The Dreamwidth Account

Finally got FFXIV downloaded (took over 24 hours all up, at about 1.44MB/s. I love the NBN, and I hope Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey all wind up with boils on their bums that prevent them from talking out their arses about things they don't know crap about in future) and got to play it yesterday.

Whoa.

The main monitor for this new PC is a 30" curved screen, which is pretty much huge to begin with - I have a 27" one as a secondary and it looks titchy beside the main screen. Of course, both of them look small compared against the size of the TV out in the main room (which I have to sit about 2m back from in order to be able to see the whole screen) so I wasn't expecting there to be too much difference in available "screen size" when I started playing.

Well. That was a mistake. I opened up FFXIV, and all of a sudden I was looking at SPACE between each of the HUD elements on the screen. I'd forgotten the difference in pixel count between the TV, which is about 1920 x 1080, and the new monitor, which is currently at its recommended density of 2560 x 1440. The pixels really make a difference, folks.

I also headed down to Officeworks yesterday morning, and picked up some speakers (I'd forgotten I was going to need them, consequence of my last few machines having been largely laptops and all-in-ones with built-in speakers) and a headset (earphones and microphone) for if I need to talk to people online. Currently I'm just using the speakers, because they're easier, and they have a nice little headphone jack in them for if I need to shut off the noise for whatever reason (such as if I decide for some reason to be gaming past about 8pm, which is my usual "start bedtime routine" time). The headset has a dongle for plugging the headphones and microphone into the back of the computer, but I currently have the speakers occupying the "audio out" position on there. I'll think about it if I need to have voice input in future.

But I now have enough screen real estate that I can see what's going on in various raids, trials and dungeons, rather than having HUD elements overlapping each other. A definite plus, and now I can see the point of some of the various HUD elements that are included by default (I'd previously thought I might never use them - now I'm shuffling them into spaces where if I do decide to use them, they're not occupying the main view space).

I've also learned all the various bits in FFXIV which are stored locally (i.e. on your machine) when it comes to changing medium (e.g. from PS4 to Windows PC). This includes things like: gear sets for your character(s) (had to recreate all of those from scratch - tip for people doing this: changing class requires equipping the main hand tool/weapon; changing JOB requires equipping the soul crystal as well); HUD and toolbar configurations (resetting the toolbars for something like 22 different jobs is a nuisance, and I'm going to be doing it gradually over the next however long); and inventory settings. One thing which apparently isn't stored locally is your blacklist (so if you do as I do with the gold-spam bots, and report then blacklist them, you will still have your blacklist accurate). Further updates as I discover them.

But yeah, this new machine is great. Handled FFXIV and Discord running together without a hiccup, and I'm now considering having a Firefox window open on the second monitor so I can start doing the various "sightseeing" quests. (For those who don't speak FFXIV: the "sightseeing" quests are a bunch of challenges where you have to go to a particular location, at a particular time, in a particular weather condition, and perform a particular action in order to cross them off your list. The first 40 or so, from A Realm Reborn, are right whatsits. The ones in subsequent expansions have slightly less onerous conditions, simply because people pointed out the particularity of the challenges resulted in people being reluctant to do them).

Hi all,

Well, it's been a while since I wrote anything here. Lately, my main interest has been FFXIV - I've been playing it for over a year now, but I've managed to get one character through the main sequence on "A Realm Reborn" (the original patch 2.0 content from ten years ago) and I'm now getting into all the various trials, raids, 8-person dungeons and so on. (If I'm speaking gibberish, let me know, and I'll slow down and provide definitions). I've just joined a free company about a week ago, and this character has been on the Novice Network for a while, which has been useful, so I've been doing a lot of chatting there.

I'm quite enjoying it, although I'm currently finding the whole raiding thing to be somewhat chaotic and overwhelming. I'm sure there's a gaming culture thing in there somewhere which explains why people seem to do group content in MMOs at top speed - I mean, I've yet to see a single bus stop anywhere in any of them, so it can't be that the characters have a bus to catch. But I'm much more of a "can we slow down and take our time about this?" type - I mean, we spend hours waiting around for alliance parties to form, surely we can make all that waiting worthwhile by taking our time going through the content and appreciating the work the developers have put in?

(I suspect this is my neurodiversity showing).

I'm currently on two weeks leave from work - a staycation rather than a vacation, because I'm going to be using the time to get a whole heap of errands that have been outstanding dealt with. Things like dealing with some personal matters, getting various bits and pieces done around the house, and seeing about sourcing a new computer.

