Dissidia: A Conflicted review by a conflicted gamer.
Dissidia, latin for ‘conflict’ or some shit, is an apt name for a game that causes me so much cognitive dissonance I've considered getting a corpus callostomy. But enough with the psychology jokes. Yes, it’s by Square Enix, whose games are fairly consistently fun to play, but horrible if you have any intent to understand the story. It features like 20 or so guys, many of whom you may know, and those you don’t look cool enough to try out for the first time. The game’s main advertising point is that you‘re supposed to choose your side in the “eternal conflict.” It even comes with a nifty reversible cover art, depending on whether or not you wanna play as a good or bad guy.
So is it a good game? In other words, should you buy it?
Well for a game with so much emphasis on choosing your side there is no option to play story mode on the bad guys side (which, I’m estimating, at least HALF of Dissidia buyers will want to do).
"What will you fight for?" the tagline asks, as long as you choose to fight for good.
Sure you can play as almost everyone in the arcade and quick battle modes, but it's no good without the bad guys story, in my opinion.
To add to that limit of characters, you may not be able to play as your favorite good guy right off the bat. Apparently not all good guys are created equal, and the difficulty for each character seems arbitrarily assigned, with Hero of light and Terra being the highest difficulty and Tidus and Cloud being the easiest (take THAT, fanboys; apparently Cloud’s something of a pussy, eh?).
Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining that Bad guys can’t play story mode, because the story really sucks. I mean with a game like this, you knew it would suck, but SERIOUSLY. Be prepared to skip every cutscene after the intro one (which, by the way, is very cool and really looks like the gameplay, and has absolutely nothing to do with the story[which may be the secret to its coolness]). A little aside, but Squenix’s writers don’t seem to get that nobody can care about their characters and their shallow inner conflicts until after we’ve been through shit with them, and even the most die hard fan hasn’t played most of those old games in a while.
The gameplay, as with pretty much every squeenix game (not counting FFXII, that snore-fest), is fun, challenging and layered. Casual gamers can button mash against easy enemies, and hardcore ones can master every single aspect of combat. AND THERE ARE A LOT. There’s a buncha shit to remember, but start with either Tidus or Cloud, and you’ll learn it at a good pace. It’s definitely not your average fighting game, and characters have extensive customization options, ranging from skills to equipment to summons (don’t think mini-movie summons like in the other games; these summons are just pictures and effects, the way I feel summons are supposed to be) and most items can be shared with everyone.
There are some additional behind the battle aspects to the game, but like all the other final fantsy games, they're really hard to grasp at first. That's okay, though since they're really just the keys to getting better stuff after you know what you're doing.
As far as extra features go, there’s not a whole lot. Online play is online play. There are passwords that unlock “friend cards” bearing the names of other characters from FF games (don’t be fooled—these cards will NOT allow you to fight against or as their namesakes—they are simply high level CPU players of characters already in the game). Friend cards are also used so you can fight CPU controlled copies of your IRL friends’ equipment setup.
The only unlockables are 2 secret characters; Gabranth for the villains (from FFXII, the worst game ever made) and Some little midget scarecrow (an NPC from FFXI). There is also one (1) change of clothes for every character. Doesn't really matter; they all dress like fags anyway. J/K! I am such a bitch!
Now for the most important part of my Review: Constructive Criticism!
With a name like Final Fantasy, there’s no chance that this is the last Dissidia we’ll be seeing.
First of let me start by saying, WHY IN TH EFUCK WAS THIS GAME NOT MADE FOR PS3?!?!?!! IT gets kind of hard to see on the PSP’s small screen when enemies run or are flung way the hell away, but this problem is easily fixed if you have a component output cord and an HDTV. World of difference. Also, the control scheme could use more buttons.
Second, when I first heard about this game, I envisioned “Final Smash Fantasy: Brawl.” As it is, it’s pretty close, but something I would like to see are diversions like “Race to the finish” and/or “Break the targets.”
Finally, in this day and age, how can you make a PSP game without DLC? Especially one of this nature? Give us some extra levels, or modes, or something.
So buy or not? Well, I’d say yes; on the contition that you are okay with leveling up th ebad guys through arcade mode and taking forever and not playing story mode as bad guys. FYI: I’m not buying it.
