GameStop synopsis:

Starting from the PSP to arcade to home system

As a result to Square Enix and Team Ninja finishing up with adding DLC content in this crossover fighting game, I might as well do review for this game.  If you didn’t know, the companies announced that starting in March, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT will no longer be adding anymore DLC which includes characters and costumes. Online will still be playable until further notice. This includes the free and paid version for both PS4 and PC.

Dissidia Final Fantasy is a fighting RPG game in which combines fan favorite protagonists and antagonists and pitting them into a fighting style game. The first game was released for the PSP in Japan of 2008 and it didn’t get a global release until 2009. This game included many beloved characters such as Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, Kefka from Final Fantasy VI and many more characters. The first game had up to from the FF game to FFX with two unlockable characters from FFXI and FFXII. The game was a success that another installment was made called Dissidia 012 [Duodecim] Final Fantasy. This game was released in 2011 and this game actually serves as a prequel and a remake of the classic game. This game included more characters such as Lightning from FFXIII, Tifa from FFVII and Lagoon from FFVIII. This game also DLC in which players can unlock additional costumes and the ability to have Aerith (or Aeris) as an assist character in fighting. Just like the first game, this game was even better. In 2015, Koei Tecmo teamed up with Square Enix to create an arcade game of Dissidia Final Fantasy. Three years later, the game would later get a port for the PS4 along with adding FF newcomer Noctis from the recent game Final Fantasy XV. In 2019, the company released the game for PC and gave people the option to either buy the game or download it for free and buy the contents later. This new port would be called Dissidia Final Fantasy NT

Dissidia Final Fantasy has come a long way from the PSP to all the way to consoles and PC at home. Now that this game Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is released and is done with DLC, it is now a good time to talk about its last impression for these 3 years.

Story: A confused Noctis enters a battle between good, evil and a meddling dragon!

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT takes place after the events of the original Dissidia story. The story begins with Noctis listening to music and relaxing in what it seems to be him in the Regalia with his friends. However, Noctis wakes up from resting and sees himself transported to a mysterious world. He encounters an enemy that resembles Lightning. Suddenly, the real Lightning appears and slays the fake and Warrior of Light shows up and takes Noctis so he can catch his bearings. Noctis meets the other warriors from their worlds and meets Materia, the goddess of protection. Materia is the successor of the deceased goddess Cosmos. We also get introduced to the successor of Chaos named Spiritus, the god of destruction. Spiritus gathers up his troops which consists of enemies from Materia’s group such as Sephiroth, Golbez, Kefka and much more. As these two are forced to wage war against each other, they later find out there is someone out there who is interfering with the war of good and evil and trying to destroy both worlds. These characters must fight in order to get back home to their worlds.

Gameplay: A 3v3 teamwork brawl

This game reintroduces old game mechanics and also brings in all new 3v3 teamwork system. Players must rack up points and use the points to inflict damage on the opponents and with enough points, the player can knock the enemy out. In order to rack up points, players must fight with bravery attacks. Bravery attacks allows the player to hurt the opponent and siphon their points; they don’t take away health but it is something important for players to remember. The attacks that actually does damage is HP attacks. After the player accumulates enough points, players can unleash the damage points on the enemy and decrease the health. Players can also use summonings such as Ifrit or Shiva, just to name a few. Unlike the previous games, in order to use them, players has to fill up a shared energy bar by destroying big summon crystals that pop up randomly. Once filled, all the team members summon together and they can bring out a summon and help take out chunks of points from the enemy.

What’s new in this game is the 3v3 combat system. Not like the PSP games, players has to make create a team consisting of three people (the player and two AI characters). In order to win, the team has to either knock out the opponents three times or if it’s a timed match, the team with the highest kills wins. The game also includes a gauntlet mode where the player fight rounds to earn exp. and win rank titles. It feels like an arcade style mode, but the mode allows you to choose your opponents and difficulty as you fight. Once you beat the story, you will also have the option to fight the summoning characters in a 3v1 match in gauntlet mode. The more you fight in gauntlet mode and online, you will unlock gil, a currency in which players can use to buy costumes and costumes.

Review: A Final Fantasy fighting game that feels like a DOA game… a firework cash grab game

I am going to divide this in two sections: the positive and negatives.

