MSO Game Reviews 6

Name: Final Fantasy Dissidia
Genre(s): Action role-playing game, Fighting game
System(s): PSP
Date of Release: August 25, 2009

Synopsis:

Cosmos, goddess of Harmony.  Chaos, god of discord.

These two dieties have been fighting against one another, creating arenas from pieces of other worlds and pitting heroes and villians against each other, for eons, and the forces of Chaos are winning.  Ten brave heroes have survived and rise up to defend Cosmos and restore harmony to the chaotic worlds.

Will they retrieve their crystals and obtain the power to destroy an almighty god?  Or will the final strands of the world's light be snuffed out forever.

---Review---

*Warning: May Contain Spoilers*

Plot:

A veteran Final Fantasy player may discover that the plot is much like any other Final Fantasy game - characters hunt for something that will destroy the ultimate evil.  However, no Final Fantasy game makes you do it one character at a time!  There are countless references made to the previous games (even Tactics Advanced) and each character's unique storyline hooks the player  and offers much replay value.

Rating: 10/10

Sound:

The music was mostly revamped versions of previous Final Fantasy games.  to me, some were pretty good and some, well, I'd prefer the original.  Of course, Dissidia has it's own original music too, which are beyond beautiful.  (The themes of Cosmos and Chaos are almost like opera songs)

Rating: 9/10

Controls:

The controls can be difficult for those who don't like action fighting games.  However, the makers of Dissidia knew this and created a style of fighting similar to Crisis Core, where the player can input fight commands from a menu while moving, making the game a little easier as well.  also, each character has his or her own strengths and weaknesses, so you'll need to adapt to each one to fully master their controls.

Rating: 10/10

Graphics:

The graphics are beautifully rendered!  The character graphics, designed by Tetsuya Nomura, were designed to be as close to the original  Yoshitaka Amano illustrations as possible, with great success.  There are only minor differences between the originals and their Dissidia forms.

Rating: 10/10

Difficulty:

As far as the actual story goes, it's not that hard.  Some of the Destiny Point missions can be difficult depending on the enemy, but a beginner cannot expect to et them all in the first try.  Also, there are some pretty difficult quizzes from moogles that mail you which are definitely for Final Fantasy veterans only.  (Or those who are lazy and will just look up the answers online)

Rating: 10/10

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Nostalia/Tidbits:

*Warning: Will Contain Spoilers* (Since there are countless references to the many final Fantasy games, I will only discuss the ones that some people may not know right off the bat)

- Dissidia is a Latin word meaning "conflict" or "disagreement".

- Bartz is called a mimic warrior because he can mimic his companions weapons.  This is because, In Final Fantasy 5, there was a job class system where you could change jobs.  When they were mastered, the states would increase the Freelancer job more and more, thus making Freelancer the best job, which is what Bartz is.

- Bartz and Firion are both hilding the same sword.

- The villians of Dissidia are the main antagonists of the games the come from.  However, Jecht was not the main villian, per se, of Final Fantasy IX and was never truely evil to begin with.  Seymour was actually considered of this part, but was rejected, since most of his in game itneractions were with Luna, not Tidus.

- The Cosmos characters are mosting sword fighters, while Chaos characters are mostly magic users.

- In Shade Impulse, the last story of the game, the warrior of Light says he does not remember where he comes from or even his own name.  This is because in the original Final Fantasy, the four heroes of light came from all over the world and their names could be customizes, as could their jobs.

- Although it isn't stated in the game, the Emperor's name is Mateus and Cecil's last name is Harvey.

- When you defeat the Emperor in shade Impulse 2, he states that he will return for Hell to rule again.  This is in reference to when, in Final Fantasy II, he came back from the Hell as a demon after his goodness and evil split.  His EX form is what he looked like in that form.

- Firion's Wild Rose is a reference to the code word used by the resistance forces in Final Fantasy II.

- Some vioce actors for anime were recruited to voice some characters.  Firion is voiced by Grant George, who also voices Ichigo on Bleach.  Cecil is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal, who voices Sasuke on Naruto.

- All of the heroes and their villian counterparts have a relation to each other in one way or another.  however, the unlockable character Shantotto (Hero) and Judge Gabranth (Villian), have no relation to each other, as Shantotto is a final Fantasy XI character and Gabranth is a Final Fantasy XII character.

- Some villians are not all bad.  Golbez and Gabranth both are actually troubled by a disgraceful past, and Golbez actually aides the heroes in their quest to finding their crystals many times.

- Tidus is actually slightly younger looking in dissidia than he is in Final Fantasy X.

- Cid, be he a judge or an authority on airships, is almost always found in a Final Fantasy game.  However, cid is nowhere to be seen in this game, aside from being a player icon.  This is because he is narrating the game.  Rodger Parsons, who voiced Cid of the Lufaine, is the game's narrator.

- This game's plot is more tied to Final Fantasy 1 than anything else.  Garland has the closest connection with Chaos, heroes from all over the world gather to find crystals and Garand mentions about how Chaos saved him by bringing him "2000 years into the past".  also, the only way to prevent the world from coming to an end is to defeat Chaos.  This all happened in the original Final fantasy game.

- When the credits role, the scene showed is the same scene in the original final Fantasy after you cross the bridge leaving the Cornelia castle-town, which is shown in the background.

- There is a secret ending to Dissidia, which can be viewed after collecting all of the Chaos reports and Cosmos reports.  After doing so, it can be viewed in the Theatre as #222.

- There are passwords that can be entered into the message section of your player card that unlock all sorts of things.  (See authors comments for details)  The makers of Dissidia will continue to release passwords soon after the game's release.

- On April 6, 2007, Square Enix filed for United States trademark registration of "DISSIDIA"; the mark's relation to Final Fantasy was omitted.  As a result, some sites speculated this was an edition of Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII.

- On May 8, for its western localization, director Takeshi Arakawa and producer Yoshinori Kitase announced that the release date for the Western world would be August 25, 2009 (starting in North America), and that it will include a number of tweaks, including re-adjustments in gameplay, new gameplay events, an arcade gameplay mode, a shortened tutorial, new moves for playable characters, and extra cutscenes featuring cameos from several other characters from the main characters' original games that do not appear in the Japanese version.

- For the Dissidia: Final Fantasy US release, Gamestop released the game with two additional covers for anyone who reserved it before it came out.  One side had the heroes of Cosmos on it, while the other had the villians of Chaos.

- With individual scores of 9/9/10/8, the game received an overall rating of 36/40 points from Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, earning the game a place in its "Best Picks of This Week" feature as well as its "Platinum Hall of Fame."

- As of August 17, 2009, Dissidia: Final Fantasy has sold 910,000 copies in Japan, making it the fourth best-selling game for the PSP in Japan. It was the 12th best-selling game in Japan in 2008, selling 660,262 copies.

- In his EX mode, Bartz barely looks any different.  In fact, the only noticable change is the three stars above his head.  In Final Fantasy V, when a character mastered a job, three starsd appeared above his or her head, showing it was mastered.

---Closing Statements and Final Rating---

Final Fantasy - a title that was named so as it was thought to be Hironobu Sakaguchi's final game.  However, 22 years later, the fantasy continues!  As long as man continues to fantasize and imagine, there will never be a true "Final Fantasy".

"Fantasy knows no limits.  It is he who dwells in the world that decides its end"

Final Rating: 9.8 out of 10.