REVIEW: Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy

If you have kept up with me on the vlogging/blogging front, then you would know that I've decided to take a break from Dissidia 012 so I can finish Radiant Mythology 3. With that said, I've also decided to write a short, pre-completion review on the game.

Most of us expected a sequel to the epic Final Fantasy fighting game of 2009, but we didn't expect to get one so quickly. From the get-go, we were told that other fan favorites like Kain from IV would make an appearance. There wasn't much improvement needed, but what we got improved on a number of things.

The plot is, more or less, a prequel. It was created essentially just to explain why certain characters (i. e. Lightning) weren't in the original plot. To sum up the reason: They died. Not too cliche, but not too original either. What I don't understand is why the developers deliberately left out what Chaos-gone-Cosmos characters (Cloud and Tidus) and vice versa ("Sir" Jecht) were doing during the time of the game's plot. This is explained in the "Reports" section of the story, but it would be nice to be able see that part of the story without having to play a different story entirely. I have seen that there are two other stories available to play: The original Dissidia story mode, and an epilogue. I haven't played them yet, so I can't comment at this time.

Allow me to go over each of the new characters that I've played.

Despite what people are probably saying about her, Lightning's not that bad. You just have to give her the right moves to use, depending on how you play. Once I gave her my ideal moveset, she played pretty well. She's pretty much the star of this game, so everyone should at least give her some good attention.

Being one of the fan favorites, I was curious to see what kind of attention was given to Kain as a playable character. Overall, he's alright. A little slow and stiff, but fun to play as once you get the hang of him.

Next to Lightning and Yuna, Tifa is probably my favorite girl in Final Fantasy. Not only is she hot, but she's quick too. It's fun to pummel your opponent with her. My only gripe with her is that she sounds different, but is apparently still voiced by her English voice actress.

As a character, Laguna's badass, but I don't like him as a player controlled one. He's just not my kind of character. I'm more of a close combat kind of guy, while Laguna is ranged. He packs a big punch, but he just isn't my type of character to use.

Surprisingly, Yuna is good as both a ranged and close combat character. She has moves for both kinds of players, and can be deadly if used effectively.

Being the current only Cosmos "Tactics" representative, I wanted to use Vaan as much as I could. He's like Bartz, but without the whole "mime" thing. Not bad, but a little stiff and jaded with certain moves.

I haven't played as the others, but I will in the future.

The music is still good. A few remixes here and there. The remix of Chaos Temple is barely recognizable, though.





Sound the same? Not to me. It sounds like it belongs in Dynasty Warriors.

The voice acting has also been improved, or at least improved what needed to be. Steve Burton's performance as Cloud in the original game, while understandable considering the game uses exaggerated version of the characters, was a little too flat and emotionless. He has improved in this game. Not saying he was bad as Cloud, he was just mediocre in Dissidia. Every other Cloud he's done has been spot on, and this is coming from a Takahiro Sakurai fanboy. 

In terms of difficulty, this game is tough. Some characters have been altered, possibly in an attempt to further balance the game. This makes fights last a little longer, but not in a good way.

So far, the DLC is interesting. I preordered the game from Gamestop so I could get the KH1 Cloud costume, which I did. I've never installed DLC on a PSP game before, so I didn't know what to expect. I don't like how the DLC is saved as a separate file. Personally, I would prefer the DLC to be installed onto your game save. That will at least prevent you from DELETING THE FILE TO SEE IF IT'S STILL THERE AROUND THE SAME TIME THE PSN GETS HACKED!!!! Sorry. I lost my cool there.

Overall, the game is good. A little too hard, but still fun. This is a premature review, so I don't have too much to say. I don't know if I'm going to come back and redo this review in the future, but I doubt it. Not much could change in terms of what I think.

I would also like to point out that, again, I'm not a gaming journalist, and shouldn't be treated as such. These are just my opinions, so don't take what I say as fact.