Dissidia is a slam-dunk in concept, a tyre fire in execution. Being that Final Fantasy is one of my favourite series, the thought of having an all-star fighting game with all the series' heroes and villains turned me on more than those SFMs of Tifa Lockhart in the Italian senate (you know the one, don't lie).
If this were actually the crossover fighting game it looks like, it would be a blast to play in local multiplayer with a friend who's also a Final Fantasy fan. However, Dissidia's biggest problem is that it's an RPG - and not a very good one - disguised as a fighting game.
It took me almost a month before I was done with this game, not just because my rate of playing games slowed, but because I just wasn't interested enough to spend time on it even when I had it. The story mode is overlong and grows utterly wearisome. The battles end up depending far more on stats and - horror of horrors - repetitive grinding (constantly having to replay chapters because more mooks won't show up) - than actual skill. You have to buy equipment and unlock moves and allocate them based on points in such a restrictive way - holy shit, just make Super Smash Bros. with Final Fantasy characters, it's not hard.
Even outside of stats, just on the fighting side of things, this game is hilariously imbalanced, with some characters being overpowered and others being completely useless, mostly depending on how they work in the largely claustrophobic stages.
And the game simply doesn't do a lot with its already limited cast - just the main heroes and villains of the first ten games - beyond some shallow characterization. At some point in the story, I realized, "What the fuck am I doing?" and started skipping dialogue, which I rarely do. There is no real story, just the same vague Nomura-isms repeated ad nauseum.
The graphics are decent, though inferior to Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII despite it being an older game on the same console. Some characters like Sephiroth and Tidus just look 'off.' The stages are very limited and get old fast with how often they're reused. I also didn't like the manikins, who are the common mooks you fight in the story mode and are monochrome reskins of 'real' characters. They look so ugly you can't tell who you're fighting 90% of the time; you're more likely to recognize them from their warbled dialogue and their attacks than the crystallite mess they are visually. With a larger cast and more 'real' fights like in its sequel (from what I recall playing 012 as a kid), this problem would have been alleviated.
Another point of criticism is the almost Games-As-A-Service playstyle the game wants you to adopt, despite being an offline singleplayer game for the PSP. More rewards for 'days consecutively played?' What is this shit, Animal Crossing? I'll play it whenever the fuck I want. If I don't want to log in every day, that's my right as a human being, dammit. My life has value!
Overall, Dissidia is best as a novelty for quick battles to make your favourite characters from different games clash. I wish I had someone to play it versus with irl, because it feels like that's where it would really shine. But as a single-player experience, and especially for the story mode, it's underwhelming as fuck. Its strengths - the character designs and music - owe more to the series' legacy than to its merit as a standalone game.
If this were actually the crossover fighting game it looks like, it would be a blast to play in local multiplayer with a friend who's also a Final Fantasy fan. However, Dissidia's biggest problem is that it's an RPG - and not a very good one - disguised as a fighting game.
It took me almost a month before I was done with this game, not just because my rate of playing games slowed, but because I just wasn't interested enough to spend time on it even when I had it. The story mode is overlong and grows utterly wearisome. The battles end up depending far more on stats and - horror of horrors - repetitive grinding (constantly having to replay chapters because more mooks won't show up) - than actual skill. You have to buy equipment and unlock moves and allocate them based on points in such a restrictive way - holy shit, just make Super Smash Bros. with Final Fantasy characters, it's not hard.
Even outside of stats, just on the fighting side of things, this game is hilariously imbalanced, with some characters being overpowered and others being completely useless, mostly depending on how they work in the largely claustrophobic stages.
And the game simply doesn't do a lot with its already limited cast - just the main heroes and villains of the first ten games - beyond some shallow characterization. At some point in the story, I realized, "What the fuck am I doing?" and started skipping dialogue, which I rarely do. There is no real story, just the same vague Nomura-isms repeated ad nauseum.
The graphics are decent, though inferior to Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII despite it being an older game on the same console. Some characters like Sephiroth and Tidus just look 'off.' The stages are very limited and get old fast with how often they're reused. I also didn't like the manikins, who are the common mooks you fight in the story mode and are monochrome reskins of 'real' characters. They look so ugly you can't tell who you're fighting 90% of the time; you're more likely to recognize them from their warbled dialogue and their attacks than the crystallite mess they are visually. With a larger cast and more 'real' fights like in its sequel (from what I recall playing 012 as a kid), this problem would have been alleviated.
Another point of criticism is the almost Games-As-A-Service playstyle the game wants you to adopt, despite being an offline singleplayer game for the PSP. More rewards for 'days consecutively played?' What is this shit, Animal Crossing? I'll play it whenever the fuck I want. If I don't want to log in every day, that's my right as a human being, dammit. My life has value!
Overall, Dissidia is best as a novelty for quick battles to make your favourite characters from different games clash. I wish I had someone to play it versus with irl, because it feels like that's where it would really shine. But as a single-player experience, and especially for the story mode, it's underwhelming as fuck. Its strengths - the character designs and music - owe more to the series' legacy than to its merit as a standalone game.