![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroCosmos versus Chaos, need heroes from the various Final Fantasy games to gather Rhythmia to save the realms, blah blah blah…rhythm games to Final Fantasy music, lots of variety, go wild.
There are sequels that continue the plot of the original or try to add new ways of doing things, but I think there's a very specific genre of video game sequel that's almost a remake of the original game, only they make motions towards calling it a new game in the series. The second Dissidia game was like that (it actually contained the entire first game's events using the new systems) and so is this. They've rearranged the way things unlock and added a bunch of new songs and characters (and kept all of the originals), but the plot (gather Rhythmia to save the realm from Chaos) and the gameplay (three types of rhythm stages modified by what you equip on your characters) are unchanged. They add a Versus mode, add additional gameplay styles (button and hybrid modes, in addition to playing with the stylus), give you something to do with the Collectacards (spend them to power up characters), and change the way that Quests function (they now have maps with branching paths and more options), but it's totally the same game.
I tried the different control schemes and eventually decided that stylus was the best way to play field stages, and buttons were the best way to play battles. And the one-handed style was useless to me, because it requires you play one handed with your left hand. (As most people who’ve met me know, my left hand is my generally incompetent hand; I type with just my right hand and prefer to play Guitar Hero with lefty-swap.)
It’s interesting how distinct the three difficulty levels are, and I can tell exactly how good at the game I am: I can get SS rank on pretty much every Basic score, usually with a Perfect Chain, even if I’ve never heard the track before. Expert scores are generally manageable; I can clear them and usually score an A or better, getting up into the S-ranks if I’m familiar with the song. Ultimate scores destroy me and I never managed to clear one.
I see no reason to keep my copy of the first game now that I have this; it contains all of the same songs and characters (and lots more) and the only things it gets rid of are a few of the FMV story stages (turning those songs into either battle or travel stages), which is no big loss. (Especially since those stages were all full of spoilers for their related games, and who wants that?)
Overall: There’s no need for the original game when you can play this instead. If you like FF music and rhythm games in general, here you go.
There are sequels that continue the plot of the original or try to add new ways of doing things, but I think there's a very specific genre of video game sequel that's almost a remake of the original game, only they make motions towards calling it a new game in the series. The second Dissidia game was like that (it actually contained the entire first game's events using the new systems) and so is this. They've rearranged the way things unlock and added a bunch of new songs and characters (and kept all of the originals), but the plot (gather Rhythmia to save the realm from Chaos) and the gameplay (three types of rhythm stages modified by what you equip on your characters) are unchanged. They add a Versus mode, add additional gameplay styles (button and hybrid modes, in addition to playing with the stylus), give you something to do with the Collectacards (spend them to power up characters), and change the way that Quests function (they now have maps with branching paths and more options), but it's totally the same game.
I tried the different control schemes and eventually decided that stylus was the best way to play field stages, and buttons were the best way to play battles. And the one-handed style was useless to me, because it requires you play one handed with your left hand. (As most people who’ve met me know, my left hand is my generally incompetent hand; I type with just my right hand and prefer to play Guitar Hero with lefty-swap.)
It’s interesting how distinct the three difficulty levels are, and I can tell exactly how good at the game I am: I can get SS rank on pretty much every Basic score, usually with a Perfect Chain, even if I’ve never heard the track before. Expert scores are generally manageable; I can clear them and usually score an A or better, getting up into the S-ranks if I’m familiar with the song. Ultimate scores destroy me and I never managed to clear one.
I see no reason to keep my copy of the first game now that I have this; it contains all of the same songs and characters (and lots more) and the only things it gets rid of are a few of the FMV story stages (turning those songs into either battle or travel stages), which is no big loss. (Especially since those stages were all full of spoilers for their related games, and who wants that?)
Overall: There’s no need for the original game when you can play this instead. If you like FF music and rhythm games in general, here you go.
