As a big Final Fantasy fan, I’ve been keeping a close eye on Dissidia: Final Fantasy. Last Friday it was released and I went to my local GAME store and picked up my own copy – the Limited Edition at £39.99 – pricey, but I’m a collector. Before long (after having to wait for my PSP to charge and update firmware) I booted the UMD and began my journey through the world of Dissidia.
You may have read my previous article on the demo of Dissidia, so I knew what to expect in terms of gameplay – however there is so much more to the game than I had expected. The story involves a war between two gods, Cosmos and Chaos, deities of Harmony and Discord. The gods each summon eleven champions to each of their sides, comprised of heroes and villains of the Final Fantasy titles, and get locked in a war of never-ending death and rebirth – until finally the balance tips in the favour of Chaos, and Cosmos is wounded in battle. As Chaos threatens to destroy existence, the warriors of Cosmos must each track down a crystal that will grant them the combined power to fight the encroaching darkness. The game starts with an FMV depicting the battle between both sides and is particularly impressive, with graphics close to that of Advent Children, and I particularly liked that they mixed and matched the fights - Squall battling Sephiroth for instance – rather than putting them all with their regular counterparts.
The battles themselves work in a 3D environment, simulating battles not unlike those seen in the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Each character has access to various attacks, consisting of two types of attack – Bravery attacks and HP attacks. Bravery attacks are performed by pressing the O button, and allow you to perform basic attacks which raise your ‘Bravery’ score and depletes that of your opponent. These attacks do no actual damage to your opponent however, but determine how much damage your HP attacks do – these are performed with the Square button, and are generally the more ’signature’ attacks of the characters, such as Cloud’s ‘Braver’, and Squall’s ‘Rough Divide’; the figure of your Bravery translates to how many hit points of damage the attack will do – if the figure is high enough it’s even possible to KO the opponent instantly, so it’s important to keep an eye on the figure. The X button allows you to jump, and the L and R buttons are used for locking-on and blocking respectively, and tapping X and a direction whilst guarding will let you evade in that direction. Triangle allows you to ‘quickmove’ which lets you use the environment to move with speed – such as running along walls and grinding along various rails and edges to get around quickly.
Sometimes, when you knock an enemy far back with an attack, an X will appear on-screen and you can perform a ‘chase’. This will make your character follow the enemy with a dash, and you will enter a sort of ‘mid air battle’. In these sequences, characters take turns to attack each other, and the other must try to evade. Bravery attacks are quick, and HP attacks are slow – so depending on which is performed depends on the timing for evasion. If you successfully manage to evade the attack you will be able to attack yourself – but time it wrong and you’ll get hit hard.
When characters fight, small blue orbs called EX Force are released, which can be collected to fill a gauge next to the character’s icon at the bottom of the screen. Occasionally, bigger EX Cores appear which collect EX Force, and you can collect them to fill your gauge by a large amount. Once the gauge is full, you can press R+Square to activate EX mode. In this mode, characters have various boosts dependant on the character - some bestow health regeneration, others gain higher attack power. The gauge depletes once the EX mode is activated, so its a race to make the most of it. One of the biggest features of EX mode is the EX Burst – when you hit an enemy with an attack while in EX mode, a symbol will appear on the screen – pressing Square at this point will activate the characters most powerful move – this is generally based on the characters ultimate move from their original game, such as Cloud’s ‘Omnislash’ and Tidus’ ‘Blitz Ace’. As a nice touch, every character’s style of performing this move reflects their original game, such as Squall’s ‘Renzokuken’ which involves having to tap the R button in time with a gauge that appears on the screen.
Initially, you are granted access to ten of the heroes – lead roles from FF’s 1-10 - who each have their own story to play through, chapters called ‘Destiny Odyssies’. In these stories, each character must fight through five maps comprised of grids that comprise of various opponents – ‘manikins’, crystal-clones of the various characters, and bosses comprised of the various storyline fights with the real versions of the characters aligned with Chaos. Many of the heroes and villains cross over into each other’s stories, yet they all have to face their own counterpart at some point – and their stories mirror that of their original games to a degree - Kuja has a degree of despair due to a feeling of inferiority, taking it out on Zidane, and Sephiroth naturally likes to goad Cloud and mess with his head. The plot is fairly simple but it does the job, giving a bit of depth to an all-star brawling game.
