Final Fantasy X’s Tidus & Jecht square off once again in Dissidia: Final Fantasy.
Not owning Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops when I picked up my new PSP with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, I instead spent my “honeymoon” phase with my new PSP playing Dissidia: Final Fantasy. I’ve spent several hours playing the game on my commute to and from work lately, but I think I’ve played enough at this point that I’m ready to move onto a new PSP game. Read on for my thoughts on what this game is all about and whether it’s good or not.
The Ultimate Final Fantasy Fan-Service
If you don’t even own a PSP, you probably have no idea what this game is so let me summarize the game in one sentence: the star hero and villain of Final Fantasy I through X are pitted together in a fighting game. With the universes of Final Fantasy I through X so large and the cast of characters in each so many, it’s kind of sad to see only one playable character from each side. Still, each game is represented very well known heroes and villains: Final Fantasy IV’s Cecil and Golbez, Final Fantasy VI’s Terra and Kefka, Final Fantasy VII’s Cloud and Sephiroth, Final Fantasy X’s Tidus and Jecht, etc.
The storyline pretty much has the 10 heroes and 10 villains teaming up on two sides going up against each other, but to be honest, the storyline isn’t too important nor does it make much sense. In the story mode, you are able to play each of the 10 heroes through their own “campaign” which consists of about 15 or so battles across 5 stages (more on that later). In between stages, the Final Fantasy character you pick will converse with the other Final Fantasy heroes he’s tagged along with (they split into smaller groups). The final battle is between the character you’ve chosen and his sworn arch-enemy.
Anyone in love with all the Final Fantasy games will definitely squeal with delight over so many little touches that are put in for the fans. While there are only 10 heroes you can choose from, the help menus (there’s a ton of help menus in this game) all are provided by various Final Fantasy characters as well, and they’re written in their way of conversation. Seeing Final Fantasy X’s Wakka give me advice in his own manner and Final Fantasy VII’s Yuffie also give me other help advice while also talking about stealing had me appreciating all of these little touches. There’s even a mail delivery system where moogles send you new mail every day!
One of my favorite aspects that also will appeal to Final Fantasy fans is the music – it changes depending on who you are playing as. I played through Cecil’s campaign, and so the main musical tracks were from Final Fantasy IV, but when playing through Cloud’s campaign and Tidus’s campaign, I heard memorable tracks from Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X. It really felt like this was heaven for a Final Fantasy fan that has stuck with the series for so long. The ONLY negative thing I might want to speak about is that with so many effiminately designed heroes and villains walking around, I felt like the entire game was some sort of yaoi or something and was a little uncomfortable at times. (I wonder if the Final Fantasy female players find this type of game droolworthy.)
A Fighting Game…
Ok let’s back up a step – did I say fighting game? Yeah – Dissidia is a fighting game, but not a fighting game in the traditional sense like Street Fighter or Tekken. It’s more of an arena based fighting game, where the two combatants can jump and float through the air, skate across ledges and run up walls, all while trying to do damage to each other. The damage system is confusing at first (it still kind of is, actually), but there’s really two meters you need to worry about and two attack types that affect each meter. The first meter to worry about is your health meter – which can be reduced if your opponent attacks you with an HP attack.
The major twist between Dissidia’s damage system and other fighting games is that the HP attack is not a constant value. It’s actually its own meter called the Bravery meter and there are Bravery attacks as well. By attacking an opponent with a Bravery attack, you will reduce his Bravery meter and increase your own if you successfully land it. Note from the screenshot above that Tidus has 229 – that’s his Bravery meter. If he does an HP attack, he will deal 229 damage to Jecht. But If Jecht attacks Tidus with an HP attack, he will only do 69 damage. There’s also something called a Break, which occurs when you can reduce your opponent’s Bravery meter to 0. By doing that, you will gain the Bravery that sits in the pot in the middle (818 in the screenshot above) and that will be added to your Bravery meter for your next attack. Once you attack with it though, your Bravery drops to 0 and you have to earn it back. The Bravery meter not only makes the combat system a bit more confusing, but in a way, it also seems to allow a matchup to go “back-and-forth” more.
…With RPG Features
On top of this fighting game, there’s an entire RPG like progression system. Each battle won awards Gil and Exp, your characters level up, can find new equipment to equip, can use the Gil they earned in battle to buy items and accessories from the store, etc. It’s basically like an RPG but with a real-time arena-based combat engine for the battles.
