I love fighting games. I love the Final Fantasy Franchise. Needless to say when Dissidia: Final Fantasy was announced for the PSP I was pretty darn excited… so excited that I finally made up my mind to go out and buy a PSP. A demo of Dissidia was recently launched on the PlayStation Network and, of course, I have been playing it non-stop for a couple of days now. As the responsible gamer that I am, I figured I could rip my claws off of my PSP for a while and put you guys in the know, GGTL style.

What’s that? You've been living as a hermit for the last few months and don’t know what the heck “Dissidia” is? Fear not, faithful reader! We’ve got your back. Dissidia is a Square-Enix fighting game which pits the main heroes of the first ten Final Fantasy games against their respective villains, in an all out war of Good versus Evil. Ever dream of pitting Terra, of FF VI fame, against FF X’s Jecht? Or delude endlessly about taking on the infamous Sephiroth with FF X’s Tidus? Well, now you can. A fan boy couldn’t have set this up better.

When starting up the demo you'll have the choice of choosing from either a normal or hard mode. Once you’ve decided just how badass you are and what difficulty you can manage, it’s time to choose your character. A total of 5 characters can be selected: The Onion Knight (Hero of Final Fantasy III), Cecil (Hero of Final Fantasy IV), Terra (Hero of Final Fantasy VI), Cloud (Hero of Final Fantasy VII) and Sephiroth (Villian of Final Fanstasy VII). This is a pretty decent roster for a demo version of the game, especially since all of the characters offer up very different play experiences, and not to mention both Cloud and Sephiroth, obvious fan favorites, have both been included. I should also point out that in your battles you’ll encounter a set of completely different opponents (so far I’ve run into Zidane, Squall, Kefka, Firion, and others).

So you’ve chosen your difficulty level and you character. Now it’s on to the good stuff. Cue epic battles please.

Setting aside the recent comeback of 2-D fighters (spearheaded by Street Fighter 4, and propelled even further by Blazblue), Dissidia decides to stick to a fully 3-D battle field, and when I say 3-D, I really mean 3-D. If you’ve ever played Kingdom Hearts 2 you have sort of an idea of how these fights work. With the press of a button you can send your opponent flying across the huge 3-D battle field, which you move around on by running, jumping, gliding and (a very cool transport option) grinding on surfaces and lines of light set up across the field (à la Infamous).

I won’t get too into detail on the fighting system given that this is just a demo version of the game, however, I can give you the basics. As stated, you and your opponent are on a huge 3-D field and, like most fighting games, your objective is to beat your opponent into humiliating submission. There are three basic gauges you have to be aware of: Your HP gauge, Your EX gauge and, the FF twist, your Bravery points.

The HP gauge is pretty standard fare - each time you get hit with a square button attack you lose Hit Points, or HP, and once you lose it all, you’re done for. As for the EX Gauge, you don’t have to worry about this depleting; rather, you need to set your mind to filling it up. You can accomplish this by nabbing EX cores on the battlefield, and once the gauge is full you can enter EX Mode. This is a special mode which can entail a transformation of your character, or a switch of your character's weapon. In any case, what it really means is your opponent is in for one hell of a beating, as you can unleash special Limit Break style attacks while powered up.

Finally there are the Bravery Points: now pay attention, this can get tricky. Both characters have an assigned number of Bravery Points, or BP; every time you successfully land a circle button attack you gain BP, making your attacks stronger and your opponent's defense weaker. Get it? BP attacks won’t deplete HP but they will make your standard attacks a hell of a lot stronger while, at the same time, weakening your opponent. The system is odd, and can take some getting used to, but it works.

As for the technical stuff, well the demo looks and sounds beautiful. Dissidia has highly detailed 3D characters, with gorgeous animations, and yet the battlefields (all in all) are a bit bland. However, the somewhat boring locations are completely made up for by the awesome music score - all battles are accompanied by remixed versions of famous Final Fantasy songs, which are of course of an incredibly high quality.

Controls are easy enough, as PSP controls go. I did have some trouble handling the camera, and movement in the huge field can get tricky (there are a lot of options open to you so it can get confusing), but the more I play the easier it becomes.

If you haven’t been able to tell so far, I am very excited about this game. If you’re at all curious, do yourself a favor and download the demo (it's free!) off the PSN, and see if Dissidia might be for you - you’ll need about 78MB of free space. However, if you're not into demos, just wait for GGTL’s official review once the game is released on August 25th.

Joey

Labels: Demo Impressions, Dissidia Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy, Joey Núñez, Square Enix

Discuss this article in our friendly forums

Sign up to our community today and discuss our articles, debate over upcoming games and organise matches and playsessions with like-minded people just like you.

Liked this? Spread the word - share with your friends!