Dissidia 012 : Final Fantasy

Dissidia Duodecim 012 Final Fantasy is a cross over, spin off fighting game that has characters from the previous 13 Final Fantasy games. It's all about a war between the goddess of harmony and the god of discord and their soldiers prior to the events of the original game. This is a prequel to the original Dissidia: final fantasy.

The game play is split into 3 parts; the first part is the world map, where your characters health bars replenish after a fight and you can move freely to wherever you want to go, there are restrictions of where you can and cant go, which help make the story progression more easier, but the problem is there is no compass to help tell you where to go next.

The second part is the grid, where you move up, down, left and right on a battle map, you goal is to get from your starting point to the end. Along this map you will come across a set number of enemies and on some maps at the end there will be a boss. The bosses are characters from previous final fantasy games such as; Sephiroth, Jecht and Firion. You can use the skills that you find from the world map on the grid map to help accumulate points and fight other opponents to build more experience; you do not however recover your health. There are some maps that you can go back and replay to make your characters stronger or get more money.

The final Part is a one-on-one fight; each character has special moves that they can use and that are unique to them (except for Bartz who can copy them). As you level up new moves become available, if you use the same move over and over you can upgrade them and make them stronger. The fighting mechanic consists of 4 buttons, 2 attacks, a jump button and a defend button.

The graphics are as good as you can expect from a PSP game, some graphics have just been reused from the first game but it is still stunning and the cutscene are especially gorgeous.

One of the best parts of this game is when you complete the 012 campaign you unlock the entire campaign from the original Dissidia and it has all the new mechanics from Dissidia 012

Overall this is a great game with deep mechanics but someone that is new to this game can easily get into it but also find it rewarding when they perfect the fighting system. You do not need to play the original Dissidia to enjoy this because when you complete it you get the first game anyway; you're getting two games for the price of one!

Love it or hate it, Final Fantasy is one of the most enduring RPG series of all time and even though Square-Enix have diluted the brand pretty dramatically in the past few years, there's no denying that it has produced a lot of high quality games in it's time and with Dissidia 012, it proves that it can continue to do so... When the developers aren't afraid to experiment a little bit with the formula at least.

The story... such as it is, revolves around two godlike entities who embody the concepts of order and chaos who, clearly being fans of classic Marvel comics story "Secret Wars", decide to summon a small army of 'champions' each to fight in their name in an endlessly repeating cycle of battle in order to determine what should control all existence: Chaos or order. Obviously, the 'champions' in question end up being the central protagonists from Final Fantasy I through XIII fighting for the cause of order and their respective antagonists/final bosses fighting for chaos. You'd THINK such a simple premise would be perfectly suited to just a straight up beat down session... but no. Instead of the two groups just wailing on each other, the game sees them all dumped on a weird patchwork planet that on the surface looks relatively normal, but it is covered in 'portals' that lead to fractured passageways made up of locations from the FF characters' home worlds, which serve as the combat arenas... and from there we get a series of long, individual character stories centred around each character's experiences in this battle, while simultaneously proving utterly baffling at times, as the story is so jumbled and insane that it often makes no sense. What's a really neat touch though is how each character's 'tale' is tailored around which game they come from. For example, in FFX's Tidus's story, the central focus is on his quest to beat his dad, Jecht (Who is one of the bad guys) and his tale is littered with the same Wonder Years like internal monologues that he had so many of in FFX. There are other neat touches like the music being character specific (eg. the world map music will be remixed versions of their respective games' world map theme and when you fight their 'boss' character, the fight music changes to their game's final boss theme) and the end battle poses being the same as their own games... there are numerous in-jokes and references to the FF games, though the omission of certain characters from some of the games seems a bit odd.

Often referred to as a beat-em-up, Dissidia technically isn't... per se. It's more an action RPG that presents itself in the manner of a traditional one on one fighting game, but the sheer layers and growth the gameplay has to it puts this on a different level entirely from something like Street Fighter 4. All of your usual FF tropes are in here like customisable equipment, accessories and skills/techniques, EXP and levelling up, summon monsters... it's all in here and the implementation of each element is perfectly handled so as to genuinely make a difference in some fights if you manage your fighter's set up correctly going in. The fights themselves are just beautiful in execution, taking place in huge, interactive and destructible arenas as they do. The way victory is attained can be a tad jarring at first though as rather than it just being a case of hitting your opponent until they die, there is a stat based 'Bravery' system in place that adds a deeper need for strategy in battle than you may expect. The way it works is that you have 'standard' attacks that increase your Bravery counter and weakens your opponent's Bravery counter, then you have special attacks that will drain your opponent's HP proportional to how much 'Bravery' you have. For example, say you start a fight with 300 Bravery and then do a combo that inflicts 100 Bravery damage... once you follow this up with a special attack, you'll take away 400 HP from your enemy. It may sound like a needlessly complicated way to put a beat em up together, but you'll be surprised by the degree to which this system forces the implementation of strategy. It makes things far more deep than they would be with just HP sapping attacks. The gameplay itself is blisteringly fast and foten chaotic, as you and your opponent can move anywhere around the massive arenas, using long range attacks to have a shoot out or using the stage itself to sneak up on your opponent for a close range throw down (eg. circling around behind the castle from the FFV stage, running straight up it's wall and surprising the enemy with a strong downward slam that literally sends them through the roof of the castle into the throne room below, where you can jump down and continue your fight in), the game really offers a lot in the way of options for how to approach the battle, and where you're fighting can be as much of a match decider as who you're fighting with sometimes. There are more than 30 characters on offer to use, each utterly unique in fighting style and each with their own set of rewards and unlockables to uncover. This in addition to FOUR seperate story modes (One of which is a complete remake of the first game's story mode with all of the new gameplay additions/world maps/skills added in as well as new story elements), a standard arcade mode, unlockable time trial, survival and challenge modes, an extensive multiplayer element, a huge catalog of bonus content to unlock and more features and additonal content than you can imagine including a Theatre mode, fully editable replay mode, quest/story creation mode... it's just ridiculous how much is here. There's enough to keep you occupied for hundreds of hours in Dissidia 012 if you're prepared to make the time investment.

Technically, the game is a true masterclass in design for a handheld title, with highly detailed, smooth running visuals that are in a league of their own among handheld games. The soundtrack work is likewise phenomenal with a fanastic range of original music accompanied by updated and remixed versions of multiple classic FF themes from all games in the series. Voice work is equally strong, with most characters voiced by returning voice actors from past games.

There's no two ways about it... this is a fun, content stuffed game that will keep you busy for months if you get into it and offers a satisfyingly nostalgic journey through past Final Fantasy lore in addition to giving you the chance to pound Lightning from FFXIII into fine paste as much as you want. There is literally NOTHING not to like here.

For the money being asked here, this game represents incredible value for money. The repetition of one on one battles will try the patience of some, and the controls can be a tad tricky to master, but once this clicks... oh boy. A truly tremendous package and the best thing to bear the 'Final Fantasy' name in years.

Very good game including 9 extra characters from the first game, more storylines to choose from and includes downloadable content such as character outfits, music and images.