Final Fantasy Type-0 SD: Shouldering the Weight of the PSP’s Failure

Some call me a contrarian. I am often easily swayed by an impulse to eschew popular opinion in favour of obscure alternatives. Take the PSP for instance: I was quite fond of it, and would have gladly purchased several million units of it if I could. That way, the other three people here in North America who purchased the handheld wouldn’t have had to shoulder the unnerving burden of each representing 25% of their chosen market. 

But I digress. For a while, I held onto the belief that Final Fantasy Type-0 would come out here in the West. Whenever I ate food, I imagined that my body was being replenished to live to see the day that Type-0 was packed with English vowels and, if I may be brave enough to say, the occasional meme-worthy scene which would cause the internet to grossly exaggerate the comedic value of re-interpreting often culturally specific Japanese ideologies into suitable Americanized banter.

Again, I am digressing. The point of this post is to move beyond petty sarcasm. Several weeks back, I heard that Final Fantasy Type-0 was finally coming out herein the West. However, imagine my (contrarian) surprise when I heard that the game would be released in HD for the PS4 and XBOX One, but not the PS Vita. See, when I purchased a PS Vita several years back, I imagined my PSP’s soul being reborn into its successor. My rational understanding to play portable games on a portable system has since been met with the unfortunate decision by Square Enix to not release Type-0 on the Vita.

So I’ve done the only sensible thing that I could imagine doing when faced with such news: I purchased a PS4 and XBOX One. No, I didn’t. What I really did was pick up a copy of Type-0 for the PSP, and downloaded a patch to play the game in English.  

I haven’t actually put more than a few hours into the game itself yet, but plan on discussing the game in more detail in the coming weeks. Until then, I have a PSP and Vita that require my love and support; I wouldn’t want them to turn into maladjusted adults with faltering self-esteem issues.