Yup, my current PC has reached the point where I'm looking at it and going "y'know what? This isn't going to do anymore." It's always been a bit sub-optimal on the gaming side of things (Steam running tends to bring the poor thing to a near-halt) and I haven't even tried to run FFXIV on it (I play FFXIV on the PS4), because I think it would literally have a meltdown at me and die. But I've started using Discord (Free Company thing) and running Discord is enough that this PC is busy grumbling and groaning and slowing down ridiculously. So I'm looking at replacing it with a proper gaming-capable machine - something where I can run FFXIV and Discord at the same time, the way the cool kids are doing these days. As a challenge, I'm going to be looking for a gaming PC which doesn't light up the house like a disco ball - I'm sure it's possible.

So, that's what I've been up to. How about you?

I bought myself a PS4, because it's been a while between drinks, so to speak. I also got myself four games to go with it - the Kingdom Hearts "oh, all right, catch up!" remix pack (KH 1.5 and 2.5 remix double pack - basically "the entire story so far on one platform rather than three"); Dissidia NT (beating up various Final Fantasy protagonists and villains for fun and... well, fun, really); Final Fantasy XII: Zodiac Age (the high-definition update, with the new character building system which isn't as flexible as the original one); and Final Fantasy XV (which bills itself as a final fantasy for fans and newcomers alike).

I spent all of yesterday playing Final Fantasy XV, and I have learned two important things. Firstly, the Final Fantasy team at Square Enix are going all out to try and convey the ultimate in realism through their graphical work. Secondly, this means I really can't be in the room while the characters are going from place to place in their sports car.

The first is pretty easy to expand on: the realism of their architecture and design work in this game is stunning (and gives me a lot of hope for what I'm eventually going to see in the FF7 remake[1]). The buildings, unlike most RPG designs, are pretty much like what you'd expect from this world - a lot of them are pretty much copied directly from this world. The landscapes are largely believable geography and geology, with only occasional forays into what I call "Nibel Geology" (have a look at the Nibel mountains in Final Fantasy VII for what I'm meaning there: mountain shapes which appear to have been designed by the Rule of Cool rather than ordinary old rules of geology and weathering). Which means you don't have lines of mountains intersecting at right angles and so on. Steve, who is something of a graphics connoisseur, assures me their work on the landscapes is brilliant. I'm willing to take his word for it, because I can't really see to much of them, to be honest.

The reason for that is the second thing: I can't be in the room while the characters are driving from place to place, because the level of realism is so great that it really plays havoc with my over-sensitive proprioception, and I get motion sickness (or rather, lack-of-motion sickness) from watching the characters drive from one place to the next. The mismatch between the motion I'm seeing on the screen, and the lack of motion I'm experiencing sitting on the couch is enough to make me extremely queasy if I watch them driving from place to place for too long. So I'll tend to start the driving on auto, and then head out of the room while they go to their next destination, and come back when they've arrived, in an effort to keep my stomach where it belongs. Even then, I've been needing to chomp regularly on some crystallised ginger in an effort to keep the queases at bay.

Oh, and one more thing I've learned: I need to actually reduce the size of the visual field on the screen, because the edges of the game "screen" are sliding off the edges of my physical television set. So, something to deal with when I switch the PS4 on again tomorrow.

But overall it's been fun, and I certainly don't think I'm going to have wasted the money I spent.

[1] Which is, in fact, the reason why I bought this particular console in the first place. Now I just have to wait for it to finish being vapour-ware.

Context: Australian, female, forties, fan since first seeing the game on my brother's Playstation back in 1997, own and have played the original Playstation version of the game (played on my PS2), Dirge of Cerberus (PS2) and Crisis Core (PSP), plus the PC re-vamp of FFVII with the MS-Paint mouths on the characters (on the PC, natch!). I also own both KH1 and KH2, as well as the original Dissidia, and a copy of Advent Children. I write Final Fantasy VII fanfiction (you can find them here on AO3). I don't currently own a PS4, but I'd certainly consider buying one (or a new gaming-quality PC) in order to play this remake if it's any good.

Dear Square Enix,

I have apparently been a very good girl this year, since you're planning to remake Final Fantasy VII with high definition graphics for the PS4. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Just the news alone is enough to make me squee and bounce in my chair making happy noises. As a long-time fan of the Final Fantasy franchise, and also of the Final Fantasy VII franchise itself, I offer the following suggestions. (Consider these a wish-list).

