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 (Now with 40% more whining than your average Final Fantasy condensed into one juicy package!)
MODERN GAMING
Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Developer: Square-Enix
Publisher: Square-Enix
Year: 2009
Genre: Beat-em-up
System: PSP
Let me be clear on one thing. I do not like the PSP. This is not coming from an anti-Sony fanboyism due to the PS3's bad relationship with Europe, but rather with the fact that me and the PSP have never had a good chemistry. I never know if it's off or just on standby, and when it is either way, I feel the battery is just sucked away like a sleeping baby sucking on a bottle, and for two years I thought the analog nub was actually the speaker, as well as my confused frustration at why there are not two analog nubs rather than one.
However, all of these little problems I have with the PSP were beared with to play this game. A game that actually made me want to get back to playing the PSP.
Story - Compared to the other Final Fantasies, the story is incredibly straightforward and simple. There are two sides of the world itself, Chaos and Cosmos. Chaos is pure evil and destruction, wishing to see the extermination of all light, life and hope. Cosmos is the pure heart wishing for good to shine through the world and repel or even banish evil entirely. The two have their armies to battle against each other as well as themselves.
Cosmos has The Warrior of Light, Firion, Onion Knight, Cecil Harvey, Bartz Klauser, Terra Branford, Cloud Strife, Squall Leonhart, Zidane, Tidus and Shantotto.
Chaos has Garland, The Emperor, Cloud of Darkness, Golbez, Exdeath, Kefka Palazzo, Sephiroth, Ultimecia, Kuja, Jecht, and Gabranth. 11 great warriors of the Final Fantasy series bound by one common cause for each of their sides.
That's actually it. Seriously, this has less plot than the Subspace Emissary, but what do you care, you just want to slaughter Tidus with Sephiroth's Masamune or crush him with some of Ultimecia's Time Compression so let's get onto the rest of this review!
 (This does not impress the Emperor who plays with a DS)
Graphics - The cutscenes are magnificently fluid with every character looking very well like their game selves, with the level of graphical quality from Advent Children (perhaps even the same CG animators which is not unlikely) and the action keeps itself fast-paced with almost no slowdown. Even in-game the graphics stay good and fluid perfectly for a beat-em-up of course with various stages, one from each game such as the Planet's Core of FFVII, the Lunar Subterrane of FFIV and Ultimecia's Castle from FFVIII.
The only small problem with the graphics is the lipwork. In close-up, the characters seem a little stiff in themselves during in-game cutscenes and their mouths move in the most oddest ways, or rather, in the way that half the Kingdom Hearts cutscenes did, never really moving the entire facial structure but just changing the lips with little transition. It can be ignored after a while though.
Gameplay - Now to the heart of the game itself, the battle system. Dissidia firstly has a layout of a chess-like board where you move your character piece across to engage in enemies, pick up items and open treasure chests. This is actually quite easy but then you have to consider the Destiny Points, or rather how many turns you're allowed to move. You can move as much as you want in any number of directions in one turn, each turn costing a Destiny Point.
Engaging in enemies, opening a treasure chest or picking up an item will use a Destiny Point. You get points if you have any left by the end of the area, of which there are several in each character's scenario, as well as have points taken away from you for having a number of minus Destiny Points.
 (Can you say LEFT-O, or rather LEFT-OSHIT ESPERKIN!)
When you engage an enemy, you enter the battle screen, which takes on a variety of commands to make the battles actually not so repetitive and offer a lot of opportunity to increase your skills with various things. In battle there are two gauges. Bravery and HP. Bravery is your attack strength essentially. Tthe higher it is, the more damage you do.
You weaken the opponent's bravery with one kind of attack (Circle attacks we'll say) as well as to stun them and get close. Then you really hurt with the HP attacks (the Square attacks) and drag their health down to 0, the battle itself becoming a juggling fest of Circle and Square attacks.
Other things can be done too such as dodging with the right trigger and X or dashing with right trigger and Triangle. Then comes the EX Mode, which is your Limit Break/Trance/Overkill/whatever applies to your FF character, which if you manage to hit an enemy with right trigger and Square instead when you're in EX Mode to initiate an attack fitting to your character.
For example, Squall will initiate his Renzokuken which you must perform like in his original game, timing your button pressing with the Renzokuken gauge. Cloud's is a more simpler button mashing to fill up his Limit Gauge, Tidus' is the same as in FFX where you must hit the middle of the bar with good timing, and so on.
 ("Oh I'm late you say? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over TIME ITSELF BEING FUCKING WARPED INTO A PITIFUL EXISTENCE!")
