*SPOILER WARNING*
You might wonder, with a completely new cast of characters ranging everything from the first NES Final Fantasy to the current Final Fantasy XIII on the Playstation 3, would you ever think they’d all come together and kill each other in M.U.G.E.N style fighting? That’s what you get when Square Enix released Dissidia Final Fantasy, exclusively for the Playstation Portable. Why? We have yet to find out. But as we play it anyhow, we slowly start to feel that the game has an interesting storyline, you can level up your favorite hero or villain to an extent, and possibly rack up more than you can get your hands on and challenge online friends to matches.
Dissidia features a 20-man cast of characters, 10 for heroes and 10 for villains, as they battle each other in an epic struggle for good versus evil. As you can progress, you can also gain access to 2 additional characters to play as, both hero and villain respectively. Having to the addition to Dissidia Duodecim, they add in 6 extra heroes not just to even out some odds, but they serve a purpose to the prologue of the first installment. AND NO it does not stand as another game itself, it’s an add-on of combining both stories; Meaning you’re busy going through the prologue of the story first, then playing the main game itself as if you’re playing the first one EXCEPT there are new features that keep you on your toes filled with excitement.
Terra, a Warrior of Chaos. Why you ask?
The Story So Far
Running down through the storyline first and gameplay later on. The whole story of Dissidia Duodecim picks off where there are a number of cycles of war where Warriors of Cosmos and Warriors of Chaos; for the gods of harmony and discord, Cosmos and Chaos respectively, are in struggle for supremacy to determine the victor. As Duodecim stands, it has its 012, which means you get to see the 12th cycle of the war, where Lightning, Vaan, Kain, Tifa, Laguna and Yuna all gather together to stop the threat of your everyday generic enemies called “manikins” as throughout the course of the game, meet other heroes and villains of the game, and also revealing Terra still under the influence of Kefka, Cloud who apparently ended up on the forces of Chaos, and Tidus being a brainwashed ass as he still wants to settle the score with his father Jecht. It all comes down to Lightning and company as they fight their way through until they gave up their lives ending the 12th cycle, and beginning the 13th cycle of war. Sadly put, they’re never seen again after that.
Now the story goes on to the main game itself; Dissidia, which in fact is the 13th cycle which the 10 warriors of Cosmos search for the crystals to put an end to the war for good. You have Cloud who wanted to avoid fighting, Onion Knight (Luneth) who denies his heart for his mind, Terra who struggles not to be a puppet of Kefka, Cecil under conflicts with his brother Golbez, Tidus who still has some beef with Jecht, Firion who wants to realize his dream, Squall about his solitude, Zidane who is more concerned about his friends, Bartz in his quest of all things, and finally the Warrior of Light (Name currently unknown) as he holds by his duty. After they all conquer their doubts, faced their enemies and obtained their crystals, everything seemed to be a trap as Cosmos was killed off by Chaos and the warriors of Cosmos set out to defeat their respective enemies one final time before ending Chaos and the war for good.
And that folks is the whole of Dissidia Duodecim and Dissidia in a nutshell.
"Lance of the Covenant!" -Kain
And We Have Gameplay
Of course we have ourselves the gameplay of the fabled Dissidia wars. Of course we all know in every Final Fantasy game, you have your typical RPG style of gameplay and you constantly have to go through turn after turn as you struggle yourself against the enemies you try to beat. Now slap that nonsense away and add in the action-based combat system where you unleash hell. Jump around, hack apart, and put an end to your foes upon your wake. Though one thing to keep in mind is that you have Bravery and Health Points to take out on. Bravery in which you hack away onto your opponents with the circle button as your numbers grow, and Health Points as you unleash devastating attacks that eat away the opponent's HP with that number of Bravery you've used up.
Every character you choose determines the play-style. In fact every character selection you have consists of styles they pick up on and you have to painstakingly work your way through these guys. Here are some of my favorites that I find able to master.
Zidane - Yeah, possibly the shortest among the humanoids (third shortest since Luneth and Shantotto come after) but he packs very quick attacks that keep opponents in the air. Basically the master of air-attacks in every way possible.
Tidus - Sure I might not like him, but damn, every attack he uses up dodges anything. You first see him do a dodge at first, in case the enemy would strike first. He makes up a good distance until he strikes them.
Yuna - Don’t be fooled by her weak appearance. She literally summons her Aeons to attack the opponents. They cover up a good range while they attack, giving Yuna some distance.
Kain - The master of lances and jumping can use up an attack and then closes in on his enemy for another bashing combo by the press of the triangle button. Really good if you want to keep those pursuits up.
Tifa - She uses hand-to-hand combat, but what makes it interesting of her is that she can use feints by pressing the X button which makes her cancel/teleport in case her opponent were to strike her first. Good to confuse your enemies.
Golbez - What I liked about this guy is that not only he attacks at close range with his hands, some certain forms of magic attack simultaneously at a range along with his melee. So attacking close and long range seemed interesting much.
One thing to note is that there are interesting unlockables if you have enough points called the Player Points, which you can unlock new characters, contents, icons, play systems, everything else you can get your hands on. Although you have to rack up your score on the main game, and of course The Untold Tale where you can challenge yourself against higher-leveled enemies while getting the stuff you need. You can only go far getting a grand total of 30 characters, but would you even go that far getting a secret character with such overwhelming power that you can almost clobber everything in place? Let’s put that to the test.
The battle ain't big enough for anyone else.Overview
I really how things really improved from the first Dissidia to the second game. All it does is putting in the prologue and main story together in one game, and adding in extra contents which makes things exciting. I can even get some play-style add-ons with I can equip myself to level against others. Only drawback was the jumping feature which you immediately fall while jumping a few times. The only thing you could do was air-dodging to keep yourself in the air. I’m really interested in the set of characters they put up, even some of those which you can hit and run like Tidus, enter combos of sorts like Kain and Tifa, or have anything else that gets me anything to gain the upper-hand. Environments can be destructible, there’s an awesome OST to listen to, and a cast of voices that even include the man-whore Johnny Yong Bosch. I would even joke Superman playing as Sephiroth, but hell, anyone can beat Sephiroth now anyways. And sure, JD Cullum did turn in his lines early, but it's disappointing he sounded more bad WHEN UNPREPARED TO GET IN CHARACTER! Anyways, I recommend this game to anyone who can get their hands on it, by store or download. There will always be surprises as you play through, sets itself in an interesting storyline where everyone’s all there, and for all those who can’t beat a single Final Fantasy game in your life (like me sadly) can beat this game with ease.
My rating for Dissidia Duodecim: 9/10
9-10: GYEAHHH!
7-8: Pretty good
5-6: Should've been better
3-4: Good for a laugh
1-2: Waste of a UMB disc/downloadable game
0: What has gaming come to?
No comments:
Post a Comment