( Details under the fold )

I can't full express how much I'm looking forward to this re-make, but it's currently a re-make I'm looking forward to with somewhat mixed feelings. Please, don't let the prevailing trends of 2015 affect the way you re-make a game which was brilliant in 1997, and which can still hold its own even today. The core of Final Fantasy VII for me was always the stories and the characters - never the visual effects. Please don't lose this core while you're adding in the visuals.

Sincerely,

Megpie71 (aka Meg).

PS: If you put Cloud in a pink wig in the Wall Market drag scene, I shall not be impressed. Please don't cheat and re-use your Lightning skins in that one, okay?

When I bought this laptop (say "hi", Orac) it came with a program for "Wild Tangent Games" on it and some games pre-loaded. I was sorta interested, so I took a look, and it turned out to be quite rewarding.

For those not in the know, Wild Tangent are basically a "small games" (what the industry calls "casual games"[1]) publishing and distribution house. They provide marketing opportunities for small games, and offer them on a try-rent-buy basis to people like you and me who can't be arsed chasing things around Steam or Origin or whatever. They're the ones who introduced me to Bejewelled and Plants vs Zombies, so they're not all bad, and every week their little launch application updates with a new selection of games to choose from, as well as links to various MMO flash games out there on the web.

If you download a game from their "store", you get one free play (so you can decide whether or not you like it) and then subsequent plays are on a rental basis, paid for with "WildCoins" - you get 50 WildCoins for about $8.50 Australian, and a typical game use costs between 4 and 6 coins, usually about 5. Lately, they're offering the "buy for WildCoins" option as well - pay about 20 WildCoins, and you get to have the game for unlimited use. It probably isn't the best bargain for the developers, but for an unemployed person like me, it's pretty damn great.

Lately I've been downloading a lot of Hidden Object games. The basic thing about hidden object games is they're built around the old "find the objects listed below we've hidden in this picture" puzzles, and they're often quite challenging. There seem to be a few separate sub-genres - one in which you're participating in an interactive storyline (where one of the objects you're finding is going to be useful to you in overcoming the next set of puzzles you're going to be facing); another in which you're given a reward for finding the objects (points or money) and you "spend" your reward on improving a scenario (renovating a mansion, updating a farm, decorating a garden, updating a room etc); and a third where the object is basically just to complete all the puzzles and have done with it. I'm fondest of the "interactive storyline" games, because they're usually fairly interesting, and I've always been a plot junkie.

The thing I find about these games as well is they're generally pretty good for sitting down and ploughing through in one sustained burst (which means I can download an "interactive-storyline" hidden object game, and play it all through in one day) and they have (for me) very low re-playability (which means I can do that one burst as the "free try" play through, and then delete the game). If I have to split the game into a couple of play throughs (say if I start one in the evening after dinner but before I go to bed) then I'll usually get about half to three-quarters of the way through before I need to stop.

So this is how I'm doing most of my gaming these days - I download games from Wild Tangent, play them through, and then delete them off the hard drive.

Why am I stepping up to mention this, and starting to review these games? Well, blame the charming young fools from #gamergate for that. I'm female, I'm forty-three, and I've been playing one form or another of electronic game since I was about twelve. I have been an electronic game player for over thirty years now, and I'm annoyed at these nincompoops trying to claim MY identity as being either inferior to their own, or disclaiming it entirely, or trying to claim I stand with them. So I'm going to be looking at games with a mind to reviewing them in future, as a woman, as an older woman, and as a person who isn't socially permitted to claim the label of "gamer" without getting pilloried for it. Just so these little darlings can see they aren't the only fish in the pond, and that there's more to gaming than buying what's latest and greatest on the X-box or Playstation. Hey, if it helps some developers get an idea of what I'm looking for, and what does and doesn't work for people like me, all the better.

[1] I don't like the term "casual gamer" because of the implication it carries that someone who sinks multiple hours into playing Bejewelled or Chuzzles on the "infinite play" levels as part of their daily commuting routine, spends ages trying to get each level of a time management game completed to "gold" standard, and goes through a couple of different hidden object games every month across PC, console and smartphone platforms is somehow inherently not as committed to playing electronic games as someone who only sinks their hours into playing FPPPMSEU[2] on their console on Saturday nights. So I use "small games" instead - because they only ask for a small block of contiguous time, rather than the multi-hour chunks required by the larger games.
[2] First Person Perspective Pseudo-Military Shoot-'Em-Ups.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-most-ominous-trends-in-video-games/

Just read through that one, and yeah, I agree with the author: the range of games available is decreasing by the year. I've been playing various computerised games for years now (since I was about fifteen or so) and quite honestly, the console gaming range these days is pathetic compared to even the variety available five years ago. Ditto the range available for PC gamers.

