Holy moly, July certainly was Final Fantasy month. Dimensions was way longer than I was expecting, and I decided to jump into VI immediately afterward. I’m almost done with the 2D Final Fantasy era! On another note, I think I hit the perfect balance of low spending and high game time. If only every month could be like this one.
Game Acquisitions
A ton of bundles released last month as usual, but none of them really appealed to me enough to make a purchase. I did buy a super cheap 5/$3 bundle from Fanatical at the beginning of the month but that’s the only one. I also made the rare single game purchase with Octopath Traveler. I figured since I got the sequel in Humble Choice, I’d add the original to my wishlist and it went on sale for its historical low almost immediately. Everything else was freebies. Octopath Traveler is probably the one I’m looking forward to the most, but Echo Generation is up there too.
# of Games: 30
Total Money Spent: $17.80
Price/Game: $0.59
# of Games YTD: 548
Total Money Spent YTD: $385.95
Price/Game: $0.70
Game Recaps
As you can see, Final Fantasy made up the vast majority of my playtime for July. I started Dimensions in June, but most of my time with it was last month. I played it almost everyday from July 4th to the 23rd so it must’ve been compelling enough to keep coming back to. I also had a couple surprise completions with Cadash and Dispatch. Cadash was a rare example of testing out one of my emulated games and it being short enough to beat in one sitting. It also marks my first TurboGrafx-16 completion so that’s exciting! The second surprise was Dispatch which subsequently marks my first completion through the Amazon Luna streaming service. I wasn’t planning on playing anything through streaming, but it was available for free through the service and I was interested in the game already, so I thought why not. The experience was definitely subpar compared to native as I suspected it would be, but the nature of the game as mostly a visual novel made that less of an issue. I had another co-op session in Tales of Destiny as well. It’s gonna take us forever to get through this game if we only play once a month. We made it through the hardest fight of the game so far with the Cave Queen. It ended up being a matter of taking out its parts with magic, then attacking the main body with physical attacks. It was straightforward enough, but it did show that my buddy still isn’t vibing with the combat system. Trying to use an arte when your CC isn’t high enough just results in moving in the direction you pressed instead which was frustrating for him. I like the idea of not having to worry about mana, but not being able to use artes whenever you want might not be worth the tradeoff. In any case, we persevered and ended our session at Moreau. Lastly, I spent the last week of the month playing Final Fantasy VI. I wasn’t vibing with it at first, but after the Opera scene and the introduction of espers (summons) as actual characters as well as combat mechanics, now I’m invested. I’m excited to see where it goes. I just got the airship in the World of Ruin and starting my quest to reunite with all my friends. Please see all my let’s plays below for anything I either played or released in July. Some of these videos have a delay before they go public. Cadash will be up August 5th, Final Fantasy Dimensions August 21st, and Final Fantasy VI waaaaay later on December 25th. The reason for that being so late is because I didn’t want to start uploading videos from VI until Dimensions finished since they’re the same series. That shouldn’t be a problem for other games.
Game Reviews
Cadash
Cadash is a platformer with RPG elements from the early 90s. The story is about your basic save the princess from the evil wizard trope and nothing to write home about. You have four classes to choose from including the fighter, mage, priestess, and ninja. I played the fighter but briefly tried out the other classes after beating the game and was surprised at how different they all felt. There is also a two-player option that I imagine could be fun with a patient friend, but I used rewind extensively in my playthrough due to the high difficulty that was common back then which wouldn’t work in a co-op scenario.
As my first completion of a TurboGrafx-16 (aka PC Engine) game, I was impressed with Cadash. It’s still basic by today’s standards, but having four unique classes, a story, NPCs to talk to, small towns littered throughout the dungeon, weapons/armor/items to buy in shops, and a leveling system I feel would escalate it above other platformers at the time. There was even a twist final boss after the supposed final boss and a brief cutscene which was a satisfying end to the game. The different environments were nice to look at too. Besides the difficulty, the other main complaint I have is how shallow the RPG elements felt. Maybe it was because I played the most basic class, but I never really felt different when I leveled up. I think your health and damage go up slightly but that’s it. You can buy healing items and antidotes in the shops, but there’s no inventory to view so you have no idea how many you have. Your appearance did change as you bought better weapons and armor though which I thought was a nice touch. There’s no save system, so you either have to make use of save states or beat the whole thing in one sitting like I did. Overall, I recommend Cadash to any retro platformer fans that never got around to it. I specify retro fans because I imagine the trappings of retro games such as the basic story/gameplay and high difficulty will turn off more casual players.
