SpawnPoint - Where Game Begins

                                         
Dissidia – Final Fantasy                        A Must Have!
                                     
Incredible work, a game that just keeps on giving, and is a must have for the PSP


Story
So, this part of the review, is the weakest part, I’ll admit, the story isn’t as solid as the final fantasy games individual protagonist adventures, but they put themselves in a strange situation, trying to think of a story, that relates every single FF hero and villain, Square Enix could have simply forgotten about the story, and just had a simple fighting game between the characters, but no they tried there hardest, and the basic story is, that the god of war, Chaos, is threatening to take over the universe, making everything perish with it, the god of love on the other hand wants to stop this, so as Chaos summons all the FF villains to aid his quest, similarly the God of love, summons the heroes, that hopefully can fulfil their destiny to acquire the crystal, that when brought together can bring hope to the evil, and destroy Chaos once and for all.

 
EX Burst acts as the ‘limit break’ function, each character has their own

Dissidia
The game amazes me to even begin with, once you load it up on your PSP, you’re instantly asked, how you like to play, there are 3 choices, you can be a casual gamer, average or hardcore, this sets you up a play plan, then it asks what day you play most often, and unfortunately you can’t input ‘everyday’ but whichever day you choose, means you get lots of rewards on that particular day in the calendar, such as EXP bonus, AP bonus, etc.

Moogles!
Along with the calendar, Mognet also makes a welcome return, and familiar faces such as Stilzkin and Mog send you letters, and then ask you questions, for a quiz, get the answer right and be rewarded  lots of goodies, which can include rare items, this adds a little bit of extra fun to the game, before you’ve even started.

Battle!
But the main aim of the game, is to pit characters against each other, instantly your mind goes to ‘Cloud and Sepheroth, Zidane and Kuja’ but, it is interesting to face other villains, but you can’t beat a traditional face off, on there own stage, with the music that you love, the controls are very simple, there’s the movement which is standard, circle is you’re attack which attacks bravery (we’ll come onto that later) and square fuels an HP attack, if you hold the thumbstick towards or away from an enemy then if you’ve assigned a different ability to that control it will execute it, also the same goes for whilst in mid-air, so potentially you have a maximum of 6 different bravery attacks at your disposable, and 6 different HP attacks, the different abilites can be unlocked, after your character evolves through the levels, eventually you will get a new move, some characters get more than others.
 

Rival battles are always the best

The characters themselves do range in style, no two characters are alike, they all possess different abilities, different growth, different stats, and it is noticeable, I favour Cloud for example, but only because I’m a huge FF7 fan, but arguably he’s maybe not the best character, he’s slow and executes commands fairly sluggishly though they are very powerful, and well, he’s so damn cool, whereas on the other hand Zidane is fast, and executes commands very quickly, but not as powerful, expect general differences like that.

The way a battle works is that you gain bravery (BRV) and then the number rises, and then when you do a HP attack, it takes away that number from the enemies health, its quite simple, and does work very well, you can steal BRV, until it reaches 0 and they then go into ‘break’ mode and you acquire an extra bonus amount of BRV whilst the other is recovering his/her BRV back to the default amount, this works well as you can just literally play about and knock the enemy all over the place for pure enjoyment, then finish them with a final blow, but it gives the most weakest of player the chance to destroy the biggest of enemies, slowly building up your BRV, here and there, then retreating, it depends what your style of play is.

 
Choose your own battles!

There are 11 different stages, each hero has there own stage, which are some familiar scenes, such as Cloud’s life stream stage, each stage is different, they are really quite huge, and rather than being just a boring arena, they all look visually amazing, and provide great variety, later in the game you unlock omega versions of the levels, which provides even wider variety, as each has its own special variation.

Each character can equip items that aid there stats, they can be bought from the shop or gained, but certain players can equip certain things, at the required level, also summons make a brilliant addition, they can be summoned automatically when a requirement is met, or by your own command, although you’re not able to see a wonderful cut scene of the summon kicking ass, they do have some life saving abilities, some may raise your BRV, some may take away the enemies, or other lovely helpful aid.

Story mode!
The actual story mode takes place on a board style map, you can take your piece to other pieces on the board, and engage them in combat, or unlock the chest to receive items, get summons or other items such as potions, you’re also granted to special powers that can help, which are randomly chosen at the beginning of a map, which are to be used on the map, to damage other pieces before you engage them, or recover health, enemy pieces are identified via helmet looking figures, and depending on the size depends on the difficulty of the battle, they are crystallized versions of heroes/villains, and to finish a map you have to reach the goal piece which is known as the stigma.
 

 
Combine attacks and devastate opponents

Extras!
The game offers 150 accomplishments to achieve, which all grant you a special reward, and they also have so much variety, and a system known as ‘Battlegen’ which basically creates items if you meet the requirement that is shown on the Battlegen screen, if for example you come across a level 35 Golbez, and strike him with a HP attack then there is an ‘X’ amount of chance you will receive a certain item, this does add a little bit of extra fun to the battles, but most often I forget, and then I’m informed I’ve created something and I usually don’t know why, levelling up is back to its standard roots, rather than Crisis Core’s randomly levelling up system.

Winning battles means you’re rewarded with all kinds of different points, one of which is PP, this allows you to spend in there massive PP catalogue, from here you can purchase many wonderful extras, extra characters to play as, extra costumes, extra music, extra stages, and more get added whenever you complete a requirement!

The game just keeps on giving, there’s always something to do within Dissidia, but unfortunately, not multi-player, you can however download ghosts to play against, but it’s not quite the same, you can interact with other players and communicate, this could have been used more wisely, although this shouldn’t put you off, who needs friends when you have 10 playable characters, 12 unlockable characters, and moogles sending you lovely messages!

The good
•    Massive selection of extras to be unlocked, including accomplishments, purchases, unlockables and a replay feature, allowing you to save your battle replays and screenshots and upload them
•    All your favourite characters are there, playing rival battles never gets boring
•    Stunning graphics
•    Always remains high FPS
•    All the music has been re-vamped
•    Characters look brilliant, well translated from 2D to 3D
•    Many different modes, including 14 stories, duel coliseum, arcade modes and quick battle, theres even an option to command style your battles, for those who don't like action
•    Voice actors used suit the characters there given

The bad
-    Storyline isn’t great

The ugly
-    Only exploit that can be had, is tampering with your play plan, changing the date to your desired special day, though sometimes it has its uses.

 

Deliver that final blow, over and over again

Summary
This game is a must have, and any PSP owner wouldn’t be disappointed by this fantastic game, gamers looking for a challenge, or a casual play will be amazed at what’s on offer here, you don’t even have to be a fan of Final Fantasy, strip away the Final Fantasy and your left with a solid magical beat ‘em up, that can be enjoyed by anyone. Fans of the series will love the references to the series, but just like me, become bias towards your favourite character!
 

By Liam Copping