This is becoming a common problem across multiple media, where the amount of money required to provide content means the investors are less and less willing to take risks with what they have, so they're only willing to provide a new version of something that's already been proven to have worked. Their justification for this is "everyone liked it". There isn't any money being spent on the smaller, niche markets - instead, colossal amounts are being poured into efforts to capture the eyeballs of the One True Demographic (which appears to be 15 - 25 year old, white, middle-class, suburban, heterosexual, Christian-raised, American males).

The rest of us, unfortunately, get to spend our lives looking through shelf after shelf of what "everyone likes", searching vainly for something even vaguely different to the endless loop of FPS; FPS; oh look another FPS; and gee, did you realise there was an FPS here? We're never asked whether we might want something different. (See multiple previous rants re: choice of salt-and-vinegar crisps or vinegar-and-salt crisps when what I'm actually looking for is barbecue flavour.)

( Why I'm not interested in online or 3D gaming )

If there's a game company exec out there browsing around haphazardly, looking for inspiration, here's what I want out of a game (and even though I may be a rare bird as a 40 year old heterosexual, female, Australian gamer, I'm not the only one):

* I want a good story - something that catches me and keeps me interested. Give me plot twists, give me character interaction, give me a reason to keep playing the godsdamned game past the first five minutes and the second cutscene. If you're not sure how to do this, get hold of the writers for the Final Fantasy series and ask them, because they certainly have it down to a fine art. Bioware also appear to have writers who can tell the difference between a plot and a hole in the ground.
* I want gameplay which is consistent. There are four buttons on the average console, and I'd prefer to be just using those. I should not have to remember the equivalent of the emacs macro set (look it up) in order to be able to defeat the second mini-boss.
* I want gameplay which accepts that not everyone is a hyperactive teenager hopped up to the eyeballs on caffeine and energy drinks with the reflexes of a greased ferret on crystal meth. My visual processing and verbal processing are slower than average to start with - they're only going to slow down more as I get older (and I'm part of Generation X, the first gamer generation). So have stuff which doesn't rely on pinpoint pixel perfect accuracy, or exact timing, because otherwise I'll get fed up and switch the game out.
* Oh, on that "growing older" thing, and the slower-than-average verbal processing speed - give me subtitles, and give me a way to turn off the fucking background music (for verily, background music on constant repeat is the number two reason why I'll give up on a game; no subtitles is number one these days, because I don't like trying to guess my way through games).
* Make the game in third person perspective (Third person omniscient if at all possible). I'm one of those weird people who finds First Person perspective (whether shooting or not) makes me nauseous. I get motion sick, because my eyes are telling me I'm moving, but my body is busy saying I'm sitting right there on the couch. I had enough of motion sickness as a kid for a very similar reason (scenery says I'm moving, body says I'm strapped into a seat in the car) to find the combination distasteful. Given the opportunity to avoid it, I will.
* Give me the option not to have to hear about online/multiplayer content if I don't want it. This is something I'm finding slightly annoying in games like Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and Little Big Planet - there's such an emphasis on the online stuff that I feel somewhat left out because my PSP doesn't connect to our household wireless network (not a deliberate choice on my part; rather an inadvertent choice on the part of my partner, who opted for a secure network rather than one the PSP could participate in). So I don't play those games much.
* Have a pause function in the game. I'm female, and most of the time I'm the only person home. This means I have to be able to put the game on hold while I do things like answer the door, go to the loo, answer the phone or stir dinner. If there isn't an easy way to put the game on hold (even if it's just ducking into character menu mode), I'm going to get annoyed fairly quickly.
* Don't worry so much about making the next version of whatever everyone else is busy selling. If we want any of the famous franchises, we know where to find them. To be honest, the only franchise I'm really all that sold on is the Final Fantasy one - because they very rarely make sequels. Instead, each new FF number is a completely different plot, a different set of characters, a different world to every other Final Fantasy game. Most of them are mediaeval-style worlds, but there's a few futuristic dystopias thrown in there (FFVII, FFVIII, FFXIII) and the characters from one Final Fantasy plotline generally don't interact with characters from another (Dissidia is a special case of pure fan service, ditto the Kingdom Hearts games).
* Oh, here's a thought: have the guts to try risking a tragedy on the market. Not everything has to end all happy and smiley. Take a hint from Square Soft (now Square Enix) - their big breakthrough game for the English-speaking market was a tragedy: Final Fantasy VII. (No, really, the plot of FFVII is a revenge tragedy of a type which wouldn't have been out of place on the Jacobean stage).

