Dissidia is both fan service and a great game at the same time.

Intro- Okay so visualize this: Square Enix with their seemingly endless budget, a team of developers allowed to use twenty two characters from across the entire Final Fantasy franchise, and a 3-D battle system that blows most out of the water. Stir that all up together and you get Final Fantasy Dissidia, a game made up of such incredible components, fit snuggly together in a UMD. That is what your money can get you, and should get you! This game is by far the most interactive, unique, and fun fighter found on the PSP. And the funny thing is that the game itself is more of an RPG than a fighting game. Choose between ten protagonists from their respective games, and pit them against ten antagonists. One side fights for Cosmos, the goddess of harmony, the other for Chaos, the god of discord.

Story 7/10- The story if Dissidia appears to be rather generic at first glance. In all seriousness, it is pretty generic. The premise is that the ten protagonists are soldiers under Cosmos, and must gather each of their individual crystals to thwart Chaos and stop immanent doom. To put it simply, the story is a larger version of the hero needing to find a certain item to stop the world’s destruction. The story’s outside is a coat of simplicity, but the characters are what redeem the title of Final Fantasy. Each character “awakens” with little to no memory of their respective games besides their specific antagonist. As the players play through each individual story mode of each character, the game stays true to each character’s personality. My favorite Final Fantasy title was the tenth, and as I was playing through Tidus’ story, more than once I found myself saying “This is like playing FFX all over again.” The game truly does this well with each character, placing their personalities into this alternate world while maintaining the integrity found in the original games. And the same can be said for the villains. Each hold their own devilish desires and impulses, but we get to see how they can exist alongside multiple beings of evil nature. The concept behind the game is very interesting, and although the premise is lack luster, each individual character’s personality more than make up for it.

Music/Graphics 9/10- I am a sucker for the “One Winged Angel” song from Final Fantasy VII, and Dissidia seems to have taken that into consideration. During every battle, players can choose among some of their favorite Final Fantasy tracks to play in the background of their fight. Whats more, additional songs can be purchased from the PP shop. The music is nothing short of astounding, as expected of Nobuo Uematsu. His composing skills are beyond compare in the realm of video games, and Dissidia is a sort of tribute to his legacy with the series.

As far as graphics go, the game may as well be a movie. The intro and other important video sequences are incredible, as per usual with Final Fantasy titles. Each character is extremely detailed, from the scars on their face to the armor that surrounds their every pore. Each characters weapons are distinguishable from their games, with all the famous ones making an appearance. For example, the Buster sword, Sephiroth’s massive katana, Squalls gunblade and Lionheart, Firion’s Blood weapons, Tidus’ Brotherhood and Catalbolg. Just to name a few. All these are visible in battle, as the characters dash and glide in the air, while sparks fly from their clashing blades. Dissidia is visually impressive, especially for a PSP game.

Gameplay 10/10- I hate calling this the “Super Smash Bros” of Final Fantasy, because it deserves more than that. Truthfully, Dissidia does what the original Super Smash Bros did back in 1999. Dissidia takes all of these incredible characters, and throws them into a 3-D fighting game that is more fun than one could possible imagine to have on the PSP. Battles are one vs. one, and each character has a level (1-100,) a bravery indicator, and an HP value. The bravery, a number found above the characters HP, can go up to 9999 and does that amount of damage to the opponents HP when hit with an HP attack. There are two types of attacks; bravery and HP attacks. Bravery attacks do damage to the opponents bravery as opposed to their HP. If enough bravery attacks land, it can send the opponent into “break” status, which makes their bravery regenerate slower and gives a boosts to the other characters bravery. It sounds complicated on paper, but after a couple fights, anyone can get used to it.

As you can see from all these things, this game is more of an RPG than a standard fighter. Characters can equip weapons and armor, as well as accessories and summons. Each character is fully customizable in both equipment and attacks. If the character has enough AP, which is dependant upon equipment and level, they can have up to six bravery attacks and six HP attacks. Three on ground and three in air, respectively. At first characters can only equip three accessories, but with upgrades a character can wear up to ten accessories. Summons also act as a sort of equipment. Players equip one, and then can set five others to be used in a specific order when their current summon is used up and needs to be recharged. The customization of each character truly makes you feel like you are playing an RPG.

