Square Enix breaks a record in App Prices! Let's Play Final Fantasy Dimensions!

Well come, one and all to the beginning of a new LP! Of a game that came out on August 31st!



Or as TV Tropes calls it, Final Fantasy Nostalgia. I agree with them there. It was originally released in 2010 under the (translated) name Final Fantasy: The Warriors of Light and Darkness. I have not actually finished the game as of now, but I am almost to the last chapter, so eh, close enough. Anyway let’s get started!


The Prologue for this game is free for download on IOS devices, and was supposed to be for Android as well, but that isn’t working except in Japan so… yeah. For the curios, this is on my iPad. You can also get the original chiptunes version of all the music for $9 but it really isn’t worth it. The chapters cost $3, $9, $9, and $9 respectivly.



Ohhh blue background! Nice!



And the game tells us we are in the free part of the game. Oh, I should note, because school still exists for me, this will be updated….infrequently at best. But I’ll try, for your sakes!



Anyway, here’s an old dud in the woods.



And a dark knight. Who the heck is Sigurd? Is it the knight?[Maybe]



And now some mountains with a village behind them.



Hello red and white shirt/tie guy! Who are you? And what is Avalon? The coolest club ever?



Sol! The symbolism in the character names literally drip off them.



And who is this challenger approaching?!



Why it’s purple armor/anime-ponytail man! He isn’t very strong so after a couple of hits…



We find out it’s Glaive! I…don’t remember his name’s meaning, but I’m sure someone in the peanut gallery will gladly say it.



And Glaive gets told he isn’t hot stuff. Darn it Sol! What did we tell you about bullying!



Another challenger? That’s like two in 5 seconds.



Oh cool! We got a roman goddess on our side. by the way, did I forget to mention that Sol is basically FFV Advance’s Bartz? Because he totally is.



And now its transcribing time!
Sol: Huh?
Glaive: Don’t play daft.
Sol: So you mean you’re all here to-streak?
Diana: Why else you lunkhead? You know my brothers coming back from his expedition!
Sol: Oh. Yeah. That.
Glaive: Shall we then? I swear, what will we do with you?
Sol: Keep an I out for monsters!
Diana: I thought you were coming to protect us?(Diana with the BURN)



Diana: Well, with confidence like that, I’m sure that the Empire will be tripping over itself to recruit you! (3/4s through the game and I have not seen a single burn besides these from her. The heck SE?)
Sol: You take that back! You meanie!

And they are off. Here, have a few stat screens.

As we can see here, all 3 of our intrepid protagonists are Jobless. Not a shock in this economy (Political Humor!!!), but they are also low level. Seriously Diana? Could it kill you to be over level 1? Oh, and except for one exception, RPG sex discrimination is in full effect. All guys are awesome at taking and dealing physical damage, while the ladies are great at magic. At least, Diana can heal well. The reason the Mind (Mnd) is green is because it is being boosted by one point by her staff. Also, note Sol has more MP and speed, but less strength and Vitality (think Stamina) then Glaive.
The gameplay in the game is like Final Fantasy IV with V's Job System's cousin added in.
Are far as the GameFAQs people know, stats work like this:
Health (HP) is the same thing as normal.
Magic (MP) is also normal, except anything that is in a skillset uses it.
Strength (STR) affects physical damage dealt.
Speed (SPD) affects how fast the ATB bar fills up.
Vitality (VIT) affects defense. It is currently unknown if it affects status ailments or health gained on level ups.
Intelligence (INT) affects magic damage dealt to enemies, and *maybe* hit chance on status ailments. It also affects magic defense.
Mind (MND) affects how much health is healed by magic. It also affects magic defense.
Attack (ATK) symbolizes PHYSICAL damage dealt.
Accuracy (ACC) affects physical hit rate. It is based on the equipped weapon, and can be both under and above 100.
Evasion (EVA) shows your PHYSICAL evasion rate.
Magic Evasion (MEVA), while not ever shown except in armor stats, affects MAGICAL evasion. This includes enemy spells and skills.
Defense (DEF) shows how much physical damage is resisted. It seems a bit...odd though, because you can still high amounts of damage, even in heavy armor.
Resistence (RES) shows how much magic damage is resisted. It seems a bit more consistent then DEF.



Diana also comes with !White Magic Lvl. 1 equipped.

Cure: 4 MP Light healing to one/all allies. This is pricy so early in the game.
Libra: 1 MP Tells one enemies health, weakness, and I think statuses.
Poisona: 3 MP Cures the poison/toxify status. Pricey for no adequate reason.





Sol and Glaive also come with abilities. Sol has Counter, a passive ability which causes him to randomly counter (duh) when physically attacked for half damage. It doesn’t say it, but it does.
Glaive comes with !Focus, and action ability. It can be used up to three times to multiply the final damage/healing of an ability by 2.5 or so. Pretty simple. Not that useful this early on, but it affects anything involving numbers (not percentages) and actually INCREASES your speed for a turn.