Lastly there is the menu with your usual equipping abilities, weapons, armour and so forth. A few noticeable differences from the usual FF menus are the fact you have no item storage. Items you pick up and use immediately on the board which you might think is irritating, and it sorta is. There is also Battlegen which gives a predictability rating of various items you can get in battle by performing certain actions in battle (this is really more inspired by Kingdom Hearts than anything else).
Lastly there is a shop to buy equipment from which you can access anytime if you have gil from any battles you've fought or as a result of bonuses. All of this is explained with the help of a multitude of Final Fantasy characters such as Vivi, Steiner, Red, Yuffie, Quistis, Wakka, and so forth (but only by text thankfully).
There is also the interesting little part of Boko, Bartz's chocobo friend who will occasionally get items or experience bonuses for you during battles, an intriguing reference perhaps to the PocketStation of FFVIII.
 (This is what Kefka's rapeface sounds like. Yes it has its own sound. Yes he will.)
Music/Sound - Now we reach a real centre of Final Fantasy. The soundtrack. Some of the music has been kept original such as FFIX's boss battle music, Kefka's Dancing Mad and Ultimecia's The Extreme but there are also some remixes, some of which are awesome, others you may not be sure about. This is all about personal preference depending on if you like the heavy metal version of FFVIII's battle theme or the twinkling slow entrancing version of FFIX's overworld theme. Overall they did a splendid job keeping the integrity as well as keeping some songs unchanged.
Now to the voice acting, which varies in quality of emotion from person to person. Cloud is the same voice of Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts, Squall has his voice from Kingdom Hearts 2, Kefka sounds WONDERFULLY psychotic and squealing, Tidus is still the same fucking goddamn annoying voice, and the Warrior of Light is....stoic. As in pretty bland. But that's countered by the awesomeness of Garland's voice. Suffice to say, the voice acting work on this is pretty damn good and I don't personally have any true complaints voicewise....other than imagining if Mark Hamill had voiced Kefka, my PSP would have exploded.
 (GABRANTH CONFIRMED FOR BRAWL!)
So as much as I hate my PSP, I finally have a game that actually makes me want to play it more, and that game is Dissidia: Final Fantasy. At first it was because I do love Final Fantasy (I started with VII, my favourite is IX, the one I hate the most is X if you were curious), but then it was more because the battles become addictive to play, you want to keep on pushing the distance and the limit of your capabilities. So, there's your review. This game made me want to play the PSP eagerly. I think that says enough.
Fun and Innovation - 4
Replayability - 4
Gameplay - 4
Presentation - 4"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto  Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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I don't like the PSP very much either. The UMD's are weird, the memory sticks are super expensive, and the battery life is meh. However, I feel it was MADE for games like Patapon and Loco Roco. Those games rock. I was never really a fan of Final Fantasy crossover things. I really like the tactics world and storyline though. ALSO, WAKKA HAD THE BEST VOICE ACTOR OF ALL THE FINAL FANTASIES PUT TOGETHER THANK YOU VERY MUCH. If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. - Carl Sagan My Backpack
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I loaned my memory stick out to a friend awhile back. Three years ago. He's two and a half years late in returning it to me. The point is, I've been too lazy to get a new stick and hack my PSP again.... BUT -- Dissidia makes me want to. This seems like an easy FF game to pick up and play... I honestly feel like the other FF games are just too overwhelming some times. How long did this game take you to play through? silverwasp wrote:Be careful what you wish for... I have 10 younger siblings and I am only 20....
Yes.... Same parents WarMachine wrote:meh...maybe if he hadn't been handed a burning house he could have done great things, but right now he has won the Prize for what? Damage Control?
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FinalGamer wrote:(This is what Kefka's rapeface sounds like. Yes it has its own sound. Yes he will.) fuuuuuuck I thought he looked creepy in the PS1 CG. Great review, if I had a psp I would check this out You wanna take this to Fuck Town?
Oh gadzooks, yes!
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Muffalopadus wrote:ALSO, WAKKA HAD THE BEST VOICE ACTOR OF ALL THE FINAL FANTASIES PUT TOGETHER THANK YOU VERY MUCH. You mean John DiMaggio who was also Kimahri, as well as being Bender from Futurama AND Gilgamesh in FFXII? "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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FinalGamer wrote:You mean John DiMaggio who was also Kimahri, as well as being Bender from Futurama AND Gilgamesh in FFXII? YAY! You also know. He's also Marcus Phoenix and SZNITZEL (from Chowder, my favorite cartoon. Yes, I am in fact 21 still)!!!!!!! He also gets major props for providing English voiceovers for 2 Miyazaki movies. I never listen to the english dubs, but I still like how he helped out. He's freaking AWESOME. If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. - Carl Sagan My Backpack
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