There are multiple modes to be played in Dissidia, some of which need to be unlocked. The standard story mode consists of ten sections, one for each protagonist. A hero’s story mode has five chapters of content, where the player must move around a chessboard type interface, interacting with enemies, treasure chests, summon stones, and other objects. Each movement, in-between interacting with an object, costs one “Destiny Point.” By ending the chapter with more destiny points, as well as other factors, more points are earned towards bonuses. That sums up the basic story mode option. After completing one characters story, a new option is unlocked titled “Chaos Impulse,” which further advances the story with an added difficulty. The story mode has a massive amount of cut scenes and story elements, as it should, and helps create a feel for each side of the war. Simply put, it made me care about what happened.

Other modes consist of arcade, quick match, coliseum, communications mode, and the museum. Arcade is a mode of pre-made characters fighting random battles for a prize at the end. Quick match is exactly as it sounds; a quick match against the CPU with customized characters. By purchasing different upgrades and such from the “PP Shop” in-game, players can alter the course, the rules, and the level of the CPU. Coliseum is where the best items can be found. By fighting enemies for gold coins, you can trade your winnings for chests that contain materials used to create different equipment. Communications mode is simply for fighting people near you, or online. Unfortunately, the only way to fight online is the use of Ad-hoc party, which is only available to PS3 users. Then there is the Museum, which grants access to character and summon bios, voice and music tracks, and a replay section. After a battle is complete, it can be saved as a replay, which can even be converted in-game to a suitable format for Youtube. For those video lovers out there, no more hassle over recording equipment.

Finishing up the gameplay section, there are quite a few random parts of the game that may be overlooked in a review. For example, the calendar; every day that passes in real time, a moogle will have a new message waiting for you, that gives PP, a question, and possibly even a friend card to fight a “ghost” opponent. Then there is the play plan section that allows players to change how the game thinks of the type of gamer they happen to be. At first, only the options are casual, average, and hardcore, but other play plans can be purchased later on in the game. These play plans dictate how often your chocobo will find items for you. Casual chocobos will find items often, but of lesser value. Hardcore chocobos will find items after looking for a much longer time, but much better items. It all depends on what the player wants. Lastly, there is the PP shop, which gives access to nearly every additional part of the game. Players acquire PP from battling, and when enough is gathered they can buy extra characters, game modes, bonuses, voices, music, as well as a plethora of other things. The PP shop is massive, and will be a challenge even to the likes of the most experienced collectors.

Playtime/Replayability 7/10- Dissidia is as engrossing and addictive as it is fun. For the casual player, it is easy enough to wrack up even thirty hours. For the hardcore, I have heard stories of players hitting the one thousand hour mark. That is slightly excessive, but not surprising. With everything there is to unlock, twenty two characters to raise to level one hundred, and the addition of online play, Dissidia is more than worth the money in playtime.

As for replayability, it comes in two aspects. The first is the story modes. It is impossible to get one hundred percent of everything complete on the first time around in a story mode, so there is incentive to go back and complete everything. The second is the old fashioned way of starting a new file. In my mind, there is absolutely no reason to do this. For one, it is possible at any time to go back to the story mode and view any cut scenes or anything that may cause an itch of nostalgia. Secondly, after all the time spent developing characters, collecting equipment, and unlocking content, it just doesn’t seem illogical to start a new file.

Final Score 9/10- Dissidia will be one of those games that will be remembered for years to come. “That game” that combined every Final Fantasy universe, and did so with a brand new battle system and its own story. In today’s gaming experience, a lot of games come with a small amount of content, or maybe additional content that has to be purchased after the original payment. Or maybe the game had just a few bugs left, and left that up to patching after initial release. Dissidia is not that kind of game. It is complete, everything included, and worth the money. If any game this year is worth the money, it is Dissidia.