Anyway, after all that geek speak, because I’m dumb and took no pictures of the world map, I’ll tell you we went south to a checkpoint we could find out about if we went to town. At the checkpoint, Sol is dumb and gets in a fight with the guard. Then…



A wild Aigis is discovered! Guess what his ability is! (Hint: we can’t get it till the end of the 3rd chapter!)



Also he is the hero of the town, pretty much by default since he is also the only swordsman. And note, at most he’s like 24. He acts like he is at least 30. Just an FYI.



Soldier: Empire destroys this place hires you!
Aigis: You are too kind.
Sol: Did you hear that Aigis!? The Empire!
Aigis: Of course I didn’t hear Sol. Why are you my apprentice again?
Diana: Hmmph!
Sol: What’s wrong with you, Diana? Didn’t you hear?! The Emp-
Glaive: Let her be Sol. You Bartz.
Sol: But—I’m no Bartz! I’m a Gadulf!
Aigis: Is something troubling you, Sis?
Diana: I-It’s nothing. Let’s head back to town. Everyone is waiting.
Aigis: Right. (I’ll ask her later.) [To Guard] Good day then.

Well thank God that’s over. Well, here’s Aigis!







Here he is. In a great example of Gameplay and Story Intergration, he starts out at level 10, comes with !Red Magic Level 1, and has Cover as a passive (Which works like it always does, defending a character in critical health from a physical hit.) Cover itsn't that useful in this game, because you never really HIT the critical health bar. It's always either dead or still in white health. Believe it or not, he isn’t a crutch for the early game. That goes to someone else. Whose Job title LIES. Anyway, black magic:

Fire: 5 MP Fire-elemental magic damage to one/all enemies.
Blizzard: 5 MP Ice-elemental magic damage to one/all enemies.
Thunder: 5 MP Lightning-elemental magic damage to one/all enemies.

Pretty standard stuff. Now then, who wants to see the battle screen?



Nice artistic backgrounds, huh? One minor complaint is that while the sprites look nice and detailed, the enemies look kind of sloppy. I don’t know how well it translates into images, but we’ll find out!Oh, and Aigis will be spamming Fire throughout the entire Prologue.Why? You'll find out eventually!



Oh! I found a Chocobo Forest! Talk to the White one and



Bam! Free inn baby! This will be abused in all its glory throughout the LP.
Catching a yellow chocobo lets you ride it around with no fights. For reference, this was North East of the castle.
Meanwhile in the town of Lux…



Talking!
Aigis: It’s good to be back. I’m looking forward to spending some time with my family.
Soildier2: I must first ask that you come with me to the castle. You have been summoned.
Aigis: By the King?
Diana: Aigis, do you think that it’s about-(This joke is too easy.)
Aigis: Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back soon.



Sol: Ah ha!
Glaive: I think our friend has had an epiphany. (Sol really doesn’t catch a break, huh?)
Sol: Ha ha Glaive. Remember what they said about Aigis? “It’s only a matter of time before the Empire comes calling.”
Diana: Shut up Sol!
Sol: What? What did I say? Aigis has always wanted to go to Avalon. Why can’t we be excited for him?
[Diana enters the right hand house.]
Sol: What’s with her?
Glaive: If your head was any thicker, they could use it to fortify walls. (Glaive might be a little jealous for Diana's attention. Also, tired of Sol’s stupidity.)
Sol: Hey, what does that mean?!
Glaive: Did you ever once stop to think what would happen to Diana if Aigis leaves for Avalon?
Sol: I don’t know…She would go with him maybe?
Glaive: Which means that we would never see her again.
Sol: Oh…Right I didn’t think of that.
Glaive: Obviously! Maybe you should go talk with her.



(This’ll turn out great)
Diana:…
Sol: I…I’m sorry…
Diana: Don’t worry about it.
Sol: But-
Diana: I said don’t worry about it!
Sol: Well if you’re gonna yell then:





Sol: I’ll just steal your kiss and robes!



Sol: And your Potion!

Sol: Well…
Gliave: Not surprising, considering the circumstances. We’d best leave her alone.
Sol: Y-yeah. Wouldn’t want to get caught stealing.
Diana: Just leave me alone!



Sol: Wait Diana! You know they won’t let you through the gates! (Finally! Thinking from Sol!)
Glaive: Who said anything about the gates?

And that my friends, is Update #1 end! Next time, we invade our own kingdom’s castle. And meet the classic reference. Please tell me if you want to see all the flavor text from people in town, or just the ones I choose. (Because typing takes forever.)

Now, here is an important question. You guys will be choosing the jobs for each character once we get to them. I will do a write up of all their abilities and more Gameplay mechanics as well.. However, the two parties, once separated, will get 5 jobs unique to each. When we get the first set of jobs, do you want to know them all, or wait until we gain the unique ones as to avoid spoilers? [

Protip: Use the actual image URLs (e.g. http://i1071.photobucket.com/albums/...8/fe439700.jpg) and not the PhotoBucket pages in your IMG BBCode. Alternatively, upload to imgur and get BBCode supplied with each image.

You can set Photobucket to provide the code as well, somewhere in settings (it's been years since I set mine up that way.)

