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Well, its a game thats been on my mind for some time now – Final Fantasy: Dissidia, Square Enix’s PSP fighter starring a hoarde of characters from the Final Fantasy series. Taking a single hero and villain from every numbered FF title up to FFX, plus a couple of others, Dissidia has an all-star cast spanning two decades of RPG feuding. So for the first time ever, players can pit Cloud against Kefka, Squall against Kuja, or Jecht against Sephiroth. And I’m definitely excited.

The demo has only been released on PSN in the US so far (although admittedly Japan’s had the game since last December). After some hassle, I managed to upgrade my current PSP firmware to 5.50, download the demo via a US PSN account and get going.

Right from the off, the demo starts with a tradtional “Final Fantasy” title screen and a familiar tune, and upon pressing Start and choosing Normal difficulty, I’m fairly surprised – expecting the demo to consist of one, maybe two playable characters, neither of which would be the “crowd pleasers” of the bunch, I find myself with a selection of not one, not two, but five playable characters to toy with. Four heroes – Onion Knight (generic FFIII character), Cecil (FFIV’s tortured lead character), Terra (FFVI’s human-esper hybrid) and Cloud (FFVII’s beloved buster sword-wielding hero. And if that wasnt enough, they also threw in a villain – Sephiroth. Not only were they content to throw in the most loved character of them all, they cast his nemesis into the fray. I will cover each of these character’s specific abilities at the end of the article.

The demo is fairly simple in terms of functionality – although Dissidia boasts a story mode, the demo throws you into the gameplay with a few (apparently random) rounds to fight each time you play with no cutscenes or explanation – think a short “Arcade” mode. Before each battle, the game explains how to play while it loads (the times of which aren’t too long, at that).

The game plays in a 3D environment, in which you can move freely, playing in a style reminiscent of Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi, with each stage being of a fair size allowing the battles to take place over various landscapes. The controls are fairly intuitive and shouldn’t take long to get used to. Characters can run along various parts of environment, even up walls, allowing them to traverse at a decent speed. Some of the stages I recognised (such as a ruined part of Zanarkand from FFX), but I am unsure whether or not they are all based on old FF locations, or whether there were some “original” stages in there.

Each character has three values that are displayed – HP, Bravery, and an EX Gauge. HP is health as with most fighters – and is displayed by a bar, and smaller crystals below that denote how many bars of HP that character has in total. The value is also shown as a number below the bar, so is easy to keep track of. Bravery is something new – a characters bravery decides how strong they are – the higher the value, the more damage that character will be able to do. Using a certain type of attack, characters can steal Bravery points from each other to raise their strength and lower that of their opponent. The EX Gauge is like a “Limit” gauge which gives each character access to their most powerful attack (EX Burst), and is filled by collecting items called “Force” and “Cores” that appear around the battlefield.

There are two main types of attack in the game – Bravery and HP attacks. Bravery attacks look like basic attacks – generally quick attacks with a sword, or whatever weapon that character has. These attacks do no actual damage, but are used to steal Bravery and gain the upper hand on your opponent – so its vital that you decide which attacks are best to use. HP attacks are more impressive looking, damage dealing attacks. For the majority of the “newer” FF characters, these attack animations are various limit/overdrive techniques such as Cloud’s Braver and Cross-Slash. Other characters or villains have other “signature” attacks, such as Sephiroth’s Octoslash (from Crisis Core), and Terra’s magic attacks. These moves all do damage depending on your Bravery, and are your main power in the damage-dealing department.

Characters also have the ability to jump, lock on, dash, or use evasive maneovers, alongside the ability to “Quickmove” along the environment. Whenever you are near a wall or rail an arrow icon will appear, and pressing Triangle allows you to do the relevant Quickmove – such as running up the wall, or “grinding” the rail. This is invaluable for getting around and reaching higher ground. You can also Guard with R, which needs to be timed correctly – but if successful can stagger your opponent. There are also other features such as being able to dash towards an opponent you have sent flying in order to do a follow up attack, which the other player may counter if they succeed in evading it.

The last, perhaps most impressive ability is the EX Burst – the Limit attack. When a character has collected enough Cores and Force to fill the gauge, they can activate EX Burst by pressing R+Square.  This puts them into a state of overdrive, and the bar slowly starts to empty. In this mode, each of the characters changes in appearance, depending on their character – for instance, Zidane turns into his Trance form from FF9. If the player succeeds in connecting a HP attack (Square) in this form, a symbol will appear afterward allowing them to follow up with an ultimate attack. This is one feature I really enjoy – as each matching Hero/Villain share their own style of EX Burst attack that is performed in a unique way depending on the game. For instance, Squall’s EX Burst involves a Renzokuken style attack where you have to time button presses with a meter on the screen, and Cloud/Sephiroth’s involve having to mash the O button to fill a FF7-style limit gauge. If you fail this, you will do a strong attack, but if you get it perfectly, the character will unleash a super attack with a more impressive animation – such as Sephiroth’s ultimate Super Nova attack which sends the sun hurtling into the enemy. These attacks do big damage and can turn the tables of the battle or finish it completely.