Positives – visually beautiful

This game looks looks visually amazing compared to the PSP graphics. Thanks to Team Ninja, the characters look great and in a weird way, the visuals does look like the characters could fit in a DOA game. The women characters definitely have the feel especially with Tifa. The controls for the game is pretty easy to manage and the you can choose how hard you want the AI to be. Overall, it’s an easy to learn and hard to master game. The stage arenas for each world is visually stunning. I really like fighting at Midgar from Final Fantasy VII and going to Insomnia at Final Fantasy XV. The stages changes appearances as you fight and it is pretty cool to see everything change. Overall, the characters, summons and stages is visually beautiful and I think Square Enix and Koei Tecmo did an awesome job on capturing the 3D aspects of the Final Fantasy characters.

Negatives – lackluster! Pay for Final Fantasy Fanservice

Despite the visual aesthetics, this game is really lacking compared to the PSP predecessor. The story mode firs sounds interesting when you jump in, but the way it was handled feels short ended unlike the PSP version. It doesn’t help that in order to progress through the story, you need memoria. Memoria are points in which allows you to progress through the story and the only way to collect them is to either play gauntlet mode or play online. The way the story handles the characters is not where you can choose a  character and play their own story like the PSP Dissidia, but instead you focus on a group and then you see them intertwine with others. Overall, with enough points, you could probably finish the story within about 2-3 hours at most. The 3v3 battles can be chaotic for the camera to follow. Rather than focusing on one character like the PSP, the game tries to focus on everyone and it can be distracting. Just like Dead or Alive, this game has a lot of DLC in which will tempt you pay for characters, costumes and weapons. There are two season passes, but one for characters and the other is for weapons. Personally from my experience, weapons are visually there for fanservice to use and doesn’t help in fighting. The costumes are very impressive such as being able to wear the Kingdom Hearts costumes for Sephiroth, Cloud and Squall; the fun thing about this DLC is that they each have the weapons from the series such as Sephiroth wielding the One-Winged Angel keyblade-katana and Squall with the Sleeping Lion Gunblade. You can even unlock Versus XIII Noctis for anyone who thought Square Enix forgot about this prototype version FFXV. Unfortunately, these costumes could costs around $15-20 bucks for either separate or pack DLC. For DLC characters, I really miss the old school way of unlocking characters by doing challenges or completing a story. If you buy the characters from the season pass, they will appear as additional story plots in the story which is pretty cool. Characters that is not part of the season pass such as Tifa or Ardyn doesn’t even show up in the story and you have to pay about $5-6 bucks for the characters. With the Free Editions, you would have to buy all the characters instead of unlocking them. The DLC characters doesn’t come with alternate costumes either so that means you would have to pay for another pack. For example, if you bought Tifa, you will only unlock her classic costume from FFVII. If you want her Advent Children costumes, you would have to pay for that as well. Overall, this game will make you pay more just to satisfy the Final Fantasy fanservice you desire.

Conclusion

It’s unfortunate that this is going to be the last Dissidia game until further notice. This game was fun to play on a bigger screen and I enjoyed playing as my favorite characters. My favorite characters to play was Noctis, Ardyn, Tifa and Cloud. Having Square Enix and Koei Tecmo to team up to make this game is a beautiful teamwork and shows how hard these companies did their best to turn characters from their sprite and polygon appearances to full developed 3D models. This is a fanservice that a Final Fantasy fan can enjoy. However, just like games like fighting games like DOA or Street Fighter V, the game tries to get you buy more content to get the fanservice. I feel like if they focused on the gameplay mechanics and relied on the old traditional way of unlocking characters, this game wouldn’t be something to complain. Some of the content feels like it could have been added at least from a free update rather paying for appearances. The 3v3 fights sounds fun on paper, but I wish we were given the option to choose to have 3v3 matches just like Dragon Ball FighterZ. Would I recommend this game? More than likely, no. I am not going to hold my breathe, but if you’re still interested in this game, I would wait for a sale on this game or by sheer miracle, wait until this game gets a re-release with all the DLC in it. I pre-ordered this game on its initial release and I feel like I should have waited until it was on sale for standard. If there is hope, I wish the next Dissidia game would go back to its roots in gameplay and content just the like the PSP.

What do you guys think about this game? Comment down below.