Dissidia Final Fantasy
is a 2008 fighting game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation Portable. It was released in Japan on December 18, 2008, in North America on August 25, 2009, and in Australia and Europe in September, as part of the campaign for the Final Fantasy series's 20th anniversary. It was then re-released in Japan, based on the North American version, as Dissidia Final Fantasy: Universal Tuning, on November 1, 2009.
The game features characters from different Final Fantasy games and centers on a great conflict between Cosmos, the goddess of harmony, and Chaos, the god of discord. The two summon multiple warriors to fight for their sides in their thirteenth war. During the story, the player controls the ten warriors chosen by Cosmos, the protagonists from the first ten Final Fantasy games, in their journey. The game's English and international versions give access to other features such as an arcade mode.
Dissidia originated from Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura's desire to create a spin-off for the franchise, which was later changed to the Final Fantasy series. Besides designing the characters, Nomura worked with the Square staff with the desire to make it appealing to Western players. Dissidia was well-received commercially and critically, with positive reviews and sales of over 1.8 million. A follow-up titled Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy was released in March 2011, featuring several new characters and gameplay elements.
Gameplay
Dissidia Final Fantasys genre has been described as "dramatic progressive action" and its graphics are in 3D. It has wireless one-on-one multiplayer and fights revolving around the use of individual special skills of characters to do damage to opponents. Players can customize their characters with equipment.Character movement is fully functional within the three-dimensional field map. Characters are able to perform special maneuvers using the environment. Traps with a variety of ill effects can be found throughout the arena. Characters' equipment can be customized, and they can gain EXP and gil from battles.
The aim is for the player to reduce their opponent's HP to zero. A character's offensive power is shown in numerical form called BRV or "Bravery Points". Both characters start out with a set amount of BRV, and each must reduce their health to 0 by attacking them with a HP attack. Players can steal BRV from their opponent by attacking them with the basic "BRV attack" to add it to their own total and gain the upper hand. Players can then use the "HP attack" to cause direct damage to their opponent; HP damage is equal to the player's current amount of Bravery. However, once an HP attack is used, the character's own BRV is reduced to 0 and then slowly recovers to its starting amount. A character whose BRV total has been depleted is forced into "Break mode", where, aside from not being able to cause HP and BRV damage, all attacks made against them cause critical damage and the opponent gets all of the BRV in the "Bravery Pool", massively boosting their BRV amount.
One main feature of the combat system is the "EX Gauge", which can be filled in a variety of ways, such as inflicting damage on opponents, taking damage from opponents, and obtaining EX cores scattered around the field of play. Once the EX Gauge is filled, the character can enter their "EX Mode", significantly increasing their power and enabling new attacks, including the "EX Burst", an unavoidable and very damaging special attack similar to the Limit Break mechanic seen in many games in the series. The player on the offense charges up the attack by following the on-screen instructions, while the player on the defense can reduce the amount of damage taken by continuously pressing the circle button. Once the EX Burst is executed, EX Mode ends.
In a gameplay mode exclusive to Western releases, the Arcade mode converts the game in a traditional fighting game, with all role-playing elements removed and characters' abilities being stripped down to the basics to balance the playing field. Within the Arcade Mode, there are three tiers: Normal, Hard, and Time Attack; beating any tier of the Arcade mode will reward the player with PP and special items that can be used in story mode. All characters, including villains, are playable in Arcade mode; for example, Golbez, Sephiroth, Kuja, and Jecht are available for use in this mode from the start, but they still need to be bought via the PP Catalog for use in other modes.
