Dissidia 012 (Duodecim) Review

The first Dissidia Final Fantasy on the PSP was one of the best games to come to the platform. Square Enix really gave fans of the Final Fantasy series a love letter to their continued support for the franchise. Besides sporting some of the best looking rendered cut-scenes no the PSP, but the game also featured some of the most features available to use, giving gamers the most for their money. Now this time around, Dissidia gets a sequel that not only delivers some of the best points from it’s predecessor, but a whole lot more on top of that. Dissidia Duodecim in one of the best PSP games on the platform to date.

In similar fashion, the game opens up with a sort of prologue to the events that will transpire over the course of the story. Fans who purchased Dissidia Prologus got a taste of some back story to what this sequel will be about. The story can be a little mediocre and cheesy at times, but is still good quality for a fighting game /RPG hybrid. The time frame in which this game takes place is before the first Dissidia Final Fantasy, during the time when the war between Cosmos and Chaos is still raging on. This time however, a slew of new faces step into the ring and take sides between the two deities.

Some of the new characters making their way into Dissidia are Lightning from FF13, Kain from FF4, Vann from FF12, Laguna from FF8, Tifa from FF7, and Yuna from FF10. Playing thoroughly through the game however, players are greeted with two more extra characters in the form of newcomer Prishe from FF11, and fan favorite Gilgamesh from FF5. To add more fan service to the whole mix, those who purchased Dissidia Prologus from the PSN store and completed the story mode automatically receive FF7’s Areith as an assist character to use in battle, the fan service is just piled up with different outfits, tracks, and more as a huge plus for anyone who is a fan of Final Fantasy. Each one of these new characters play differently from both the new and original cast, offering a ton of unique ways to fight in battles.

The fighting itself is pretty much the same as in the first Dissidia, with the exception of the newest addition of Assist Characters. As a player attacks an opponent with Brave attacks, they build up an Assist Meter that can charge up to two levels. Once one level is full, an ally can be summoned to attack with a Brave Attack that can be used to combo into or extend Brave combos. If two meters are full, the assist character can attack with an HP attack instead to deal HP damage to a foe. As an added plus, Assist characters can save players from taking damage but coming to their aid as a human shield, at the cost having the assist meter locked up for a short period of time. Knowing how to use assists to their full extent can be key to winning more of the tougher battles in both Story mode and Multiplayer.

The different game modes available are the meet of what Dissidia Duodecim has to offer. The story mode now plays like a classic Final Fantasy RPG, where characters can roam around a large map, which looks like a world similar to that of classic 2D Final Fantasy games, and engaged enemies as well as collect items to use in battle. The board game aspects from the first Dissidia are here as well, but they are incorporated into the roaming story mode, where certain gates transport your character to different boards to engage Chaos Stigmas, enemies, and find different items.

The multiplayer for Dissidia Duodecim is very similar to the original Dissidia, with some added goodies. Battle replays are still present and accounted for, allowing players to save some great moments on their PSP, and still allow the ability to convert the videos to a format for uploading on to sites like Youtube and BlipTV. The player cards have the same concept, only this time now there are different icons to use, as well as themes and party setups, where a player can choose a selection of characters as their main “party” of characters to use in battle. There is still ghost transferring between players, one of the best features from the first game, that now has added options for customization for different characters. There is even a Quest Creation mode, in which players can now create their own scenarios with their own written dialogue and set battles. The depth of the creation can only stretch as far as up to five battles and written text, but it is a step in the right direction, and it would be amazing to see this expanded upon in another installment of the series.

Dissidia Duodecim is a phenomenal PSP game, that really offers so much to people who purchase it. There is so much content available that gamers will be spending much more time playing it then they might have with the first Dissidia game. And to only add more to the Final Fantasy goodness, Square Enix made it possible to play the entire Original Dissidia Story Campaign after completing Duodecim’s main story. That means not only that you get the new game’s story with all the new features, but you get the entire first game campaign upgraded with all of the extras. This game is a serious love letter to every fan of Final Fantasy. There is something here for everyone no matter what game you feel is the best out of the series, all the heroes and villains from every game are given the spotlight. But more importantly, this is one of the very few games that pushes the PSP to it’s limit and still is able to offer an awesome quality experience to it’s players. Hands down, this is one of the Best PSP Game to come out this year.