I want to say that Final Fantasy Dissidia IS in my oppinion way better than all of the Final Fantasy games put together, that is to say the gameplay has kept me going for hours and hours while most games in the series I get too bored of playing through. However, the difficulty of the game really depends on the character you prefer using, and while the same goes for the Super Smash Bros series, the characters are NOT as well balanced as in that game. Take for example gimicky characters such as Exdeath can be compared to the likes of Olimar in Brawl, except his gimmicks make him frustratingly hard to use, while Olimar is just different. I can freely say that the presentation in the game is top notch, while some people may believe that due to the game having 2 playable characters from each series' game that no reference is made to the other popular characters of each, almost every well-known hero is accounted for in the game's various tutorials. While these tutorials are generally what they say they are, characters such as Rikku and Wakka reference the way they talk in their own games, with Rikku occasionally speaking in Al Bhed, a fictional language in the Final Fantasy X series, and Wakka continually ending his sentences with "Yeah, man" referencing his pseudo-Jamaican accent. Also these characters interact with each other, such as IX's Knight Steiner and "Master" Vivi, these tutorials are charming, and sometimes I find myself going through them again and again just because of the way they're written. The game's modes are varied, with a main story mode; the story is generally bad, with no huge twists and characters continually portraying the same personality references again and again, but what I like is that the story is told similarly in style to the Sonic Adventure series, with each character having a personal role in their respective story leading up to a series of three "semi-final" stories until the final battle with the main villain (ironically, also called Chaos). Completing the Story Mode adds the "Duel Colosseum," a surprisingly addictive game involving a randomised "Card Game" style, where you are given a hand of three which include enemies to fight, "Job Cards" which add various positive (and negative) effects to the mode, such as increasing your hand by 1, and Treasure Cards which allow you to buy with money recieved from fighting opponents (the stronger the opponent, the more money gained) which can then be used to make stronger weapons for the fighters. There is also an Arcade Mode, which sticking to traditional Fighters gives you a set character (out of all 20) which cannot be levelled up or customised, playing in this mode makes me think I'm playing a 3D Tekken or Street Fighter, very awesome. Lastly, there's a quickplay battle mode, where you can set up battle rules and other stuff, good for levelling. The last point is that the battle style is quite irregular, with gimmicks that can be either easily exploitable or unbelievably unfair with summons that change the battle to the favor of either side, and also "faction laws" which often make battles terribly one-sided. Fighters that are relatively balanced, such as Squall and Cloud are overclouded by Magic users that can spam spells that protect their entire bodies while inflicting insane damage to the opponent (overpowered) and fighters that have to resort to easy-to-dodge long-range attacks or can barely attack at all (underpowered) making the game seem somewhat unbalanced at times, particularly those going for 100% (which require all characters to be maxed out in levels) however each one has its quirks that make them unique. I often found myself liking characters more because I have skill with them (never expected that, Sephiroth!) which is the same way that I became a huge Metroid fan (good old Samus Aran in Melee) which is quite a thing with these collection fighters.
Pros: + Various characters to choose from; each having his/her own play style + Multiple gameplay modes ensure hours upon hours of play time + Great soundtrack that will please Final Fantasy addicts + Tons and tons o... Read Full Review
A Final Fantasy based beat em up is a game many fans would like to have seen but doubted would happen. The last time anything close to that was released came in the form of Ehrgeiz: God bless the ring for the original pl... Read Full Review
