So, I spent some time playing Dissidia: Final Fantasy over the weekend. I pronounce it a very good, but quirky, game.
If you saw FF7: Advent Children, Dissidia's gameplay is quite easy to describe: it's the Cloud vs. Sephiroth fight at the end, just with a larger variety of characters and environments. Thus, battles are full of crazy aerial moves, wall-runs, destructible objects, and so forth.
I've read that Dissidia is an "action RPG", but I disagree. There is growth, there is equipment, and there is customization, but it's simply not an RPG in the traditional sense of things. It's not a hack-and-slash ala Diablo or MUA, either. I'd be more apt to call it a "strategy fighter".
There are a variety of storyline missions to go through. The stories in the ones I played were uniformly awful. Remember how Tidus was a huge whiner with daddy issues in FFX? Don't expect much more in Dissidia. Too much philosophical pondering - they should have just gone full-out Smash Bros with the stories. I've heard that some of the later storylines are much better (Shadow Impulse), but I never got to them.
The actual gameplay consists of a game board of sorts, which you traverse your player piece through. Every so often, you run into an enemy piece and go battle it. There are also chests and other bonuses on the board. The faster you finish the board, the better bonus you get at the end, so there's some incentive to think about who you're going to fight and what treasure you're going to obtain.
In battle, besides what I've already described, you've got your bravery (attack power) and HP. Attacks can either do HP damage (which depends on your bravery) or bravery damage. Thus, most battles wind up being a series of bravery attacks followed up by a single large HP attack, maybe with a summon tossed in for fun. This sounds boring, but is in reality quite a blast, because the battles tend to be rather engaging.
Graphics are very good, at least for the PSP. The environments are huge, yet the frame rate is quite constant. It's not quite at the level of God of War, but your eyes won't bleed or anything.
Sound is excellent, and there are a lot of little homages to mainline Final Fantasy games. The music tends to track the Advent Children vibe a little too close for my taste, but given that the game IS an obvious outgrowth of Advent Children, I suppose I shouldn't be too harsh.
The controls are FANTASTIC. Basic moves are simple to pull off (and essential!), and advanced moves become intuitive after a short learning curve. Executing wall-runs, aerial combat, and other awesomeness has never been easier, IMHO. My only problem was blocking, which I never could quite seem to get the hang of on a consistent basis. Blame my poor reflexes or inexperience, I suppose.
So, I'd definitely recommend the game to fighter fans who also love Final Fantasy. But I think it could really have broader appeal, so it might be worth a rent if you even just like a good fighter, maybe with an ever-so-slight Power Stone tilt.
If you saw FF7: Advent Children, Dissidia's gameplay is quite easy to describe: it's the Cloud vs. Sephiroth fight at the end, just with a larger variety of characters and environments. Thus, battles are full of crazy aerial moves, wall-runs, destructible objects, and so forth.
I've read that Dissidia is an "action RPG", but I disagree. There is growth, there is equipment, and there is customization, but it's simply not an RPG in the traditional sense of things. It's not a hack-and-slash ala Diablo or MUA, either. I'd be more apt to call it a "strategy fighter".
There are a variety of storyline missions to go through. The stories in the ones I played were uniformly awful. Remember how Tidus was a huge whiner with daddy issues in FFX? Don't expect much more in Dissidia. Too much philosophical pondering - they should have just gone full-out Smash Bros with the stories. I've heard that some of the later storylines are much better (Shadow Impulse), but I never got to them.
The actual gameplay consists of a game board of sorts, which you traverse your player piece through. Every so often, you run into an enemy piece and go battle it. There are also chests and other bonuses on the board. The faster you finish the board, the better bonus you get at the end, so there's some incentive to think about who you're going to fight and what treasure you're going to obtain.
In battle, besides what I've already described, you've got your bravery (attack power) and HP. Attacks can either do HP damage (which depends on your bravery) or bravery damage. Thus, most battles wind up being a series of bravery attacks followed up by a single large HP attack, maybe with a summon tossed in for fun. This sounds boring, but is in reality quite a blast, because the battles tend to be rather engaging.
Graphics are very good, at least for the PSP. The environments are huge, yet the frame rate is quite constant. It's not quite at the level of God of War, but your eyes won't bleed or anything.
Sound is excellent, and there are a lot of little homages to mainline Final Fantasy games. The music tends to track the Advent Children vibe a little too close for my taste, but given that the game IS an obvious outgrowth of Advent Children, I suppose I shouldn't be too harsh.
The controls are FANTASTIC. Basic moves are simple to pull off (and essential!), and advanced moves become intuitive after a short learning curve. Executing wall-runs, aerial combat, and other awesomeness has never been easier, IMHO. My only problem was blocking, which I never could quite seem to get the hang of on a consistent basis. Blame my poor reflexes or inexperience, I suppose.
So, I'd definitely recommend the game to fighter fans who also love Final Fantasy. But I think it could really have broader appeal, so it might be worth a rent if you even just like a good fighter, maybe with an ever-so-slight Power Stone tilt.
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