504 Binary System.

Dissidia, the “Final Fantasy Franchise Fighter”, intrigues me.  I haven’t played it, or even seen any video, I’ve only leafed through a partially destroyed strategy guide at a Wal-Mart.  It makes me think that one day, at the Sqeenix offices, they were throwing around ideas and decided it would be cool if they did their own Super Smash Brothers.  Characters from various game worlds thrown together with hilarious results.  (Tuesdays on FOX.)  I’m not falling for their trap like I did with Crisis Core though.  I’m waiting them out for a greatest hits price point.  The game has a strange aura of discount about it.  The internet wants me to believe that it’s one of the best PSP games EVAR, but the internet lies, and makes fun of us all in front of our backs. 

At least part of why I don’t believe that Dissidia is going to be worth the 40 some odd dollars they want for it has to be the playable characters.  In a franchise that spans 13 titles, and a big handfull of spin offs, we’re given 22 avatars.  Maybe the desire for more characters is greedy, or even unreasonable, but the choices made leave me wanting.  That complaint is echoed, I would guess, by countless nerds across this lying, backstabbing, blackhearted internet.  The thing is that even within the 22 characters available there’s some overlap.  The heroes and villains in Final Fantasy have tended to be the same dude repainted with the brush from a new world.  So, if you line them all up this becomes more evident.  In the context of their own games it’s not so noticeable since they are surrounded by the other RPG archetypes.  Which is not to say that I don’t understand why the RPG uses the same archetypes over and over.  Everything does.  You have to start with your Skywalker and teach him stuff so that he can have his little hero’s journey. 

Of course there’s a chance that they realized everything I’ve just said while they were making Dissidia and just said ‘fuck it’.  Someone at Squeenix already knows that every new hero is the same old hero with a new coat of paint.  Kingdom Hearts 2 has at least one scene I can think of that reveals that much.  Now that I think about it Kingdom Hearts has the same basic plot as Dissidia. (Or Smash Bros. Brawl for that matter.)   Heroes from across the dimensions save them all. (With magic Keys!)

That must be why they kept 12, and the tactics titles, out of the main story of Dissidia.  It’s really hard to tell the protagonists from those games apart.  I can’t even remember the name of the kid from 12…  Tidus 2: Tid harder?  Bathier was the real hero anyway.

Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’d like a remake of Final Fantasy  6 for the PSP or DS, and that Sabin should have been in Dissidia.  I mean he’s already a fighter…  Also Tifa.