As some of you probably know, the location tests for the new Dissidia game have started today in Akihabara, Nagoya etc.
Location test:
The test itself started at 10 am, but I arrived at the designated game center (Hey! in Akiba) an hour later, because I've been told that the place usually has a regular queue system without any reservation tickets and that I should be fine on a weekday.
For anyone interested in trying today or in the following days - there actually is a reservation ticket system in place and one group of 6 people takes about 15 minutes, because everyone plays 2 matches. They also stopped giving out the tickets at around 2 pm and told everyone who came later to come again at 6 pm, where the whole thing changes to a first come, first served system.
As for the goodies, there were free instruction booklets (I took pictures of the whole thing) available to everyone who wanted them and after playing and completing a survey everyone got a sticker for a game center card:
Impressions from the game:
As everyone interested knows, the playable characters in the location test are: Warrior of Light, Onion Knight, Terra/Tina, Cloud, Lightning and Y'shtola.
According to the booklet/menu screen, the full game will have a solo mode where you party up with random people, a party mode, where you join as a premade team and a mission mode, where you're assisted by 2 CPU players.
In the test only the 'location test' mode for 2 "premade" teams of human players was available.
I played as Cloud (got 2nd place) and Y'shotla (got 1st place, but I didn't know what I was doing). The whole thing plays like Dissidia with a few changes here and there.
You can watch the tutorial video from the other thread to get the gist of it.
Before the fight the players were able to select one of the 2 preset sets of skills for the characters, which I'm guessing will be customizable in the full version.
The action could get really chaotic, especially when 2 enemy players team up on you and you're playing a caster who has to gain distance to be the most effective. The UI is busy and sometimes can get confusing, but since many people are complaining about that, it'll probably be tweaked in the final version.
Cloud felt really fun to play, since Meteorain is as op as it was before against people who are new to the game (big damage/distance). I didn't like the wind-up time for regular attacks, but I guess that's what dissidia is all about. It can get a bit frustrating when you get hit just because you were doing some weird flips just to do a sword slash.
Y'shotla wasn't as fun to play, mainly because the charge time of her spells was a bit too long in tight spaces.
Summons happened in both fights, and I was on both the giving and the receiving end, although being hit with it felt just like receiving some random damage. At least the stage changes looked really cool!
Controls felt good, although I caught myself double jumping while trying to dash (Gundam Extreme Versus says hello). As shown in the screenshots and videos, it was basically a weirdly shaped dual shock controller split in two, with a summoning crystal in the middle.
TL;DR:
The game is fun, please be excited.
Feel free to ask questions, although I've only played it for 15 minutes, so I don't know how many of them I'll be able to answer.
I hope some other gaffers also try the game in the following weeks and share their impressions as well.
Location test:
The test itself started at 10 am, but I arrived at the designated game center (Hey! in Akiba) an hour later, because I've been told that the place usually has a regular queue system without any reservation tickets and that I should be fine on a weekday.
For anyone interested in trying today or in the following days - there actually is a reservation ticket system in place and one group of 6 people takes about 15 minutes, because everyone plays 2 matches. They also stopped giving out the tickets at around 2 pm and told everyone who came later to come again at 6 pm, where the whole thing changes to a first come, first served system.
As for the goodies, there were free instruction booklets (I took pictures of the whole thing) available to everyone who wanted them and after playing and completing a survey everyone got a sticker for a game center card:
Since the booklet was free etc. I hope it doesn't fall under the gaf "no scans" policy.
Impressions from the game:
As everyone interested knows, the playable characters in the location test are: Warrior of Light, Onion Knight, Terra/Tina, Cloud, Lightning and Y'shtola.
According to the booklet/menu screen, the full game will have a solo mode where you party up with random people, a party mode, where you join as a premade team and a mission mode, where you're assisted by 2 CPU players.
In the test only the 'location test' mode for 2 "premade" teams of human players was available.
I played as Cloud (got 2nd place) and Y'shotla (got 1st place, but I didn't know what I was doing). The whole thing plays like Dissidia with a few changes here and there.
You can watch the tutorial video from the other thread to get the gist of it.
Before the fight the players were able to select one of the 2 preset sets of skills for the characters, which I'm guessing will be customizable in the full version.
The action could get really chaotic, especially when 2 enemy players team up on you and you're playing a caster who has to gain distance to be the most effective. The UI is busy and sometimes can get confusing, but since many people are complaining about that, it'll probably be tweaked in the final version.
Cloud felt really fun to play, since Meteorain is as op as it was before against people who are new to the game (big damage/distance). I didn't like the wind-up time for regular attacks, but I guess that's what dissidia is all about. It can get a bit frustrating when you get hit just because you were doing some weird flips just to do a sword slash.
Y'shotla wasn't as fun to play, mainly because the charge time of her spells was a bit too long in tight spaces.
Summons happened in both fights, and I was on both the giving and the receiving end, although being hit with it felt just like receiving some random damage. At least the stage changes looked really cool!
Controls felt good, although I caught myself double jumping while trying to dash (Gundam Extreme Versus says hello). As shown in the screenshots and videos, it was basically a weirdly shaped dual shock controller split in two, with a summoning crystal in the middle.
TL;DR:
The game is fun, please be excited.
Feel free to ask questions, although I've only played it for 15 minutes, so I don't know how many of them I'll be able to answer.
I hope some other gaffers also try the game in the following weeks and share their impressions as well.
