Final Fantasy Dissidia PSP
Final Fantasy Dissidia
Final Fantasy Dissidia is another final fantasy game that was released on PSP. The game was released in 2008 in Japan, in 2009 in the North America, Australia and Europe as part of the compaign for the Final Fantasy series 20th anniversary. It is based on the battle between Cosmos, goddess of harmony and Chaos, the god of discord. Both of them summon 10 warriors to fight for their sides. In the game, we control the 10 warriors chosen by Cosmos, the main characters from the ten final fantasy series.
The game takes around 2 gods, namely Cosmos and Chaos. Both of them are in eternal conflict in another world. They summon several warriors from other dimensions to fight in a never-ending battle. Cosmos gives her 10 warriors to retrieve the 10 crystals that will help them to defeat Chaos.
The game takes around 2 gods, namely Cosmos and Chaos. Both of them are in eternal conflict in another world. They summon several warriors from other dimensions to fight in a never-ending battle. Cosmos gives her 10 warriors to retrieve the 10 crystals that will help them to defeat Chaos.
Destiny Odyssey
The battle system of the game is quite complex. First we have 10 main characters from the 10 final fantasy series, namely Warrior of Light, Firion, Onion Knight, Cecil, Bartz, Terra, Cloud, Squall, Zidane and Tidus. We can start off a new journey, called a Destiny Odyssey, with anyone. In these journeys, all their respective stories are told and interlink with one another. During these Destiny Odysseys, the heros encounter their personal villains and defeat them to obtain their crystals. All the journeys have 5 stages in total and in order to finish the stages, you will need to destroy the stigma of that stage. In most of the time, those stigmas are blocked by some monsters and you have no choice but to defeat them. In fact, it is almost the same principle as Final Fantasy Tactics, in which you will be moving around through those small squares. You can pick up some items at the same time too. Normally, there will be some events going on in each stage and sometime you will need to watch the cinematic cutscenes before you can actually proceed in the game. For sure, you can choose to skip them, but I would not recommend so since you won't be able to understand all the stories that are going on if you do so.
Shade Impulse
After you have finally finished a journey, you can then go for the main event, which is the final fight against Chaos, called the Shade Impulse. In fact all the 10 warriors manage to obtain their crystals but they arrive too late to save Cosmos, who is killed by Chaos. They begin to fade away but are saved by the power of their crystals. They use their remaining time to strike back against Chaos. In the end, all of them return to their respective worlds whereas the warriors of light departs for another adventure. Back to the Shade Impulse, there are actually 4 chapters in total. Chapters 1 to 3 have 5 stages while chapter 4 has only 2 stages. Each stage is filled with super strong monsters. An interesting thing about this game is that you can avoid some monsters if you think that you don't stand a chance agains them. However, most of them, the super hard monsters will offer some valuable treasures in return if you manage to defeat them. If you wish to farm for items in the late game, then I will suggest you to defeat them all, in order to obtain all the valuable treasures such as summons, weapons and accessories. One thing to take note is that during this time, some of the stages may change during the battle or have additional effects that will affect your stats. Pay more attention to those stages and make a good use of them in order to defeat the monsters. Other than that, the principle will be the same, you need to destroy those stigmas to finsih off the stages.
Final Fantasy Dissidia Gabranth Fight
One unique feature about this game is that we don't have the classic turn-based battle anymore. We move around using the squares, but when we are fighting against an enemy, it will be a real-time action 1 on 1 battle between the player and the computer. You still can choose the RPG mode during a fight, but it would be less interesting. If you wish to fight against your friend, you can link both your PSPs together by using wireless. The principle is very simple, who have lost all his HP in the first place will lose. There are a lot of options to do so, either you inflict multiples HP attacks equal to your current bravery using the square button until your opponent has finally run out of HP or you can steal your opponent's bravery by using some bravery attacks through the circle button. One thing to take note is that when all of your bravery is stolen, you will be inflicted with break status and your opponent will receive a huge stage bravery bonus. At this time it would be wiser to dodge all his HP attacks at all costs to avoid being KO'ed.