( What's On Meg's Consoles, and Why )

Basically, my preferences can be summed up thus:

* If you're going to give me a story, give me a flamin' story. Make it long, make it convoluted, make it tricky to understand - if I'm playing the game to get through the story, I'll come back and play it again to catch the bits I missed the first time (I re-read books for the same reason...). Of course, make sure that the vital plot points are made clear, but the little subtleties can be skipped over.
* If you're not going to give me a story, then give me something I can make a story out of myself - even if the story is just "How I beat the crap out of this next opponent". But don't give me a story which is so scanty it puts some of the costumes on the female characters to shame.
* If you're going to offer eye candy, have some which is suitable for a het female (or maybe even a gay male) to ogle as well. Yes, most of the gamerbois out there won't like it. Did I mention I'm not a gamerboi? It might just be worth doing a little market research and finding out precisely which proportion of the electronic gaming market these days is composed of members of the One True Demographic (see above for description) - I've a feeling they're a smaller proportion than they think they are.

I got my birthday money, and bought myself four new tops. Then my family's card came in the mail, and I got another $50. So I wandered down to the local branch of my favourite video game shop, and discovered they had FF13 priced a good $20 lower than most of the other gaming shops ($100 rather than $120). So guess what I snapped up.

I'm now up to disk 2 (which surprised me, since usually in multi-disc games disc 2 isn't reachable until I've played for weeks) and heading into one of the big bastard boss fights. Which I've already been killed by about three times *sigh*. I'm loving the story, particularly the re-use of various tropes and notions from other FF games, as well as a very clear homage or two to Star Wars in there (what else can you call finding a weapon called a "Lifesaber" when you're raiding the flying fortress of the evil overlord?). I get the sense that there's a lot of love and enjoyment went into the creation of the game, which is always a good thing as far as I'm concerned (things people love tend to have a bit more fun in them, by way of in-jokes and similar).

( Spoileriffic stuff under here )

So, in between assignments and lectures and things, I'm going to be chasing about trying to beat this boss, and see where the game takes me. I might also be heading back to my favourite video game shop, and picking up a copy of the game guide for FF13, since I have a strong suspicion I must have missed at least one or two points where I could wander off in disc 1. So, something for the next run through.

I've decided to get back into MMOs again, because I'm just that insane. I've decided to pick up one I used to play about three or four years back - Dark Age of Camelot. so, off I go to their website, and create myself an account. Then I start by downloading their installer, which is about 14MB in size.

One of the golden rules of MMOs I should know by now: the installer only installs the launcher. Once the launcher gets going, it starts installing everything else. So, since about 11am Wednesday, I've been downloading "patch" files (aka the full damn game client for DAOC). The download caused the graphics driver on my lapdog to crash about three times on Wednesday alone (my suspicion is the whole thing did the standard Windows "juggle more and more and more and more in Virtual Memory until you have to drop something" dance... and the bit which acted as the running chainsaw in the whole business was the graphics driver). First three times, it didn't get above about 12% complete. At present, it's at 85% complete, and I'm hoping this means I'll be able to get the silly thing finished overnight and maybe start up a character for the 7 day "free" trial tomorrow sometime.

Yes, it's a slow download. I suspect it's being throttled at least once along the line, if not more times. Yays.

I must be more insane than usual.

Of course, I'm also planning to head back to study this year, on the advice of my nice case manager from CRS. He's clearly decided the easiest way to get me off his case load is to shuffle me sideways into someone else's "too hard" basket, and given I'm intelligent, articulate, and clearly capable of stringing a sentence together without needing to stop and check a dictionary in the middle of things, the universities are probably the best people to deal with me. So of course I looked into university enrollment, and the first thing everyone gets pointed to here in Western Australia is the Tertiary Institutions Service Centre (TISC) who handle all the enrollment details for everyone who'd just bounced out of high school and into the tertiary education minefield. Problem is, TISC is set up to deal with high school students, rather than anyone returning to study (understandable; this is who they're going to see more of, after all). But this means they're asking questions about a person's high school education and wanting your high school results before they'll let you mention any other tertiary level study you might have undertaken. My high school records are somewhere in the filing cabinet (I think) and I can't get much more precise than that without essentially combing through about fifteen to twenty years worth of accumulated, salvaged, shuffled and re-shuffled paperwork which has been through at least five moves (two of them across the width of the continent). I've managed to find most of my other educational records (uni, TAFE, TAFE, uni) but without the high school records, I can't let TISC know about them.

