like making any reviews for some reason. I always think to myself "I'll do one.. later.." and eventually 2 months pass by. I PROMISE for a review (maybe more then 1 as a bonus) next month.

Pokemon Black and White Tour

Here comes the Pokemon Black and White Tour. I didn't even know it existed until today. Good thing I found out since this is the last day. (Although, my brother is sad now that he can't go) You were able to collect stamps to get rewards and even play the new pokemon game. It was available at Strongsville's mall on Feburary 5th and 6th.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play Pokemon Black and White at this station. The line was too long and I didn't feel like wasting my whole day there.

Ha ha ha! This is the Pikachu girl at Hot-Topic!

Over here, we can see that the event only lasts 2 days.

Here is Ash Ketchum, sorry for the blurry shot. Here you can watch Pokemon Diamond episodes.

Here is the epic Pokemon next to me. Oh, I went to JCPenny and bought a shirt.

There are several stamp stations across the mall. You get to have a booklet(that has information about the game) and a stamp page to get stamped. After you get all the stamps, you can spin a roulette to get a prize. I won a "green starter guy" stylus. You can win plushies, stylus, and pins.

I wasn't able to, but you can watch a sneak peak of the new Pokemon movie. If you do, I've heard you can get two limited edition Pokemon "giant" trading cards.

I look forward to buying Pokemon White/Black and reviewing them.

Kingdom Hearts RE:Coded

It was only a matter of time before another Kingdom Hearts game came out. Kingdom Hearts RE:Coded is a remake of a cell phone game exclusively made for Japan. Square Enix again manages to squeeze the PS2 franchise into the palm of your hands onto the Nintendo DS.

The story is presented very nicely with 2D moving frames and 3D cutscenes. It starts off with Mickey trying to find out what happened to Jiminy's journal. All they can find is "Thank Namine" and a odd message talking about hurt. Mickey brainstorms an idea to solve this puzzle. He brings out Data Sora to fix the bugs. Since they are debugging the original journal from the first game, expect to revisit the same worlds again.

The graphics are extremely well done in this game. There are a ton of 3D models for the player and enemies. The textures are quite detailed and varied. Every single command in this game has its own sprites. Most of the worlds are filled with plentiful vibrant colors. You might wonder how this game could possibly be done on the DS!

Kingdom Hearts RE:Coded has to be one of the most unique Kingdom Hearts game. It takes the classic Kingdom Hearts gameplay along with the Birth By Sleep command deck. Along with that, you'll find that there are platforming, side scrolling, RPG, and even shooting sections. Before you ever get tired, the game will throw you into a totally new gameplay scenario. All of the different types of gameplay styles are done very well.

There are a ton of different music tracks in this game. Although, some may be disappointed that most are recycled from previous games. All of the music tracks fit nicely with their respective worlds. The battle themes sound pretty good. You might even pause the game to listen to the music then actually play the game, that is how great the soundtrack is.

Unfortunately, there is no real multiplayer in this game. The only multiplayer function there is is the ability to trade avatars and play other player's floors. Playing those floors will grant items that your avatar can wear. This adds a bit of replayability to the game, but not too much. Speaking of replayability, the game has tons. After beating the game, you can replay any world you have beat to gain extra rewards you might of missed the first time around. Along with that, you can do optional quests and system sectors to reap rewards.

This game is perfect for any die-hard Kingdom Hearts fan. The story is very simple that even players that never entered the Kingdom Hearts realm won't get confused. The graphics and gameplay are amazing for a handheld. This is a game I would recommend to buy right now. You won't regret it and I'll bet that you'll have a ton of fun with it. You'll be playing this game for a long time.

Rating: 9.5/10