You do not recover health between fights on the same map, so you must choose your battles wisely – enemies are of various levels and difficulties – some optional yet guarding various treasures such as items or summon stones. You also have access to a few abilities such as Cure and Matra Magic which allow you to heal yourself or damage an enemy one time each, to assist you a bit along the way. The maps also offer a system called “Destiny Points” which give you greater rewards at the end of each map if you tactically progress through a stage while spending your turns wisely and meeting certain requirements in battles to keep your score high (such as beating the enemy in a short time, or winning the battle without recieving damage).
Upon beating each of the characters individual plotlines, their stories converge and a following story mode opens up which can be played using any hero you choose. In total, the plot is very long for a fighter-type game and allows for plenty of play value with extra additional story modes which can be unlocked after beating the main plot, and each of the chapters needs to be played multiple times in order to unlock everything and achieve 100%.
The game offers a lot of customisation and character development – as you level up you can earn new attacks which can be assigned to your character; there are twelve slots in total – six Bravery and six HP. These consist of three aerial and three ground attacks of each type, although some of the attacks (such as Rough Divide) have both ground and aerial versions. You can also buy equipment to improve your stats in classic Final Fantasy style, and equip accessories for additional boosts. There are also Summons to equip, which can be used to tactically affect bravery in various ways – such as Odin who uses Zantetsuken to cut the enemy’s bravery to 0, and Ifrit that boosts your own bravery to 150% of its current figure with his Hellfire ability. Summons come in two types – Automatic, which will activate when a certain requirement is met (such as having a certain bravery figure, or getting attacked) and Manual, which you can activate any time by pressing R+O.
The characters have been done very well – the more recent ones such as Cloud, Squall, Zidane and Tidus are all faithful to their original versions, many of their moves looking the same as they used to (such as Cloud’s Cross-Slash), or being converted well to fit the game’s system (such as Squall’s Blasting Zone that summons a pillar of light that he smashes down onto the opponent). The older characters, however, have allowed the designers a little more freedom in character design and style due to the huge update in graphical power and gameplay, yet they have made them relevant to their original counterparts – the Warrior of Light appears as a very noble knightly figure, while Bartz has exchanged his Job-based gameplay for a style that utilises a mix of each of the other characters’ moves and weapons.
The game has plenty of things to unlock – as you play the game you recieve PP, which can be used to unlock various content. This content includes unlocking the villain characters, alternate outfits, extra modes and other upgrades. More things get added to the PP catalog as you progress through the game so theres always plenty to unlock.
The game also incorporates an in-game calendar – when you first load the game it will ask you which day you play most often – once you have chosen, you will recieve double EXP, Gil (FF’s currency), AP (ability points) and PP for that day every week. You will also get random bonuses on random days to these individual rewards, and the can buy upgrades with PP to increase the frequency of these bonuses. The feature isn’t exactly necessary but its a nice addition and gives you more reason to play regularly. The game also offers an “Accomplishments” section which acts like an in-game achievement/trophy list and gives you an overall percentage of game completion.
Aside from the story, the game offers a basic Arcade mode with random battles at predetermined levels, Quickplay which lets you pit your customised characters against opponents of your choice, and other unlockable modes such as time-trials and harder difficulties. There is also an Ad-Hoc multiplayer mode which allows you to battle another player, and collect their “Friend Card” so that you can see your previous results, and also battle a “Ghost” of whichever of their characters they have assigned to their card – your ghost will have the stats of the character as it is in your own game, including equipment and abilities, and you can also choose it’s tactics from a list such as “Cautious” or “Viscious”. Once a friend’s card is saved to your PSP, you can fight their latest saved ghost as many times as you like, and even earn items and points for doing so.
The game looks great, utilizing the PSP’s power well. The characters depict their original designs well, but many of them do have a few alterations to their outfits or designs, and all fit in together as a whole. The stages, like the characters, range from interpretations of old areas such as the Chaos shrine, and good adaptations like Zanarkand from the end of Final Fantasy X. The game’s music is equally good, with many familiar tunes such as remixes of the boss and battle themes, and well recognised tracks like ‘One Winged Angel’. Although combining elements of many games, it all blends together seamlessly and feels like one complete title rather than lots of different segments stuck together.
Overall, the game is bursting with content, offering hours upon hours of gameplay. With a vast story mode, plenty of extra modes, accomplishments to earn and a ton of things to unlock, there’s always something to do. If you have a PS3, you can even download Ad Hoc Party to play online – but otherwise you can still play locally. This game is a must-have for any Final Fantasy fan, and I’d even recommend it as a good fighter for someone who isn’t – although they would miss out on a fair amount of references to the original titles. One of the best PSP titles released so far, good fun, and has a long lifespan that will keep you entertained for quite a while.
-Leon
