Dissidia Final Fantasy (PSP)

...of the best soundtracks with Dissidia being no exception. Each menu has its own unique song playing in the background, the same being for each character and their boss fights.
The actual sound and voice are realistic and will keep you immersed in the game. Every step or strike your character makes results in sound, whilst attacking triggers a voice clip set for that specific attack. The soundtrack alone is enough reason to buy this game.
.../> The multiplayer aspect of Dissidia has been well thought out, with rewards for challenging your friends and unique items that can only be obtained by duelling others. There is an option to put your psp system to sleep and broadcast your friend card and receive others, so for example if you enabled this and incidentally walked past someone else broadcasting, you’d both receive each other’s friend card and could dual that players ‘ghost’ offline.
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Storyline

In another universe, the fight between Chaos and Cosmos and their allies wages on. For an eternity neither side has emerged victorious, until one day Chaos gains the upper hand and Cosmos falls wounded. With nothing left but 9 heroes from past Final Fantasy adventures, summoned to help fight against evil, Cosmos entrusts them to find the crystals.
Not truly understanding their task and with no knowledge where the crystals are or what will happen next, the 9 brave adventurers begin their quest, in a journey of self discovery they must defeat their inner evil to obtain their Crystal and defeat Chaos.
Each hero has their own storyline, each from a previous Final Fantasy game from 1-11, which is relevant to their fate. You may not be surprised to find their previous rivals awaiting them aligned with Chaos, and a ferocious battle awaiting you between the two rivals.
A storyline with turns, twists, lies, deceit, friendship, honour and self awareness awaits you. With breathtaking cut scenes, unbearable cliff-hangers and enough action to keep you heavily involved for hours.

Characters

The characters span from previous Final Fantasy games, from 1-11, you’re likely to see most of your favourite characters brought to life in this fantastic game. Each character starts at level one and each one has their own individual equipment, skills and statistics that you build upon as you progress through the game, earning experience points (XP) for each battle you endure. Evil characters aligned with Chaos can be purchased for PP which you obtain from completing battles and storyline, they are then unlocked for you to use freely in battles (Note they cannot be used in story mode).
A list of the characters is as follows, associated with their rival:
• Warrior of light – Rivals with Garland
• Firion –Rivals with The Emperor
• Onion Knight – Rivals with Cloud of Darkness
• Cecil Harvey – Rivals with Golbez
• Bartz Klauser –Rivals with Exdeath
• Terra Branford – Rivals with Kefka Palazzo
• Cloud Strife – Rivals with Sephiroth
• Squall Leonheart – Rivals with Ultimecia
• Zidane Tribal – Rivals with Kuja
• Tidus –Rivals with Jecht
• Shantotto –Rivals with Gabranth
• Cosmos –Rivals with Chaos"

There are also 12 arenas that these characters do battle in: Old Chaos Shrine; Planet’s Core; Pandemonium; Multimedia’s Castle; World of Darkness; Crystal World; Lunar Subterrane; Dream’s End; The Rift; Order’s Sanctuary; Kefka’s Tower; Edge of Madness.

Sound

The sounds of Final Fantasy Dissisia compliment the rest of the game nicely, featuring music from previous Final Fantasy games recomposed exclusively for Dissidia. Final Fantasy has always featured one of the best soundtracks with Dissidia being no exception. Each menu has its own unique song playing in the background, the same being for each character and their boss fights.
The actual sound and voice are realistic and will keep you immersed in the game. Every step or strike your character makes results in sound, whilst attacking triggers a voice clip set for that specific attack. The soundtrack alone is enough reason to buy this game.

Gameplay

If you have ever played Kingdom Hearts the gameplay will be very familiar to you. You have hit points or hp, your Opponent has hit points and the objective is to diminish your opponents hit points to 0. You also have bravery points; the number that is your bravery points corresponds to how much damage a HP attack will cause.
To defeat your opponent you have to types of attack, Bravery and HP attack. To initiate a bravery attack you must press the circle button and move the analogue stick in a certain direction to trigger other bravery attacks. A HP attack uses the same principle apart from you use the square button and a certain direction on the analogue stick.
The levels are fully 3D with stage damage being part of the picture, for example if you strike a pillar it will crumble and fall, maybe even stagger your opponent. The levels are so intricately designed you find yourself ignoring your opponent and exploring the 12 stages, I would even go so far as to say they were beautiful especially with the sound which compliments it nicely.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer aspect of Dissidia has been well thought out, with rewards for challenging your friends and unique items that can only be obtained by duelling others. There is an option to put your psp system to sleep and broadcast your friend card and receive others, so for example if you enabled this and incidentally walked past someone else broadcasting, you’d both receive each other’s friend card and could dual that players ‘ghost’ offline.
The rarest items in the game are called artefacts, and the only way to obtain these is to dual someone else and one may drop. The brilliant thing about artefacts is that the more people who have obtained it down the line the better the artefact becomes, so say for example you dual someone and you obtain an artefact that has been passed down 100 times you’re going to have one hell of an artefact. Artefacts can be used as weapons or armour for certain characters or you can sell them for in game money.

Extras and Longevity

As you fight your way through Dissidia, each character has their own experience points which they use to level up, obtain new items skills and abilities. There is a massive range of customisation including a shop which regularly stocks different things as you progress through the story. If you play on certain days you get certain rewards such as extra XP, money or PP (used to buy and unlock extras). You also have moogle mail, a fun little addition where you mail the moogles and ask them various questions or answer their queries, and the next day you receive a reply with items or PP.
There is a museum feasting all the songs, voices and cut scenes from the game which you can always visit and look back upon. I would recommend listening to some of the music as there are some beautiful pieces in there. To be blunt there is an awful lot of extras in this game and you may be playing for months to obtain everything.

Conclusion

To conclude this is one of the best PSP games I have so far played, and I have played many. You will love this game especially if you are a RPG, Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts fan. Every little corner of this game has been thoroughly designed so that it really does immerse you in the game play, and with the ability to save battle scenes that you have fought, save them as an AVI and watch them again, you begin to realise hoe beautiful this game really is.

 

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