Netsrac Posted March 16, 2013 Share Posted March 16, 2013 Director: Mitsunori Takahashi Producers: Takeshi Arakawa Music: Takeharu Ishimoto Starring:Ali Hills, Bobby Edner, Armando Valdes-Kenedy, Hedy Burres, Liam O‘Brien, Rachel Leith Cook, Grant George, Johnny Yong Bosh , Aaron Spann , Yuri Lowenthal, Jason Spisak, Natalie Lander, Steve Burton, Doug Erholtz, Bryce Papenbrook, James Arnold Taylor, Christopher Sabat, Christopher Corey Smith, Laura Baily, Peter Beckman, Gerald C. Rivers, Dave Wittenberg, George Newbern, Tasia Valenza, JD Cullom, Gregg Berger, Veronica Taylor, Keith David, Candi Milo, Keith Ferguson, Keith David, Julie Nathanson, Keith Szarabajka, Andrea Bowen Rating: Plot “The divine conflict between harmony and discord rages on, the fate of the world is its promised price. Fighting to secure it are brave souls summoned for that solitary purpose. Champions, cut from cloth different from those which form the fabric of our world. These warriors from afar are helpless but to do as bid, waging battle after endless battle for the gods who called them here, granted neither respite nor reprieve. Relying on what fragments of their shattered memories remain, they fight to end the conflict, and for a chance to return home, to the worlds they each once knew. What they cannot know is that they fight in vain. This war is one without end, and it is their fate to serve forever, until, at last, their ebbing strength gives away...†(Dissidia 012 Duodecim Final Fantasy manual pg. 6) The game starts with an opening. You can see a beautiful sanctuary while hearing a voice in the background telling the story of the war between Cosmos the Goddess of Harmony, and Chaos the God of Discord. Suddenly you can see a swords handle. The Warrior of Light then takes his sword up to take a brief look at it. After the voice in the background stops telling the story about Cosmos and Chaos, you can see numbers counting up from I to XIII. With each number that gets added you can see the characters from the Final Fantasy games that each number represents while the incredible title theme that was composed by Takeharu Ishimoto plays in the background. When the “count up†(...yeah I’ll just call it a count up) finally reaches XIII you can see Lightning fighting Garland..., then suddenly the Dissidia 012 logo appears. The Story Mode has three Stories: “Main Scenario 012: Treachery of the Godsâ€, “Main Scenario 013: Light to All†and “(Main) Scenario 000: Confessions of the Creatorâ€. “Treachery of the Gods†takes place one cycle before the main story of the original “Dissidia Final Fantasy†and tells the story of Lightning, Vaan, Laguna Loire, Yuna, Kain Highwind and Tifa Lockhart and their adventure of searching their crystals which are the manifested power of Cosmos that she gave them at the sanctuary. “Light to All†is actually the main Story of “Dissidia Final Fantasy†which was just put back into THIS game. It tells the Story of the Last 10 Warriors on Cosmos’s side who are in search of their Crystals to obtain immense strength to be able to defeat the god of discord: Chaos. “Confessions of the Creator†is more open world like and allows you to choose five playable characters which can be swapped any time. In this mode you can choose which act to play first. After playing through the first two chooseable acts you can finally play the last act which is about saving Cid and finally defeating Chaos who went insane and turned into the almighty Feral Chaos. Review Dissidia 012 Duodecim Final Fantasy is the second installment of the Dissidia series which is practically just a remake of the first game which is at first disappointing, but a lot of new things have been added, for example the six new protagonists, new stages, the labyrinth mode, and, and, and. Also, a few things here and there have been adjusted, like the veteran characters attacks. Now in this review I’ll talk about the following things: Menus, Gameplay, Character Developement, Graphics and Cutscenes, and Music. Menus: So, even though the game is packed with stuff, the Menu system has a clear arrangement of main segments with sub-menus in them. Those main segments are: Story Mode, Battle Mode, Communications Mode, PP Catalog, Collection, Data Config and Options. I will talk about a few of the main segments and a few of their sub-menus. -Story Mode: Here you can choose which story and which chapter you want to play. You can also choose the Reports section where you will be able to read a report (whoa I didn’t see that coming) and watch cutscenes and fight a few battles. -Battle Mode: Here you can choose wether you want to do a quick battle, a party battle, play the Arcade Mode or the Labyrinth (which very simple made game mode that will take you hours to beat). I'll now explain the Arcade Mode since it's a great mode: You will start off with no equipment and you will see a menu and a map. Displayed on the menu are cards that represent either a character, an enemy, a job, a treasure or a door. -The character allows you to choose him/her either as a Party Member or an Assist Character. - The enemy is self explanatory, you will gain money if you defeat him. The job will give you a special effect (you can only have three at a time). -The treasure card can only be chosen if you’ve got the right amount of coins, you will then get what the info box says. -The door card is only ulockable if you meet certain consitions, but if you meet those conditions, you will be able to go to the next room. -PP Catalog: This is a sort of shop in which you can spent points that you gain in every battle to buy stuff like: characters, stages, costumes and music. Collection: Here you will be able to choose the Creation and the Museum Menu. In the Creation Menu you will be able to make or play your own quest. Also you will be able to edit movies of battles that you recorded (yes that’s possible and its great). In the Museum you can watch cutscenes and listen to music. Also, if you press the START button within a menu, a window will appear where other Final Fantasy characters explain all the stuff contained within it and what you can do Gameplay: Dissidia is a “one on one beat ‘em up†with lots of action. The overall Gameplay gives you two ways to play the game. You can choose the actual Action Mode or the RPG Mode where the