Also you can straight-up click on the BBCode box that appears when you mouseover the image in your album and it copies it, IMG tags and all, automatically.

Well, damn I feel dumb. Thanks for the responses!

It was actually Final Fantasy Legends: Warriors of Light and Darkness. They presumably changed it because they thought it might confuse whoever still remembers Final Fantasy Legend I-III.

Seriously, an LP of a game that's been in the country for 9 days?

Thank you for the fix! I was doing that part by memory, and it must have slipped my mind. And thanks to the rest of you for the photo help! Also, yes! I like this game that much. Think of it as a thing saying "BUY THIS GAME" or something like that

I know the image size is a problem, but the next update should have the normal size be 500 width/450 height, and stat screens at the super large version so you can actually read it. If you like a different size [I have 600/500 or so in there] let me know. The next update will probably be next Friday, or mid week, depending on my workload. Again, sorry for the problems, and I hope to make this an enjoyable LP!

Yeah, isn't there an embargo period on these?

Well I was told it would be fine, but if you guys want, the thread can be locked for a couple of months, and then reopened after. By that point I would be able to continue. It's up to you guys. I can wait if you want.

Orgia mode? >.>

I rather like SA's three-months-minimum, personally.

No offense, Darrel, but I don't see why this game needs to be LPed immediately. Especially since the vast majority of the content isn't available yet, and we have yet to see anything that actually makes up for that fact.

Since Falselogic already okayed it, all I can really say is that it's your own decision whether to continue or not.

This game really does look like it was knocked up in RPG Maker VX... But yeah, it's pretty damn recent.

Oh man, those character sprites, what the hell. They took the FF5 profile and upped the resolution, and it's just... wrong. Everyone's doing a Michael Jackson lean from the side, and they all have awkward gorilla arms from the back. You can get away with that with actual 16-bit sprites, but at this resolution it's just... forced and incredibly awkward. You can fit the other leg on there! You have the pixels! Hell, FF6 did it! And there's a lot of fine detail in the colors, but there's no depth at all. They got 256 colors and completely forgot how to use tone and contrast—those things that gave the old sprites the illusion of complexity and weight. What the hell, Square, what the-

...oh. Matrix Software, you're terrible and you should feel bad.

I think an immediate LP is pretty neat, personally.

There's something about the look of this game that's just off. I guess the proof of the pudding is in the eating, though, not the looking.

Still, how come the screenshots are different sizes? Does it change resolution or something, or are you resizing them? I like the smaller ones.

Okay. If you guys feel that I should wait a few months for it, I'm cool with that. I'll just need to get it put in stasis for a while. Also, just so you know, all the content is available right now. They decided to just have the other episodes as in app purchases immedietly. And yeah, it does look very RPG maker like, but that's because it's supposed to. No excuse for how...odd everything kind of looks though. It's quite fun to play however, even if the progression is basically the same throughout. As for the images, I was fooling around with a few sizes,, and was trying to settle on one.

Really? I think the characters look sloppy, like smaller sprites doubled in size without cleanup afterwards. The wasps look pretty decent, at least.

Enemy sprites are one part of the game that actually look good (battle backgrounds and spell effects are two others).

I kind of like how the Level 1 White Magic is the same as in FF3.

FYI - We don't have any limitations on what games can be LPed when. The only rules we have are for the queue and then no pornographic games. Darrel Odin put his request in, it was approved, he asked for a September spot and since there was one available it was given to him.

I don't have any problems with an LP of an immediately released game. If you don't want things spoiled don't read the thread. But, if TalkingTime has problems with it maybe that is something we should talk about?

But not here. Let's move it over to the critique thread. In the meantime, Darrel Odin I'll let you decide what you want to do.

Personally, I have nothing against day zero LPs, especially when the part being showcased is free and readily available. There might be courtesy considerations for the other chapters, if anyone fits the very unique profile of:

#1. Desperately wanting to play the game
#2. Unable or unwilling to purchase the chapter being played
#3. Completely incapable of not reading the thread

This being an app game puts it in the "too much trouble to play" category for me, even if I knew much of anything about it. So LP timing doesn't matter to me. I'll read long enough to know if it'll ever interest me at least.

What's with the three sword icons? Normal Swords (i.e. red/blue mage swords), Knight Swords and ???

Also I like the three gear classes for armor (light/mystic/heavy to go from FFXII). Do monks get all light gear now, instead of a select sub-set like in FFV?

Dark Swords, I would guess (since Dark Knight and Holy Knight are classes, and exclusive to the Dark/Light side respectively, as I understand it).

The thing that really gets me about this is the font. It's one of the most unJRPGish fonts I've ever seen, and it's making it hard for me to take the game seriously as a result.

It looks fine on an iPhone screen.

Why is everyone so -very- grim in their profile sprites? Except maybe the Girl, whose eyebrows are covered by hair.

Also: keep playing, IMO

Yeah. It seems like a minor thing, but if they're going for nostalgia (they are), then it's a detail that will stand out to any fan of the SNES games. Is there any mainline FF that doesn't use a serifed font? Is there any reason why they didn't at least use a black outline as in the games it's mimicking?

Also: keep playing