Dissidia: Final Fantasy
The word is Latin for ‘conflict’ or ‘disagreement’, and this goes a long way toward explaining the scenario for this all-star Final Fantasy brawler.
Final Fantasy is best known, and well loved, as a role-playing series on home consoles and PC. So it may come as a shock to fans that Square Enix has thought to produce a PSP fighting game that includes 20 of the saga’s most famous heroes. And this as part of the 20th Anniversary celebration of Final Fantasy no less.
Similarly it’s understandable that fighting game fans will eye Dissidia: Final Fantasy with caution, suspecting a copycat Tekken or Virtua Fighter in Final Fantasy clothing. Or else fighting game connoisseurs might hope for a return of the PlayStation One renowned but little-known ‘Tobal’ series (look it up). In fact Dissidia is neither.
During a recent conversation with a very enthusiastic Senior Director Takeshi Arakawa, we learned that Dissidia: Final Fantasy is actually an Action RPG albeit a very unusual one. It’s only for markets outside of Japan that the game is being promoted as a fighting game. This is better news for the RPG fans, but our time with the game has also convinced us that it’s still very much a combat game along the lines of SEGA’s Virtual-On (now playable on Xbox LIVE Arcade).
And so Dissidia: Final Fantasy is a one-on-one combat game taking place inside dizzying 3D arenas. It has been created by members of the Kingdom Hearts series at Square Enix, the Disney theme adventures with more of an action feel. Dissidia noticeably feels like an expansion of the Kingdom Hearts free-roaming battle system, but faster paced and with plenty more room to manoeuvre – which you’ll need! The protagonists are capable of running up or along walls and grinding along luminous rails to evade or launch their own blistering attacks. As they do so the camera tracks them from behind, or quickly zooms to the most dramatic viewpoint to display the myriad special attacks. Dissidia is amazing to watch but you might worry that it’s tricky to play. Like Virtual On, however, the rudiments are easily grasped.
All fighters have an HP Gauge – common to fighting games and RPGs – but alongside this are Bravery Points, and BP form the main tug-of-war aspect to matches: the Circle button is the basic attack that steals Bravery Points to gain the upper hand. After softening up your rival with Bravery attacks you can then begin an HP Attack, in a situation similar to jabs followed by combos. HP Attacks are generally screen-melting spectacular and are performed in time to on-screen prompts. Other button prompts appear throughout matches suggesting on-the-fly courses of action.
As fighters dash around environments a cursor highlights the position of your rival allowing you to keep track while racing for the nearest vantage point. When you wish to attack the L Trigger locks onto your target, otherwise it would be far too confusing! In honour of its Final Fantasy heritage, Dissidia allows its heroes to summon magical guardians to deal the final blow. There are also EX attacks, reminiscent of the Limit Break techniques – spur-of-the-moment special moves of devastating power.
We think most lads will have a rare time battling each other in ad-hoc mode, but Dissidia also offers a lengthy Story Mode which pans out similar to the RPG mode in recent Soulcalibur games. So, not really an adventure and more of a board game in which you’ll use Destiny Points to move around a matrix of tiles encountering lesser FF characters to beat up in exchange for EXP to spend on character customisation.
Although you can’t battle online, only locally via Wi-Fi, there are online features to enjoy such as a pet Chocobo who’ll go searching for treasure while you play, and a Battle Lobby that lets you exchange items collected in Story Mode with friends.
As usual Square Enix has forged a deep and rewarding package here with Dissidia: Final Fantasy. But we worry that it will be hard to convince more traditional RPG fans and guys looking for the next Tekken that this middle ground is worth fighting for.
Dissidia: Final Fantasy for Sony PSP is scheduled for release this summer.
