Smoke like a fal'Cie with l'Cie zippos

Just a bit of an update on the merchandising side of FFXIII, Square-Enix has added lighters to it's repertoire of stuff for the upcoming title. It sure is sexy, but I don't see much use out of it if you're willing on picking up a few nasty habits.

Not picured: Gunblade-shaped spoon to melt your heroin, buster sword syringe, and one of Squall's belt's to tourniquet your arm.





SOURCES: FF7ac Reunion, SquareEnixShop

IGN posts Dissidia review with video

Dissidia Final Fantasy Preview
We fight the battle to end all battles.
by Ryan Clements


July 17, 2009 - When Super Smash Bros. was originally released on the N64, the only thing I could think about was how awesome it would be if characters like Cecil, Cloud and other Final Fantasy greats could also partake in a universe-spanning battle for the ages. Square Enix has made dreams come true in the form of Dissidia Final Fantasy for the PSP -- an RPG fighting game that plucks heroes and villains from throughout the Final Fantasy franchise and plants them onto one intriguing UMD. Although I've played Dissidia at tradeshows in the past, I recently invested much more time in a preview build of the game, and I've very pleased with the experience thus far. This is a PSP exclusive that Final Fantasy fans should be very excited about.

Dissidia combines the stat-based, item-heavy, story-driven experience of an RPG with the mechanics of an arena fighter. This is not a traditional 2D fighting game that follows in the footsteps of Street Fighter or Guilty Gear -- it's not even similar to 3D fighters of the Soulcalibur variety. Dissidia actually feels more like Virtual On and other free-roaming affairs. This might not appeal to gamers looking for a hardcore fighting game experience, but the RPG elements definitely add enough depth to the Dissidia mechanics to keep it fresh.

IGN Video: Dissidia Final Fantasy Sony PSP Preview - Video Preview

In the world of Dissidia, two divine beings have battled for eons: Cosmos, the goddess of harmony, and Chaos, the god of discord. These two deities have always maintained a violent balance of sorts, but the war between light and darkness has recently escalated. Both Cosmos and Chaos summoned warriors from across a host of different worlds to participate in this grand conflict and now the balance is tipping in Chaos' favor. Yes -- the bad guys are winning at the start of Dissidia Final Fantasy, which is very cool (albeit depressing).

The battle system in Dissidia, which had previously been very confusing to me, is actually much simpler than you might initially imagine. Every character has a set of Bravery Attacks and a separate set of HP Attacks (these two categories, in turn, are divided into ground attacks and aerial attacks). During combat, players must balance the usage of these two types of attacks as they affect either a character's health or a character's bravery. Players use Bravery Attacks to increase their own bravery while simultaneously decreasing their opponent's bravery. When bravery is high, a player can execute an HP attack that will cause physical damage (in the amount equal to the player's current bravery) to his or her opponent's health. If an HP attack is successful, the player's bravery drops back down to zero and must be built up again through usage of more Bravery Attacks.

In other words, you continuously pound away on your enemy with Bravery Attacks and finish them off with an HP Attack. Simple.

At its core, this battle system is what Dissidia is all about. You'll be running, dashing, flying, grinding and flipping across several arenas inspired by different Final Fantasy locales, tapping into a roster that features more than twenty FF heroes and villains. These battles are made even sweeter when coupled with the remixed versions of classic Final Fantasy songs, like One Winged Angel and the boss anthem from Final Fantasy IV.

Dissidia also boasts a tremendously high production value. There are so many modes and sub-systems in this game, it's almost impossible for me to cover them all in one simple preview. But to touch on the basics, you'll find a full multi-level story for every hero, an Arcade Mode, Quick Battles, ad-hoc multiplayer, a Museum for viewing cinematics and more. Almost everything in Dissidia can be tweaked and customized to your liking, including three differently sized installs for speeding up the load times (which are already quite tolerable). This massive amount of customization extends into each character, as you can level up as you fight, buy items, accessorize, remap abilities and even equip summons.