Plot
Setting and characters
The story revolves around two gods: the goddess of harmony, and the god of discord. The game unites both protagonists and antagonists from installments of the main Final Fantasy series, their stories narrated by the first Final Fantasy game's Cid of the Lufaine. Other than the gods and their champions, the player deals with crystal-like doppelgangers called Manikins. The game has an overarching storyline that requires playing through all of the characters to complete. The game contains twenty-two total playable characters: ten heroes and ten villains, one of each representing Final Fantasy through Final Fantasy X, and two secret characters: a heroine representing Final Fantasy XI, and a villain representing Final Fantasy XII. Initially, only the ten main heroes are playable in all gameplay modes; the ten main villains are playable in Arcade mode, but must still be unlocked for access in all other gameplay modes.Story mode
The gods Cosmos and Chaos have been locked in eternal conflict with "World B", a mirror dimension to the realm of "World A" where the first Final Fantasy takes place, summoning several warriors from other worlds from the main series to battle in a never-ending cycle of death and rebirth until the balance is tipped in favor of Chaos. As the war seems to be nearing its end, the ten warriors of Cosmos band together to strike back at Chaos's minions and restore balance. Having lost much of her power in the previous cycle, Cosmos gives her ten warriors—Warrior of Light, Firion, Onion Knight, Cecil, Bartz, Terra, Cloud, Squall, Zidane, and Tidus—the task of retrieving the ten crystals that will help them defeat Chaos. They each set out on a journey called a "Destiny Odyssey", where their respective stories are told and interlink with one another. During their travels the heroes encounter their villains, defeating them through epiphanies about themselves that help them obtain their crystals.Following the "Destiny Odysseys" is the "Shade Impulse", where all ten warriors have their crystals but arrive too late to save Cosmos, who is killed by Chaos. The heroes begin to fade away but are saved by the power of the crystals, allowing them to use what time they have left to strike back against the villains and defeat Chaos. In the end, the other warriors leave World A for their respective worlds, the Warrior of Light embarks on another adventure, and Cosmos revives to reign over World B.
The game features two other storylines with "Distant Glory", where Shanttoto and Gabranth are introduced to the player in two different areas where they are trapped and have to find a way out. The other story mode, "Inward Chaos", serves as an alternate scenario in which Chaos has never been defeated and the player is guided by an entity known as Shinryu to defeat Chaos.
Development
Dissidia Final Fantasy was originally envisioned by creative producer Tetsuya Nomura as a Kingdom Hearts spin-off featuring a cast of Disney characters while the Square Enix staff were developing Kingdom Hearts II. Nomura later felt uncomfortable with the Disney characters fighting each other and instead opted to use Final Fantasy characters, although the original idea eventually gave rise to the development of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, with the game's multiplayer mode inspired by Dissidias gameplay. The game was made in commemoration of the franchise's 20th anniversary and despite being handled by young employees, Nomura noticed there was no pressure, having assisted them in the designing various areas from the gameplay. The game was directed by Takeshi Arakawa whom Nomura noted that his experience in a previous Square Enix game, The World Ends With You, had a good effect in the game. To have their desired way of fighting, the team chose the PlayStation Portable console. There were plans for online play but the console's capacities made them unable to add such a feature. Developing the game took three years due with the battle system requiring two years and the RPG mode one.Deciding the Final Fantasy heroes was easy for the staff except for Terra Branford. While her game, Final Fantasy VI, features multiple characters that would fit the role of the main character, Terra was chosen in the end so that there would be a female fighter on Cosmos' side. For villains, they decided to include warriors who had a strong rivalry with the heroes rather than automatically choosing the games' final bosses. This resulted in the inclusion of non-final bosses such as Final Fantasy IVs Golbez, IXs Kuja and Xs Jecht who were connected with their games' leads. Shantotto from XI was used based on her popularity, while Gabranth was used to represent XII in Balthier's place as the latter had already been featured in Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions and Square wanted his inclusion to surprise gamers. Other characters meant to have been featured were Final Fantasy IVs Kain Highwind and XIIIs Lightning.
Nomura was responsible for the character designs, which changed much of the look and style of Yoshitaka Amano's illustrations. Working in the Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy IX designs brought no difficulties since in for the former game, Nomura based his designs on Amano's illustrations while he had already been involved in handling his illustrations in the latter. On the other hand, Nomura had difficulties making Onion Knight as it ended being too cartoony and requested advice from Amano. Nomura's own original illustrations were also redesigned for Dissidia; Nomura commented to the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu that Tidus was designed to look younger than he was in Final Fantasy X to "match the design touch of the rest of the Dissidia" cast.
Square Enix filed for United States trademark registration of "Dissidia" in April 2007; the mark's relation to Final Fantasy was omitted. The title was connected with Final Fantasy when Square Enix introduced Dissidia Final Fantasy on May 8 with an official Japanese website.