GOTD 6/24/2016: Final Fantasy vs Dragon Quest in Itadaki Street Special (PSP)
I'm a big fan of Fortune Street on the Wii, and have been since its launch. The termination of its servers were a sad day for my family and friends, as many of us played it online with one another regularly. That was the guiding factor behind purchasing Final Fantasy vs Dragon Quest in Itadaki Street Special for PSP, as not only does it preserve the aesthetic my wife likes in the Wii game, but it has an english translation and can be played online over xlink. So, I imported the UMD, did the softmod so I could use xlink and the translation patch, and now I'm back in business!
For anyone unfamiliar with Fortune Street/Itadaki Street/Boom Street, it is a video board game with Monopoly sensibilities, but with loads more freedom, depth, and strategy. You still travel a board, collecting a payday, and buying up properties that other players pay fees for trespassing. Adjacent properties are arranged into districts, and owning multiple in the same district raises the value. While that sounds a whole lot like Monopoly, it all gets ratcheted up from there.
First off, there are loads of different board layouts to play, each with its own shape, arrangement of spaces, and special squares, and there are key strategies to playing each board, as you can control your movement at intersections for direction. Next, you don't just go back to the starting space (bank) to get paid. First, you must collect four suits (as in the playing card suits) by landing on or passing through them, ensuring that players must cover at least much of the board if they want to get paid. There are venture cards in place of Community Chest or Chance, and these have a far wider range of impact on the game, allowing all sorts of teleporting, money earning, property buying, and more. There are vacant plots that can be renovated into all sorts of useful spaces... but the big hook is investment.
There are two primary methods of investing. You can invest capital into owned properties, which raises the fees for people unlucky enough to land on them. The more of a district you own, the more money you can put into each property therein, raising their values exponentially. You can even buy out opposing properties for five times their value if you have the cash. This may seem a bit like houses and hotels from Monopoly, and that's not entirely inaccurate. Where it changes things is how that form of investment intertwines with the other form, which is stock purchase. You can buy stock at the going rate at the bank and a few other opportunities in any district of your choice. Any properties grown in that district will affect the value of the stock tied to it, which can rapidly climb. Buying more stock in the same district also increases its value, whereas devalued properties and large quantities of stock sold will lessen its value. Owning stock in a district also offers a dividend on the fees collected in that district, so you can actually make a lot of money off of your opponents' investments and holdings. It's a great system that adds a ton of depth to the game, making it considerably more a game of thinking and skill than chance.
There are tons of other nuances to the game, but that's the gist of the game. Its variety and strategy make for a load of fun, and you can customize the rules to your liking. In the end, everyone is looking to reach a target value of total assets and return to the bank, and with skilled players it becomes fun and funny in a hurry. There are other versions with other characters and boards, so there are loads of ways to play. There are unlockables in this PSP game like characters, boards, and extra rules from older versions, adding some single player depth to what is primarily designed as a multi-player experience.
I love this series to death, and the english patch on this version made it a no-brainer. The only real flaws I can attribute to it are that, like in most video board games, the computer cheats in single player, and games with larger asset targets can last a long-ass time. Still, any board game fan ought to try the series out. If you like it, you probably need to play Culdcept, too...
Played this one?
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Originally Posted by Emperor Megas