The demo offers two difficulty modes – Normal and Hard. Although I expect we’ll see more modes in the real thing alongside Story mode, Normal is fairly simple whereas Hard is definitely more challenging. The game is easy to pick up and play, but I feel theres room for mastery and some epic battles with some practice. I don’t know a huge deal considering the story of the full game, but I assume it’ll go something like “Dark power gathers villains, and Light power gathers heroes to stop it.” Hopefully I’ll shed more light on this upon the game’s release. Also, I know that characters will have alternate costumes – these are not available in the demo, but should be good – such as Cloud’s FF7: Advent Children model, and Squall’s old school uniform.

The game looks good for a PSP title, on a similar level to that of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. Characters are detailed although as you often see them from a distance it can be hard to see them clearly – however the super EX attacks give you some good close-ups that look fantastic. The sound quality is brilliant – mainly remixes of the old battle/boss tunes from the various titles which fit in perfectly – from the recognisable battle music from FFVII to the electric-guitar brilliance of “Otherworld” from FFX. The voice acting is equally good, the majority of the FFX, FFVII: Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts cast seem to have reprised their roles; Steve Burton as Cloud, James Arnold Taylor and Gregg Berger as Tidus and Jecht, while the other roles seem to have been casted well – finding voices that match characters that had been silent until now.

Overall, its got fairly simple gameplay with some interesting features and a lot of potential. I can’t wait to play the full thing.

And, if you’re interested – here are some details concerning the characters that are playable in the demo.

Character Details

Onion Knight
Alignment: Hero
From: Final Fantasy III
Gameplay style: Small character fast, light attacks.
EX Burst form: Job Change!; Turns into a random class (i.e. Ninja, White Mage)
EX Attack: Depending on the class you turned into, you will be asked to perform a certain attack – the Ninja throws Shurikens, the mage casts Holy, and so on. Once the attack activated, an old FFIII battle menu will appear on the screen, and you will have to select the attack from the menu before time runs out (i.e. Throw > Shuriken, or Magic > Holy).
Verdict: Not a character that appealed to me, but surprisingly fun. Fast character, and a clever nostalgic super attack.

Cecil
Alignment: Hero
From: Final Fantasy IV
Gameplay style: Attacks with a sword, switching between Dark Knight and Paladin forms on the fly depending on the type of attack.
EX Burst form: Job Augment; a glowing aura.
EX Attack: Soul Shift; The player must press a sequence of three pairs of icons – simultaneously pressing a direction on the D-Pad and a symbol button three times consecutively (i.e Left+O, Down+Triangle, Up+X). If successful, Cecil will attack the enemy multiple times switching between Dark and Light forms.
Verdict: A cool looking character. Gameplay doesnt feel as though he has any feature in particular that is special, but feels good all round.

Terra
Alignment: Hero
From: Final Fantasy VI
Gameplay style: Attacks with magic – quick orb strikes and various elemental spells. Fairly fast and good range.
EX Burst form: Trance; turns into Esper form.
EX Attack: Riot Blade; The player must mash the Left and Circle buttons together to fill two bars on the screen at the same time, and Terra attacks with a magical slashing attack in Esper form
Verdict: Another surprising character, feels very fluid to use and has a good range of attacks.

Cloud
Alignment: Hero
From: Final Fantasy VII
Gameplay style: Attacks with huge Buster Sword with strong attacks. HP attacks consist of signature Braver and Cross Slash attacks. Ranged fire spell.
EX Burst form: Equipped Ultima Weapon; holds the ultimate sword from FF7.
EX Attack: LIMIT BREAK – Omnislash; The player must mash the O button to fill a Limit Gauge on the screen. If successful, Cloud will hit the enemy with a barrage of slashes and finish with a powerful downward slash.
Verdict: Unsurprisingly an excellent character – good speed, powerful blows, good range of attacks and a cool special.

Sephiroth
Alignment: Villain
From: Final Fantasy VII
Gameplay style: Attacks with a masamune katana, with wide range slashes, and some magic attacks.
EX Burst form: Reunion; Sephiroth gains a single black wing , can glide.
EX Attack: LIMIT BREAK – Super Nova; The player must mash the O button to fill a Limit Gauge on the screen. If successful, Sephiroth send a wave of flames and a huge sun flying into the enemy.
Verdict: Again, another very good character – his Octoslash HP attack is formidable and he continues to appear as one of the most formidable characters of the series.