There's plenty going on here. Take notes.
After sinking several hours into the Dissidia experience, I can already say that it's one of the better PSP games I've played -- especially in terms of presentation and production value. I do have a few concerns though that I feel compelled to note. First, the voice acting isn't as nice as I was hoping. With no option for switching over to the Japanese language track, players are stuck with hearing a few genuinely good actors mix with some not-so-awesome talent.

More troubling is the repetition found in the game's Story Mode. So far, every hero's story involves walking through bland landscapes while spewing cliche monologues about destiny, fate, personal burden and other typical RPG topics. I need a bit more normal human interaction to actually care about these characters, but I fear that the developers assumed no character development was needed, as all these warriors have pre-established stories. This could very well just be a problem with the initial story arcs, so I'll hold my final judgment.

Besides the aforementioned issues, Dissidia is a very fun game and one that I think deserves a lot of attention. As we approach the game's launch date, don't forget to check out our continued coverage of the game's heroes every Thursday.

Original article.

SOURCES: IGN

Terra vs Ultimecia, courtesy Gamespot

SOURCES: GameSpot

Dissidia demo coming to PSN July 23

A bit of an unexpected move one month before release, I'll say. From PlayStation Pulse courtesy of PlayStation.com, a news blurb fit with a banner announcing that a demo for Dissidia will be released one week from today over the PSN network. And yes, this will be the English version of the game.

You can view the original announcement here.

SOURCES: PlayStation Pulse

FFXIII character revealed: "Hope Estheim"

The silver-haired boy that we've seen in Final Fantasy XIII trailers as of late has been revelaed in the newest edition of V-Jump. Also, a new skeletal type figure is shown, is it a fal'Cie?





Preliminary translations of the scan by RPGMonkey of NeoGAF:

Hope Estheim
-The silver-haired boy
-Uses a boomerang
-Hates Snow for getting his mother involved in the battle
-New Monster, "Cie Corpse (Husk?)"
-The eventual fate of a l'Cie
-Vanille's weapon is a fishing rod
-Lightning's great skill, "Air Blast"
-A l'Cie becomes a Cie Corpse when there's an unclear objective and they exceed their time limit, or something like that.

"I don't know if it's exactly a fishing rod or it's just the most accurate description, but apparently she attacks with a needle attached to a wire, so it's at least the easiest thing to describe it with.

I think the concept is that the fal'Cie mark normal humans as l'Cie, and give those people a task. The task given isn't clear and simple to figure out, but the l'Cie have a time limit, so if they just give up they'll eventually become one of the monster things. Don't really know if you become a monster whether you finish your task or not, but the way they talk about being a l'Cie so negatively, either the objectives given are so hard to understand no one (or almost no one) manages to actually complete them, or you're doomed whether you manage to do it or not."

SOURCES: FF7ac Reunion, 2chan, RPGMonkey (NeoGAF)

Dissidia exhibition for FFIV characters online

Another Thursday, another exhibition: this week Final Fantasy IV's Cecil and Golbez. Behold!





SOURCES: Xyrsk (Youtube), IGN, Gamespy.

Gamespot posts Dissidia: Final Fantasy preview

SOURCE: Gamespot

New screenshots for Four Warriors of Light

Impress Watch uploaded some new screenshots of Four Warriors of Light were made public today.

Courtesy andreasang.com:


SOURCES: Silconeria, Impress Watch, andreasang.com, Silh for the heads up.

Final Fantasy XIV, artwork of

Today, Square-Enix sent out a new mail with a link to the Final Fantasy XIV website, where the E3 trailer is viewable, followed by a link into the site where a large mural created by Kazuya Takahashi was available.

FINAL FANTASY XIV Official Website NA





SOURCES: Square-Enix

New FFXIII scans from OPM

SOURCES: OPM, finalfantasy-xiii.net

New screens for FFL2: Goddess of Destiny

New screenshots from Famitsu tonight. :3















SOURCES: Famitsu