Hands up anyone who thought Square Enix would ever release a fighting game
made up completely of Final Fantasy characters? Okay, so maybe the
DreamFactory-developed Ehrgeiz hinted at it, but I honestly didn't see this
coming. Dissidia offers players the chance to fight as either the lead hero
or villain from Final Fantasy I through to Final Fantasy X, in full real-time
bouts a million miles away from the series' turn-based staple. Time to see
whether Squall's Gunblade mastery really is a match for the Buster Sword-
wielding Cloud.
Unlike the original Super Smash Bros. excuse of
"they're fighting dolls", Dissidia's explanation for the Final Fantasy cast
being in the same universe is more sinister. Chaos, the god of discord, and
Cosmos, the god of harmony, have been fighting for an eternity within the
Dissidia universe. In a bid to destroy Cosmos, Chaos sneakily imports all his
favourite antagonists from the Final Fantasy games - with the dark army they
subsequently build tipping the balance greatly in his favour. With no option
left but to rip off Chaos's idea, Cosmos retaliates by summoning all the
manically depressed protagonists from the same games in order to settle the
score once and for all.
Rather than the face-to-face fighting style of
Tekken and Street Fighter, bouts in Dissidia take place in open 3D arenas
similar to Power Stone - but without all the Flamethrowers and Hammers.
Players can lock on and off their opponent with the left trigger and run
across the arena with the analogue stick. The four face buttons are allocated
to Brave attack, HP attack, jump and context-sensitive environment
manoeuvres, which might make more sense in Tony Hawk's, but basically deals
with all your wall-running and ledge-grinding.
The right trigger,
meanwhile, is your obligatory Guard, but as a guard state can't be held it
works in effect more like a parry. Guard can also be used with the face
buttons for more advanced moves. Guard and jump will execute a dodge
manoeuvre which, if timed correctly, will allow you to completely evade an
enemy attack for a swift counter.
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The EX burst attacks are a definite
highlight.
Unlike most conventional fighters, Dissidia's Brave
and HP attack system offers a genuinely fresh approach for KO enthusiasts.
Each combatant begins a fight with a certain amount of BP (Brave Points) -
indicated by a number above the health bar. By performing Brave attacks the
player can steal BP from the enemy's gauge and add it to their own. Also, if
through sustained Brave attacks the player brings the opponents BP total to
zero, they will send the opponent into Break status and receive a massive BP
bonus.
The point of accumulating all this BP is the HP attack. The
amount of damage dealt by a HP attack is equal to the player's pooled Brave
Points - with a successful hit resetting the attacking player's BP to zero
for a short time. This lends Dissidia a very tactical style of play because a
full health bar is meaningless if your opponent's BP is in the high
thousands.
Working in tandem to the BP system is the EX gauge (you
weren't expecting a Final Fantasy fighter to be simple, were you?). Your
opponent will drop tiny EX orbs if you combo them through chained attacks
which, when collected, will slightly increase your EX total. EX cores will
provide a more dramatic boost and spawn in various locations across the
arenas. Once the EX gauge is maxed your character will be able to enter EX
mode for a short time.
In EX mode Cloud will ditch his rusty old Buster
Sword and replace it with Ultima Weapon, gaining the rather annoying ability
to Guard Crush (rendering guards useless). Tina's take on EX is turning into
her naked Esper form, complete with the ability to combo her magic attacks
and glide. Other highlights include Jecht's transformation into Final Aeon
and Golbeza's summoning of the Shadow Dragon. In EX mode around half the
characters will also slowly regain their lost health, Regen style.
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Once the final Shade Impulse chapter has been completed, the
bonus Distant Glory chapters will open up. Here Shantotto from FFXI and
Gabranth from FFXII can be unlocked.
Fleeing from a similarly
skilled opponent who's achieved EX is often a sound strategy, as the worst
thing you can let them do is land an HP attack. Connecting a HP attack while
in EX Mode will launch your character's ultimate EX burst attack. These work
similarly to the Limit Breaks in Final Fantasy VII (or if you want to be
pedantic, perhaps even the Desperation Moves from Final Fantasy VI) and
require a short quick-time sequence to successfully charge - i.e. mashing
circle, matching displayed inputs, etc. The mayhem that ensues after a
successful EX burst is all kinds of Omnislash over-the-top. Exdeath uses the
power of the Void to crush his opponent in a gravity field and Sephiroth
hurls his hapless victim into a Supernova. Basically, if you manage to land a
perfect EX burst on your opponent with a ruinously high BP total, it's quite
likely you've just won the match.
Dissidia's graphical presentation is
in stark contrast to the gritty Crisis Core and has more of a Kingdom Hearts
feel (hardly surprising with Tetsuya Nomura onboard). The arenas draw upon
the previous Final Fantasy games and include the Crystal World from FFIX and
the Magitek Research Facility from FFVI. All have a certain vibrancy which,
despite their relative lack of destructible architecture, helps personify the
titled Fantasy appeal.
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