character will move around the map automatically and you will be able to choose what the character is supposed to do. I will talk about the Action Mode. The controls are a little hard: The analog pad controls the character, the d-pad the camera, and the rest of the buttons certain actions (so far so good), but you will also have to press certain buttons together at the same time or else you might do something that you don’t want to do (like blocking instead of evading) which means you have to be precise. The UI shows the HP-Bar, the Assist-Bar, the Ex-Gauge, the Bravery (BRV) of both characters, and the stage bravery. For everyone that doesn’t know what HP is, it means Hit Points and shows the amount of points that can be taken away from you when you take hits. But how much damage does one take when hit? Well that’s where the bravery comes in. At the beginning of the battle both characters start off with their base bravery which is determined by their status and their equipment. The objective is to steal the enemies bravery by attacking him. The bravery that the enemy looses gets added to the attackers own bravery. If the one characters bravery goes beneath 0, that certain characters bravery is in a break until the bravery recovers and the stage bravery gets added to the attackers bravery (the stage bravery is always different and in special stages always changes even when it hasn’t been added to one of the character’s bravery). While in break one can gain bravery by attacking the opponent but the opponent won’t lose any bravery. The bravery that was gained gets converted into damage that gets dealt when successfully attacking an opponent with an HP-attack. The BRV of the character that dealt the damage goes down to 0 and regenerates after a very short amount of time back to the base BRV of the character. The Ex-Gauge gets filled when coming into contact with EX-Force (that generates when making a successful HP-attack) or when catching an EX-Core. When the EX-Gauge is filled the character will be able to go into EX-Mode and will unleash a powerful attack after making an HP-attack and pressing the square button. The special attack is usually the most powerful Limit/Overdrive/etc. that the characters learn in their original games (like Blitz Ace or Omni Slash). There are two ways for the EX-Gauge to deplete: 1. One goes into EX-Mode after completely filling it up or 2. It is completely filled but the opponent uses an Assist character on you. But while you’re in Ex-Mode, you can lock your opponents Assist-Bar for a long period of time when attacking his assist. The Assist-bar fills up when attacking the opponent, depletes after not attacking for a certain amount of time and gets locked when your assist gets hit. Depending on how full the Assist-Bar is, you can do a BRV-Assist or an HP-Assist. The attack system is a bit different than that of other action games. On the circle button you’ve got the bravery attacks. In combination with the Analog Pad you’ll do different attacks (or the same attacks depending on where you set which attack). Also, depending on wether you’re on the ground or mid-air, your character will do different attacks. The same goes for HP-attacks. Also, if you press R and the Circle button at the same time, you will be able to use your summon that influences either your own bravery, your enemies bravery, both of your braveries or the stage bravery, depending on what the summons special ability is.If you press L and square/circle at the same time you will call your assist character who will then do an HP-/BRV-attack. Character Developement: The character development is build on the normal leveling system where you have to gain a certain amount of EXP (which you gain after every successful HP-attack and after every battle) to level up. The highest level a character can reach is lv.100. With every level you gain, your status grows and you learn new abilities like new BRV- and HP-attacks, helpful support abilities like EX-Core Lock On, basic actions like Block, and extras like Precision Jump. Your characters level can also be lowered if you want to play against a friend who’s weaker than you. You can also buy equipment and accessories in the shop or gain them after battle to boost characters status. There are four kinds of equipment: Weapons which mainly raises atk, Hand which mainly raises def, Head which mainly raises BRV, and Body which mainly raises HP. The Accessories also boost the status but in different ways. Basic accessories boost your characters status by just a small amount. Booster Accessories boost those effects when certain conditions are met. Graphics and Cutscenes: For a game that’s played on a nine year old handheld I have to say the graphics are pretty good, but there are a few 2D rendered backgrounds here and there and at some point (not often though) it gets a bit pixely, but there are a few beautiful CG animations which make up for that. What is a little bit annoying though is that there are a few overused animations in the cutscenes and a few voice actors who could have done a way better job (Exdeath doesn’t laugh at all, he just says mua-ha-ha). Music: In this game a whole lot of Memorable tracks form the first 13 Final Fantasy games have been remade (like One Winged Angel, Battle with Four Friends or J-E-N-O-V-A) and also the tracks from the 8-bit and 16-bit games reappear untouched. There aren’t many new compositions, but they are just as memorable like the opening theme which always gives me the chills in the opening movie. Overall This is one of the best fighting games I’ve ever played, and the fact that it’s on the PSP is even more astounding since it’s packed with a whole lot of awesomeness. One of the things that fascinated me the most though, is the games ability to record and convert a battle into an AVI file and then save it onto the Memory stick so that you can watch it on your computer or burn it on a CD and even edit it in the Creation Menu . What could have been added though is a longer “12th Cycle†since it was a bit short compared to “The 13th Cycleâ€. But all in all it’s a great game and a must have for Final Fantasy Fans and PSP owners. From me this game gets four stars! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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