Time to beat
(Main+Extras) - 1h:48m
Rating – 6.5/10
Dispatch
Dispatch is an interactive movie/visual novel with the occasional management sim and hacking minigame thrown in for good measure. You play Robert Robertson, a former superhero down on his luck after his mech suit (the only “power” he has) is destroyed in the intro. You’re recruited by Blonde Blazer, a superhero and manager at the Superhero Dispatch Network (or SDN) to work as a hero dispatcher. They agree to fix your suit so you can be a superhero again which is a proposition Robert can’t pass up. You meet a colorful cast of characters with distinct personalities and get into all kinds of wacky workplace scenarios mixed in with emotional moments and a couple romance options if you want to pursue that.
Dispatch can be broken down into three gameplay styles. The first and most prominent is the visual novel style popularized by studios such as Telltale. If you enjoyed the decision making and QTEs from Telltale games such as The Wolf Among Us or Tales from the Borderlands, you’ll likely enjoy this. One major difference is that there are no 3D environments to walk around and explore, everything plays out like a movie. The second is the hero management through your role as a dispatcher. This plays somewhat similar to games like 911 Operator, although the individual heroes have their own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities that make some heroes better suited to some calls than others. They each have their own starting stats, but you can build them out however you want throughout the game. There are even synergies between certain characters so if you send them out together, they have a better chance of succeeding on the call. The third style is the hacking minigame that you occasionally enter to help out on calls during the hero management. The gameplay here reminds me of a game called Midnight Protocol. You move a ball around cyberspace to activate nodes, avoid antiviruses, and solve puzzles. It wasn’t as in-depth as Midnight Protocol, but that didn’t make me any better at it 😜 All three styles were enjoyable and worked well together to break up the monotony while still keeping the story moving.
As with most visual novels, the story and characters are the most important aspect, and I think Dispatch nailed this. The story didn’t have amazing highs and lows or world-shattering stakes, but it balanced comedy and tragedy well. I’m not totally happy with the ambiguous, darker fate of one of the main characters, but that’s a consequence of the choices I made and not the story itself, so I’ll let it slide. The characters were the main highlight for me. I loved their personalities and the way they played off each other. The banter between might be some of the most realistic and funny I’ve seen in a game. This is helped by wonderful acting from a talented cast such as Aaron Paul, Matt Mercer, and Jeffrey Wright. I would absolutely be interested in a season 2 if AdHoc Studio decides to go for it. I should note that there is a lot of blood, swearing, and nudity in this game, although there are censorship options available to mitigate that if it’s not something you’re into. If you’re looking for a good, character-driven story, don’t have superhero fatigue, and aren’t too concerned by the minimal gameplay on offer, Dispatch is an easy recommendation from me.
Time to beat
(Main) - 8h:8m
Rating – 8.5/10
FINAL FANTASY DIMENSIONS
I decided to play Final Fantasy Dimensions right after V because I heard it takes heavy inspiration from that entry in the series with the job system. Now having played through both games, I can confirm that is the case, although I don’t think it quite lives up to it. It’s still a great game though, especially for a mobile title.
As I just mentioned, the job system from Final Fantasy V makes a return here. Each of the eight (!) playable characters have a set of basic jobs they can learn such as warrior or black mage, but then there are a handful of specialized jobs that only one team can learn like the paladin for the Warriors of Light or the ninja for the Warriors of Darkness. As you level up each job, you unlock abilities specific to that job that can then be carried over to other jobs to make a character that feels uniquely suited to your playstyle. This was my favorite aspect of V but unfortunately, it doesn’t feel as well executed here. One problem I have is that most of the abilities I unlocked weren’t very exciting. They usually amount to basic stat increases like strength +20% with only the occasional ability that felt truly game-changing. The other major problem I had was the implementation of job points. Every job you unlock can be freely leveled up to level three, but then you would have to spend job points to level them up any further. You only get a handful of points at major story beats throughout the game, so they feel limited until the very end. I felt that this actively discouraged the use of mixing and matching jobs and instead railroaded each character into the choices you made at the beginning of the game whether they were good or not. That defeats the whole purpose of the job system! As you near the end of the game, you get enough points to start experimenting with other jobs, but at that point, grinding to level up those jobs becomes tedious with the high level enemies you’re facing and no longer feels worth it.
Another new wrinkle introduced in this game that sounds cool on paper are the fusion abilities. These are combinations of two abilities, usually by two different jobs, that have a chance of being unlocked when you use one ability while having the other ability equipped. For example, at level 13, the monk learns an ability called chakra which heals a small amount of health and cures one ally of some basic status effects like confusion. At level six, the dragoon learns an ability called healing breath that heals all party members for a moderate amount of health. If a character has leveled up both jobs to their respective levels, equips one of those jobs, and has the other job in their ability slot, when they use chakra as a monk or healing breath as a dragoon, there’s a chance they’ll learn a fusion ability called white wind. White wind will heal the entire party for the current health of the caster which makes it extremely powerful if put on a character with a lot of health. The fusion ability is then tied to that character, and they can use it whenever they want regardless of the jobs or abilities they have equipped. There are dozens of fusion abilities in the game, and they make up some of the most powerful abilities you can use. The problem is that there’s no way you’ll unlock any of the actually useful abilities by just experimenting like the game wants you to do, partly due to the job points limiting which jobs you’re willing to let your characters work through. No casual player is just going to happen to level one character to bard level 20 and paladin level 17, have the abilities of both jobs equipped, and get lucky enough to cast dire dirge or wide slash enough times for shock to be unlocked. The job points, grinding, and sheer luck required for that to happen are astronomically low. I only unlocked a small handful of low level fusion abilities naturally in my playthrough and had to look up a guide to unlock anything remotely useful for the endgame.