It's rather like losing a chance at a job because you can't prove you've done high school English, even though you have a PhD in Literature.

What do I want to study? Well, having previously studied Politics, Education, and Professional Writing at BA level, and having done half a diploma in IT (user support), I'm thinking of heading back to pick up a BSc in IT (possibly with a double major in Games design/programming thrown in). Yes, I am a masochist, however did you guess?

Well, after a weekend spent getting at least some use out of my new XBox 360, I have the following to report:

1) Their wireless controllers appear to have a small design glitch, which means occasionally the batteries slip out of contact with the contacts, such that one has to stop every so often to get the wretched thing to reconnect to the system. This generally involves either pushing the battery cartridge up or tapping it a couple of times to ensure everything falls into place.
2) The Last Remnant is designed for people with a large, flatscreen TV. As a result, the majority of the text on my normal sized little CRT telly is so small as to be unreadable. Given this includes things like descriptions of items, battle commands etc, this is clearly a Bad Thing, and means my next purchase from fairy money is going to have to be a new TV.
3) Squeenix have clearly decided their party structure from FFX and FFXII is the ideal one, since I can clearly identify the main character of The Last Remnant as a clueless nitwit who has no idea about polite behaviour (if you've ever met either Tidus or Vaan, you'll know what I mean); there's a grumpy older female character (Lulu or Fran); and I'm sure the plucky younger female character would have shown up within about another ten or so minutes (Rikku, Penelo). So, we just need to find the strong, silent male character (Kimahri, Basch, Auron), the snarkier male contemporary of the hero (Balthier, Wakka) and the serious third female contemporary of the hero who's actually the focus of the plotline (Yuna, Ashe). I've no doubt they're in there somewhere, but I couldn't handle the amount of squinting I was going to have to do in order to keep playing the game.
4) Assassin's Creed has one serious deficiency which I find annoying: there don't appear to be subtitles available (plus it's designed for people who have the larger screen TVs as well... this appears to be a regular thing with XBox games). Given I need either clear mouth movements or subtitles (preferably subtitles) to make sense of dialogue when I'm faced with a tangle of syllables and noises which could be words but which aren't particularly clear. The other alternative is raising the volume to levels where the neighbours are being disturbed, which isn't my preferred one.
5) Tales of Symphonia is a very good game, with an interestingly complex morality woven through it. Bad things happen to good people, the world isn't just "good guys" and "bad guys", and the problems the protagonists are attempting to resolve are believably complex. I like.

Okay, it's been three weeks since the major meltdown, one week from the mini-meltdown which was averted by immersing myself in FF:Dissidia to the point of obsession (I'm now dreaming Dissidia battles... time to cut the playing down a bit). I'm vaguely sane at present (which reminds me - meds!) and hoping to stay so, even though the universe appears to be trying to make me go completely bonkers. My give-a-damn still isn't, so I'm currently behind on cooking, cleaning and doing anything other than levelling up characters on the PSP.

Dissidia is ... interesting. I've managed to get one character up to level 100 (Cloud) and I'm working on my second (Squall). Discovered that the guy who's voicing Squall isn't the same guy who voiced him in Kingdom Hearts, which says a lot about my hearing, doesn't it? The story mode is sorta fun, although there's a limited amount of enjoyment I can get from it (mostly because I get bored by running through the same thing over and over) - so far I've found the best fun comes from running through story mode for each character once, then coming back and doing it again after they've levelled up a bit (I ran Cloud back through his on level 80 or so, which was a bit like swatting flies with a sledgehammer... for some reason I got a perfect score for section completion after that; Squall went back through at level 30). So far I've beaten Chaos once (he's a right whatsit to beat - three-stage boss, so you have to kill him three times rather than just the once) and seen the final little FMV cutscene, which is cute.

I think one of the things I like about Dissidia is they have the age balance right for Cloud and Squall. One of my pet peeves in KH fandom is that people tend to assume Squall is older than Cloud (probably because Squall has a deeper voice). In fact, it's t'other way round - Cloud starts his game at age 21, while Squall is a good four years younger at age 17 - and if you assume each game took 1 year to run that has Cloud ending up at age 22, with Squall coming in at age 18. Advent Children takes place 2 years after the initial Final Fantasy game, so in Advent Children, Cloud is at least 23. Dissidia Squall looks younger than Dissidia Cloud, which makes me feel all is right with the world again. And yes, I am a picky fangirl.