Despite not getting into the Final Fantasy series until Final Fantasy X, I’m a pretty big fan of the franchise. Since I didn’t have access to all of the popular consoles in their prime, I missed out on a lot of games that people consider classics. You can say that I’m more than making up for that now and I’m lucky that my wife supports my lust for video games.
Final Fantasy Dissidia came out on Tuesday and I had pre-ordered the PSP/Dissidia bundle since I lacked owning said PSP. The package arrived around 2pm and I opened it up with much excitement. I’m a 35 year old kid after all. As I started checking out the PSP and all it’s features, I noticed that there was a blemish on the screen that was about 1 cm long. I tried to clean it off but I found out that it was underneath the plastic that covers the screen. While this may not have bothered some people, I knew it would just drive me craze. So, I decided to take a trip down to my local Game Stop to make an exchange.
I smiled as I entered the store and quickly explained to the guy at the counter what the issue was. He understood my plight and agreed that he would exchange it for a new one. I drove back home happy and content that everything was taken care of. Little did I know that this was just the start of my journey.
I wasn’t able to dive into Dissidia until later that night since I had some work to do. I go through the process of setting up a saved game and then suddenly I’m sitting at a white screen. I continue to sit there and ponder whether or not it’s supposed to do this. I know that load times with disc based gaming systems can be lengthy at times but this was kind of ridiculous. After doing some searching around the internet, I found that there were a handful of other people who had similar issues. It was way past 10pm at this point and I decided I would go back to Game Stop first thing in the morning.
I arrived at the store the next morning and spoke to a different individual than I did from the day before. He explained to me that I wasn’t the only one who had problems with the game and that he would make another exchange. My pile of receipts was starting to grow but I had high hopes that the issue was going to be resolved. I was wrong.
After I got home, I unpacked everything and started going through the process of setting up yet another new PSP. I was starting to get rather familiar with the process. I start playing Dissidia and it was working just fine. I then noticed a large speck of dust on the screen and I attempted to wipe it off. I admit that I’m really anal about such things when playing hand held systems or using laptops. That speck of dust did not want to go away which made me sigh heavily. I was going to have to make another trip back to Game Stop.
I felt a little bad returning to the store for a third time but I expect to have a nice working system when I’m spending that kind of cash. The screen should be nice and clear with no scratches, blemishes or dust under the plastic. Is that asking too much? I expressed my feelings to the guy behind the counter and he seemed a little put out. I explained to him that I didn’t blame him or Game Stop and he in turn explained that he could only do an exchange this one last time. If the next one had problems, I would have to talk to Sony or Square depending on what the problem was. While I wasn’t very happy about that possibility, I understood his point of view completely. It really was a manufacturers problem.
Luckily for me, this final exchange was indeed a good one. The screen on the PSP was nice and clean and the game seems to be playing just fine. I’m thankful that the guys at my local Game Stop treated me the way they did. I’ve heard some horror stories about Game Stop employees through out the country but I’ve always been satisfied with this store (it’s the Chantilly Crossing store in Virginia).
As far as Sony goes, I’m a bit disappointed with the build quality of the PSP. I wonder how many other people have had to go through the same issues I did. As far as the bad Dissidia disc goes, bad duplication runs can happen and that’s not technically Square’s fault. It’s the fault of whomever did their duplication. Either way, I’m now feeling satisfied. As far as the game goes, I’m enjoy it a lot so far.