I unfortunately have a few other problems I want to bring up with this game. One is partially my fault with the order I’m playing the series in, but it’s the lack of quality of life features the pixel remasters brought. I missed being able to save whenever I want, turning off encounters on a whim, and viewing dungeon maps. These were invaluable tools that gave me more freedom to look around and grab any chests I may have missed without fear of being worn down by constant battles. The encounter rate in Final Fantasy Dimensions felt extremely high, and without a map to guide me, I eventually lost patience trying to explore every path in the ridiculously long dungeons and started beelining for the exit. I probably missed some good loot that way, but it was necessary for me to keep my sanity. Another problem I had was also partially my fault due to playing on an emulator, but it was the controls. I was playing a touchscreen game on my computer, and while I was able to map a joystick to move around the overworld, it still felt weird having to switch over to a mouse whenever I entered combat or browsed a menu. The last problem I had was how constricted the exploration felt for most of the game. This was also probably a limitation of being a mobile game, but for most of my playthrough, I felt like I was being strictly led from town to dungeon to town through very small open areas clearly marked on a minimap with little opportunity to veer off course. It wasn’t until the very end of the game that I was finally given an airship and a WORLD MAP to go wherever I wanted. That’s right, the game didn’t even give me a map to help traverse until like 50 hours in which was insane.
This review sounds like one big rant, and I actually decided to lower my score by half a point as a result of writing it, but you know what they say: fans make the harshest critics. Despite everything I said above, I still really liked this game. Some of the characters are genuinely enjoyable. I especially loved Alba and her increasingly ridiculous ways she praised herself as well as Argy, the kind-hearted if not socially awkward amnesiac robot. The story structure was also unique and well-done. The party was split between the Warriors of Light and the Warriors of Darkness in their respective worlds and you would switch between those worlds throughout the game before finally reuniting in the last chapter. Each sub-chapter introduced a new job by having a new character join the party who was already fluent with that job so you could see what it was capable of to decide if you wanted to invest job points into learning it on one of your permanent characters. This also led to most of the combat being carried out in a party of five which had only been done up to this point in Final Fantasy IV, which was a fun twist. I think I can finally say I have a grip on the ATB system introduced in that game. One of my favorite parts of long RPGs is towards the end when I feel super powerful after mastering the combat system and leveling up all the characters and this game nailed that feeling. If you aren’t put off by old-school Final Fantasy design or touchscreen controls, I wholeheartedly recommend all JRPG fans at least try this game out. It is an underrated game in the series in my opinion.
Time to beat
(Main) - 72h:31m
Rating – 7.5/10
Stats
Final Fantasy Dimensions has shot up to my most played game this year, blowing Death Howl completely out of the water. I’m surprised it took this long for an RPG to take the top spot. This may end up being the longest game I play this year since I think Final Fantasy VI is a shorter experience. Moving on to purchases, you can clearly see the low activity compared to previous months. Just to reiterate, I think this is the ideal scenario. I don’t need more games, I just find it hard to ignore good bundle deals when I see them. Lastly, July marked the third straight month of gametime increase. It still didn’t quite reach the height of February, but it’s pretty darn close and is still a lot of time to spend gaming. More months like this, please!
Conclusion/Upcoming
A month with high gametime and low acquisitions is an ideal month in my book. I paused my Game Pass subscription for most of the month since Final Fantasy Dimensions isn’t part of the service, but I restarted it again towards the end to start VI. After VI, I’m going to take a break from Final Fantasy for a while. I still have plans to playthrough the series, just not anytime soon. I’ll continue playing through Game Pass games for the foreseeable future. My goal for August is to finish up Final Fantasy VI which is very doable. If a short enough game is announced to leave Game Pass in August, I’ll prioritize that. Otherwise, I think I’ll continue my Balatro playthrough and see how far I can get there. It’s been a while since I’ve played it, so I’ll be a little rusty. Once I get my fill of that game, I’ll move on to Minishoot' Adventures and then Little Rocket Lab. There will probably be another session or two of Tales of Destiny as well. Anyway, that’s all from me. Thanks for reading!
Backlog total: 4,443 (+70)
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