Cloud's ability menu
All the characters in the game have their own unique abilities as well. All the abilities can be divided into action abilities, support abilities and extra abilities. In the action ability category, there are different bravery attacks (circle button) and HP attacks (square button). It is up to the player to choose the ones that suit him the best and then master them. You can actually master a certain skill by farming for ability points (AP) that are given for every fight. Once you have mastered a certain skill, you will cut down the CP (capacity points) cost of equipping that ability to half (for most of the skills), meaning that you will be able to equip more abilities to your character afterwards. AP is offered throughout each battle, but you will earn much more AP if ever you manage to fulfill certain conditions that are stated right before every fight (AP chance). When your level is high enough, you will learn some special abilities and they are actually very useful at certain points throughout every fight. For example, in the extra abilities category, when you have reached level 100, you will learn an ability called EXP to HP, meaning that you will be able to convert your experience points to your HP during a fight, making you invicible.
Leveling up
Leveling up in this game is not difficult at all. You can level up quickly by using different accessories or by playing the game on your bonus day. You can also choose your play plan, either it be hardcore, casual or average. For hardcore, the chocobo inside the menu screen has a longer path but a bigger treasure, whereas for casual, the path will be shorter and the treasure will be smaller. An average play plan will give you a balance between those 2 play plans. When the chocobo finds gysahl green, you will be able to earn much more experiences in the next battle. However, if you ever lose that battle, you won't be able to receive any benefit from it. So, keep in mind to try your best in the next battle if ever the chocobo finds something so that you can benefit from it.
Summoning Ifrit
There are summons involved in this fight as well and there are actually 2 types of summons. The first type will be summoned automatically whenever certains conditions are fullfilled, whereas the second type is manual and you can summon them at any time you want throughout the entire fight. A summon can only be used once throughout an entire fight. You can only use your summons a limited number of times and normally a summon can be used 3 times in 3 different consecutive battles. Don't worry, you can still use them afterwards, but you will need to restore them by equipping different summons and go through some fights. After each fight, you will restore your summon 1 time and you can continue to do so until you have finally restored the summon up to 3 times. After that, they are fresh as new summon and you will be able to use them again. One interesting fact is that there are some precious and more powerful summons than others. Normally, they will have lower times of usage also, but their effects are so devastating that they can even reverse the tide of the battle. A good example is the summon magic pot manual. It can copy your opponent's bravery anytime you want within a battle. You can intentionally let your opponent to break you in the beginning and once you have recovered the break status, use the magic pot straight away to benefit from a high bravery.
Equipment
As usual, each character can be equipped with different weapons, amors, hats, and gloves. Some will offer special effects if ever you manage to equip them in a combinaison. Those weapons can be obtained either by buying in the shop or by picking them up after you have defeated some monsters. In most of the cases, those weapons can be upgrade as well, but normally they will require some specify valuable items to do so. For instance, Cloud's final weapon, Fenrir requires 1 butterfly edge, 1 true past and 5 soldier's hopes and you will need to find a way to get a butterfly edge before. All is done through the shop which is accesible at any time of the game by pressing the start button. Be extra careful with the fact that some weapons can only be equipped after you have reached a certain level. For example, the same weapon, Fenrir can only be equipped when Cloud has reached level 100.
Inflicting break with lai strike
There are a lot of accessories that can be equipped onto each character. The most valuable ones, however, are normally obtained by upgrading them in the shop by using some specify items. It also means that you will need to farm for those specify items if ever you wish to obtain all the powerful accessories. Each character can be equipped at most with 10 accessories, but in the early game, you can only equip 3 accessories. You can increase your slots by upgrading in the shop by using 1 rosetta stone for each slot. Rosetta stone is itself a valuable item, which means that you will need to be extra careful with the choice of the characters that you wish to upgrade first. There are certain accessories which can manifest the effects of other accessoires by fulfulling certain conditions during the battle. A good example will be the EX Gauge Full accessory in which you will receive an effect of 1.3 times when opponent's Ex Gauge is full. A typical usage of that kind of equipement will be the usage of lai strike. Lai strike is actually the possibility of the character to inflict bravery break directly by landing a single bravery attack on the opponent. When your level is high enough, you will be able to learn and then master this skill through a certain number of battles. Under normal circumstances, each character has only 2% of performing lai strike. However, with the accessoires equipement that allows you to manisfest character's effet, you can increase this possibility tremendously, up to 100% lai strike for every bravery attack landed. Literally it means that you can actually inflict bravery break to any opponent just by landing a single bravery attack onto him. It is pretty cool, right?
I like this game very much because I can finally have a try on the real-time action 1 on 1 battle between different characters. It is not that I have never tried this type of game before, but it is the first final fantasy game that uses this system and it is actually a pretty cool experience. I can also fight against my friend when we are free and the graphics of the game, well, as expected from Square Enix, is one of the games with the best graphics on PSP, just like Final Fantasy Crisis Core. If you wish to buy the game, please click here.