I find it extremely ironic that I keep finding myself playing Final Fantasy spinoff titles despite never properly playing any of the numbered FF games. Even so, I've been playing this one off and on over the course of two full months. If I had to describe it in a sentence, I'd say that "Dissidia Duodecim Final Fantasy is the anime arena-fighter."

The last time I played a game with a similar amount of options to tweak your gameplay style was The World Ends With You (and NEO:TWEWY). There's over 30 characters, each with their own distinct playstyles and wholly unique movesets. Everyone learns more moves and abilities as they level up, but they all center around the game's two types of attacks: bravery attacks and HP attacks. Bravery attacks deal bravery damage, drawing from your opponent's bravery value. Bravery can be expended using an HP attack, dealing actual damage to your opponent's HP. There is A LOT more to the game's mechanical depth (EX Mode, Bravery Break, guarding, dodging, summons), but the game's bedrock is found in its most basic attacks.

DDFF is a game so proud of its mechanics that it will allow you to fight the true final boss during the tutorial if you claim you're tough shit (no reward for actually beating him though, that would be insane). The one mechanic I outright dislike is the "chase" mechanic. Some attacks will launch your opponent with a prompt to chase them, and from there you'll have a second to use a bravery/HP attack. Bravery attacks come out quicker, HP attacks come out with a bit of a windup, and the person on the recieving end of the chase can either dodge sooner or later respectively. I will be damned if I ever succesfully dodged an HP attack though. You have to wait until the very last possible second to dodge, lest you get hit by the very end of the attack's animation. The other problem is how the game's controls begin to collapse somewhat under the fact that it's a PSP game, and they only have so many buttons to work with. A lot of buttons pull double-duty by using combinations for certain actions (R+Triangle for dashing, R+Circle for summons, R+Cross for dodging, L+Circle/Square for assists), and you can probably imagine the smattering of times where something happened onscreen that I definitely did not mean to do.

The most insidious way that DDFF draws you in is through its many varieties of grind, and the various bonuses the game gives you for playing regularly. The game makes you pick a "play plan" and a "bonus day" when you first start. The game will show you a week's worth of randomly assigned boosts, and your personally selected bonus day will feature all of these boosts at once, plus a random bonus effect. So, now that you've sold one day of your life to DDFF per week, let's talk about how you spend that day. Play plans grant you bonuses like a rare item every specific number of battles, with a random chance of bonus EXP that can trigger between battles. One of those other grinds include AP (ability points), mastering an ability makes it cost less AP, meaning you can cram more abilities onto whatever character you're using. You can grind for gil to afford certain equipment, grind out Battlegen accessories (don't get me started on this mechanic), or complete achievements to earn accessories that multiply your other accessories' effects under highly specific conditions (anything from "while attacking" to "being airborne for more than three seconds).

I can't keep blabbing on about this game in good faith without demanding that you just go play it yourself. I can only over-explain mechanics for so long before my review just becomes "I promise it'll all click once you give it a shot." Please enjoy Dissidia Duodecim: Final Fantasy.

Gone in a second
Ultimate destruction
God's all warring
Sorrow never ending
Endless chaos for an eternity
Welcome to the abyss

Actual Review: Wonderful game with a unique fighting game style using the brave system to build up points for damage and then actually landing those hp attacks to defeat your opponent feels so fun and satisfying. And for being a story focused around the compilation of FF characters from all different games it actually works really well and adds a lot of intrigue to the lore of the original Final Fantasy of all things with it's "new" character in Warrior of Light as well as Cosmos and Chaos. I wish they would remake this game so bad so more people would be willing to play it and experience it cause I think if anyone has any love for FF as a series then this game will be a joy for them.

GONE IN A SECOND
ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION
GODS ARE WARRING
SORROW NEVER ENDING
Square Enix please port this game and stop messing around with arcade games using this franchise.

I've had just so much fun with Dissidia.
I don't have much to say that isn't subjective, other than it still remains a great 3D brawler.
I personally spent so much time playing it, and still do from time to time, it's simply such a majestic celebration of the series, and I love it very much.
It has depth in its numerous mechanics, yet it's easy to pick up and play.
Really it represent the best mental playground for long time fans of Final Fantasy, and I wish its legacy would have spawn better entries than a stupid, boring 3v3 arena arcade game. Harsh, but I stand by this.

And I thought Dissidia 1 had a lot of content. Oh boy this game makes my heard hurt on how much stuff is here. I put in like 200 hours into this game and haven't seen all the content and modes. This is basically a remake of Dissdia 1 but more more and more. All the campaigns from 1. Like ten new characters with several new campaigns. More stages, gear, modes, options the list just goes on and on. The game even had online. That's right online. I remember doing a few battles online and recording my matches in the ingame match saver which you could download matches as MP4 video files. That's right that shit existed and on the frickin PSP. Although I believe you had to have PS3 to play online I can't remember. The game plays the same as the last title but with more. It's like going from Street Fighter 2 to SF2 Turbo. They even had a campaign mode creator where you could create your own arcade mode with custom dialog in between stages. It's just more more and more. I'll keep saying it cause it's true. Like I said 200 some hours and I played single player 98% of the time and didn't unlock and see everything. Dissidia is one of my favorite hand held games ever. You can argue about the gameplay and say it's not for you ect ect but the sheer amount of content and love letter to all things Final Fantasy it's an easy 10 for me.