The way the storyline plays is that you move your character along a grid, engaging enemies, opening treasures, etc. And the more you play, the more you can unlock – you gain another “currency” called PP in this game that allows you to unlock all sorts of additional features such as being able to play as the villains, getting new items to use, and turning on faster experience and money gaining. In short, the game is a fusion of a RPG and a fighting game that actually works.
Is It PSP Friendly?
Dissidia is the first PSP game that I’ve played seriously on the PSP, and maybe because it’s one of the later releases that it has so many PSP friendly features. First of all, it has a Data Install feature, allowing you to install something like 500 some meg to your memory stick so the game loads faster. It also saves practically every time you exit a menu, and you can quicksave any time you are on the menu. One of the big concerns I with playing certain PSP games is that it’s not meant for quick play and quick stop – like if I was waiting for my wife to shop and she comes out of a store early what am I going to do with my PSP game? Dissidia passes this convenience test and is recommended as a game that you can easily play on the go.
Final Thoughts
Based on my review, it seems like everything I’ve been saying about the game is a compliment, but I’ll say my primary negative here: I still got bored of it after just playing through three of the ten characters’ campaigns. All of the Final Fantasy fan-service and RPG features seemed like they would really rope me in, but the combat and story just got boring to me. After fighting dozens of enemies throughout the campaign, I still felt like it was just a grind when in fact the combat is really the main gameplay! The game even encourages playing through the campaigns several times to unlock new items, but after playing through Cecil’s campaign 3 times, I called out Uncle. Let me off this grind train!
Of course, your mileage may vary on this one: how much you love the Final Fantasy games and how much can you enjoy playing a quasi-fighting game like this one by yourself without a real compelling storyline. There is multiplayer for the game, but I wasn’t interested enough to check it out. For a certain type of Final Fantasy fan, you may really end up loving this game. With me, I need a little more meat in terms of storytelling and gameplay for me want to play it further. In short, the game’s presentation is stellar but the actual gameplay itself can get quite repetitive so keep that in mind if you’re interested in checking it out!
Final Grade: B
It’s been awhile since I played this, but once you open up the shadow paths or whatever they are called, the story makes a little more sense and the game gets much more challenging. By the time you get to the final set of levels, you have to have a character of near lvl 100 to have a fair fight with the villains. You also can unlock Shantotto and JUDGE GALBRANTH from FFXI and XII respectively and they have their own stories that are different from everyone else. Yes, I am a fan of Judge Galbranth, even though he actually sucks as a character in Dissidia. I wonder if they did that on purpose.
Anyway, I agree with you, the combat gets boring fast, and when you get to the later levels, there is some luck involved in getting the break attacks…the gameplay brought the game down. I’d almost rather have a traditional fighting game instead of what they did. Still, the fan service is off the charts, it’s worth playing the game for that factor alone.
level 100?! man i don’t know if i could ever devote that amount of time these days to a game with gameplay that is a bit lacking. in a way though, i’m glad that the levels of the enemies do increase at some point, because when i replayed cecil’s storyline 3 times, i was still fighting enemies that we were like level 3 and he was like nearly level 20.
but, thanks for letting me know – dissidia may make its way back onto my psp at some point, because while the gameplay is not stellar, the fan service is a worthy incentive to continue playing the game.
Hi esp! Though not a fellow player, I’ve seen my friend play enough of Dissidia to comment.
1) Dissidia is a grinder. No doubt about that one. Getting to lvl 100 is in fact only the beginning. There are new skills to learn (and equip), items to craft, and so on.
2) Arcade Mode might offer something which you’re looking for. Everything is pre-set, so you need skill to get you through to the end. Hard/Time Attack even gives you rewards which you might find interesting.
3)Explore the other modes (essentially grinding enough PP to buy them first.) Remember two words: Shade Impulse.
Have fun, and grind at your own pace!
cool thanks for your tips YZQ! It’s all starting to become more clear to me now how much grinding is involved in Dissidia…and that is the reason why it has gone back onto the shelf haha
but, the completionist in me wants to grind it out at some point in my life, so we shall see if i can get back into it once i clear through more of my psp backlog.