Dissidia Duodecim

Dissidia 012: Duodecim: Final Fantasy (hell of a title) is a PSP game which, conceptually is the Super Smash Brother of Final Fantasy in that a bunch of Final Fantasy characters from differing games are brought together in a fighting game with a ridiculous and nonsensical plot, but plays more like an arena fighter. However, how many arena fighters are there that actually work well in a 1v1 combat setting? (The answer is exactly two,  and one of them was the first Dissidia title)

If there are any Final Fantasy fans reading this who have not played the first Dissidia title on PSP, well, first of all, shame on you! But aside from that, you can safely skip it and go straight to Duodecim, since all of the original storyline is contained inside of it. While this is a cool feature and all, it frustrated me to no end that I had to play through a storyline that I had already covered from start to finish again - and its not a short one by any stretch of the imagination!

The plot of Duodecim has some kind of croc-bullshit about the Goddess Cosmos and the God Chaos locked in an eternal war on some world, and summoning warriors to fight for them. These warriors are the main heroes (and villains) of Final Fantasy games I through XIII, with some notable additions and exceptions (there are no villains at all from XI or XIII, and the XII villain is an extra hidden along with two heroines from XI).

This is everyone. I think

The storyline of Duodecim is a prequel, adding in a bunch of extra characters (namely Kain from FFIV, Tifa from FFVII, Laguna from FFVIII, Yuna from FFX, Vaan from FFXII and Lightning from FFXIII). However, there are multiple story modes in Duodecim - just as there was in the original Dissidia title.

Duodecim's initial story mode (012) focuses entirely on the new characters, and their actions (and some kind of explanation as to why they weren't in the first game, since this is a prequel). However, I found this story mode to be a little bit heavy handed on making you play as Lightning. It makes you play 3 chapters solo as Lightning, while everyone else gets a single solo chapter each, and a final chapter where you take all 5 in the newly featured party battles (you're not allowed to take Kain in this particular chapter - which I find highly unfair considering he's one of the cooler characters who was brought in).
This means that in the entirety of the first story mode, you can play as Kain once, everyone else twice, and Lightning 3 or 4 times.

The second story mode - unlocked by completing the initial one - is the story mode from the first Dissidia game. However, the difference here is that it contains the new features from Duodecim - those being Assists, the newly redesigned World Map, and party battles (which are just round robin 1v1s, or a winner stays on form of the same thing). In this story mode, you play as all the old heroes once, bar the Warrior of Light (FFI), who you play twice. You then play the final chapter as a party of 5 characters of your choosing (restricted to heroes from the original game).

Once the second story mode is completed, you unlock yet another story mode title 000 - Confessions of the Creator. This one is an extra one without any real bearing on the plot, and you are allowed to use any unlocked character at all in your 5 person party. This includes villains. However, at this stage in the game, if you have played through the Story Modes and only the story modes (like I did), your villains will be level 1, the heroes you used in the later stages of the second story mode will be approaching level 50, and Lightning will be around level 30. Kain was level 14. This makes taking anyone else a much more difficult option - particularly in this story mode, since the weakest enemy you will find is around level 50 - so you will need to grind in other gameplay modes if you wish to take, say Sephiroth (though why you would take him over Squall is beyond me).

Squall is more badass than you

Gameplay wise, it plays much like the first. If you haven't played that, as I said earlier, shame on you, but it does take a bit of getting used to. It is an arena battler where you fight in one on one situations. Hitting with a standard attack or combo (which can be physical or magical, depending upon how you've set up your character and which character you're using) will deal Bravery damage. This is not "real" damage, but it does reduce the large number on the other character's gauge (you can see both combatant's gauge sets). Dealing Bravery damage to a character reduces the enemy's bravery score and adds the same amount to your own.
However, this alone will not kill a character - it does not act as a health gauge, but more like a momentum gauge than anything. When you reduce a character's Bravery to zero, you inflict upon them a status known as "Bravery Break", awarding you bonus bravery (from a central pool held by the arena itself), as well as rendering the enemy's HP attacks harmless as long as the status persists.
A HP attack is how you actually damage a character in Dissidia - it essentially is a large attack (occasionally a Limit Break pulled from the character's respective game). Connecting with one of these deals HP damage to the enemy equal to the amount of Bravery you have at the time, however it also empties your bravery gauge, allowing the enemy an opportunity to break you, and counterattack. Your bravery regenerates to its initial state after landing a HP attack, however the bigger the blow you dealt, the slower it regenerates.
As you can see, this can lead to some interesting tug of war style battles. I liken the system to an old wrestling game's momentum meter, where you can deal more damage if you have the match leaning in your favour from the regular hits you are dealing out - otherwise you can turn it around in your favour by playing skilfully and not losing your head.

Aside from this, there are other features such as Assists, Summons (though they're reduced to status effects for everyone other than Yuna), the EX gauge and so on, but I'll be here for a week if I try to explain them all.

Not to mention that outside the battles themselves the game is an RPG - including levelling up, equipping abilities, weapons, armour, accessories and summons... and there are many hidden treasures to find and unlock. This game will take hours upon hours to complete, let alone master!

The game was seemingly designed to allow for the kind of combat you see in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. In this, it is quite successful, I have saved many a gameplay replay to watch later - even if it was a lost battle (which I find people are less inclined to save due to the bitterness of defeat), simply because the battle was so fun to enjoy! I had a particularly satisfying battle where I fought as Squall, against a carbon copy of my build of Squall - level, abilities, equipment and all. It was a battle for the ages, and at some stage, I will throw it onto YouTube because I think others may enjoy it.

All in all, Dissidia Duodecim is a fun game, although worth slightly less for people who completed the first title, since you will need to complete the same storyline again (and if you've finished that story, you know how long that will take - not to mention the fact that you need to play through as Zidane again... stupid monkey). Nonetheless, buy it if you have a PSP.

And if you don't have a PSP, then buy one, and Dissidia Duodecim. PSP prices dropped recently so there's no excuse.

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The gaming backlog has been moved to its own separate page, because it makes more sense there. The link on the sidebar will take you there - it has been updated again since I finally finished playing Tales of Symphonia with Sarah over the weekend :P We started playing the sequel to this game, and all I have to say at the moment is YUKIMURA!!!!!!