Awesome Localisation News
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LOS ANGELES--Believe it or not, the designers of Dirge of Cerberus--the third-person action game starring Final Fantasy VII's vampy anti-hero Vincent Valentine--didn't think the game was perfect when it was released in Japan earlier this year. Or at least, after receiving player feedback and doing some of their own design retrospection, they decided to retool many of the aspects of the game before its August release in the states. You don't often see a game like this so radically tweaked during the localization process, so we were interested to see everything that's new in the forthcoming North American version.
For starters, Vincent himself will play a lot differently. He now runs noticeably faster--1.2 times faster, to be precise. You also won't experience as drastic a slowdown when you've got your weapon drawn in aiming mode (and you can further reduce this drag by customizing your weapon to make it lighter). There's also a new double-jump move that will come in handy in more open areas, and you can even perform shooting attacks and melee combos in midair now. Vincent's dive-roll dodge move has been supplanted with a dash move that gets you out of the way just as well, but lets you recover into an attack position faster. Finally, the limit break special attack move no longer detracts from your magic bar; instead, you'll have to find single-use limit break items to invoke this special power.
The game balance has also been changed quite a bit. There's no more easy difficulty mode--now you start out with only normal and hard, and finishing either of those modes unlocks an "extra hard" mode that contains a whopping 40 special missions (which become unlocked as you go) as well as new, modded weapons. You'll also be able to access a character model viewer and artwork and sound galleries by playing through these bonus missions, which promise to be among the most difficult in the game.
40 missions sounds like a lot to add, huh? You had to figure there'd be a tradeoff somewhere, and indeed Dirge of Cerberus will lose its online multiplayer mode for the US release. In fact, most of the bonus missions are adapted directly from the previous multiplayer content. Square Enix reps said this was mainly due to the relative unpopularity of the company's PlayOnline service in America, and because the game's online mode required the PS2 hard drive, which has a very small installed base here. Besides, they wanted to offer a more tightly focused single-player game instead. You'll still have mouse and keyboard support, if you want to play the game more like a shooter, though.
Anyway, if the multiplayer mode is gone, at least you've still got Gackt. The gothic Japanese renaissance man--who makes music, acts, provides anime voice work, and stars in his own game in his mother country--adds his likeness to an enigmatic character in Dirge of Cerberus, as well as providing two songs for the soundtrack. We had to confirm that Gackt's contributions would remain intact, for those members of the American audience looking forward to them.
So no online play (which doesn't bother me one bit as I don't have the capabilities) but tons of physical upgrades to the system mechanics, 40+ bonus levels, new moves and new weapons! Awesome!
