Dissidia Final Fantasy NT Review

by George Robinson | February 15, 2018 9:00 am

Developed by Team Ninja
Published by Square Enix
Reviewed on PlayStation 4

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT takes place after the events of the first game, Dissidia Final Fantasy. The heroes and villains of Cosmos and Chaos are summoned into a new world where they must fight for their respective sides. New avatars representing Cosmos and Chaos have taken up the helm to attempt to steer the world balance into their favor. The story gets split into several group perspectives. While some are looking for ways to help their side, other have their own ulterior motives to moving about in the world.

The story, while actually pretty short, isn’t really told straight through. There are moments where you take control of the characters during the story; however to unlock each section you must actively play the other modes available in order to unlock Memoria, an item that lets you view the next node in the timeline. Playing through arcade mode or online allows you to get these treasures.

Speaking of treasures, you’ll gradually unlock treasure chests which basically act as in game loot boxes that unlock cosmetic items for the game. These include character skins and battle music for free. You’ll also level up your characters to earn gil and treasure chests to obtain items to deck out your characters. If you don’t feel like waiting for the right drop for your favorite character, then you can use the gil earned in the game to just outright buy the costumes, songs, or weapons that you want. There are plenty of classic weapons that you can equip on your favorite characters.

The amount of music that’s available in the game is incredible. This includes both updated versions of classic songs from every Final Fantasy as well as the original versions if you want to relive the feeling of playing to your favorite battle themes. In fact, you’re even able to create your own playlists of what songs you’d like to play during gameplay. You can set tracks based on which character you’re using or to play no matter who you decide to control. There are also several new songs created just for Dissidia NT that can be unlocked in the same way too. If nothing else, the music selection in Dissidia NT is amazing for new and old fans alike.

Ever since the first game, Dissidia Final Fantasy for the PlayStation Portable, when you play this arena based fighter, you build up Bravery points that represent your power when you’re ready to attack. When the time’s right, you then use one of your HP Attacks to deal decisive damage to your opponent to whittle away at their Hit Points. Dissidia NT still plays the same way, only this time instead of two characters on the field, there are now six simultaneously in teams of three. In the Normal Battle mode, two teams clash until one team suffers a loss of a teammate three times. Once they do, the game’s over and victory belongs to the dominant team. There is a second mode where everyone must focus on attacking each team’s representative core and the group with their core remaining intact wins.

Each of the 26 characters are separated into separate classes. Vanguards like Cloud Strife and Garland are meant to jump into the fray and take as much punishment as they can dish out. Assassins like Lightning and Kain Highwind are meant to get in, deal high damage, and get out before they get caught by the enemy. Marksmen like Terra Branford and Y’shtola attack safely from a distance while providing cover fire for their allies. And lastly, Specialists like Vaan and Exdeath have unique abilities to fight in the game unlike many others. Each class has their own strengths and weaknesses so the characters must work together as a team to make the best use of their abilities in order to win.

There are also summons in the game that you can get after destroying summoning core crystals that add to your team’s summoning meter. Once filled, your team’s chosen summon comes down and aids you temporarily in battle, both giving you an active aid, as well as a new passive ability depending on which summon you chose. This includes replenishing the spent meter at a faster rate to increasing your maximum health for your characters. These are also unlocked one at a time at random as you play through the game.

The game, while it is great in some areas, does definitely have its flaws in others. For example, the games are capped at three minutes; if either team fails to win within that time limit, then everyone loses and the game is over. So despite having a lead in the game, if you take too long, it amounts to nothing. Another problem is that when you play online, depending on your connection, you have to wait an extended period of time before you find a match. Sometimes this takes even longer than it does to complete a match. After playing several games online, it definitely shows that going in together with a party helps dramatically drop the wait time. Playing alone may make you wait a little while before a game is found.

Speaking of online, despite having such a wide array of playable characters that are available at launch (with DLC characters in the near future), you often see the same exact characters over and over as you go online. With the game’s selling point being about pulling characters from all Final Fantasy games, it’s less than optimal to see a game with three Lightnings running around on the screen.

Normally a game’s issues with online play wouldn’t hurt much as long as the rest of it is good. Dissidia NT, as an arcade based team game, needs to have flawless online and multiplayer elements. Were this still a one on one game, or even a single competitive game with other characters used as an assist like in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, then the game’s online performance wouldn’t be too importance. However, this port of the Japanese arcade game was meant to be played online. The online mode’s many issues, along with the inability to play strictly one on one games either offline or on the internet, hurts the game quite a bit.

 

Despite the problems, if you are a diehard Final Fantasy fan, whether it’s the older games like IV or VI, the classics like VII or X, or the modern games like XIII or XV, I would still recommend Dissidia NT. There’s plenty to unlock and re-experience. The story is quick to get through just by playing the game and leveling up your player ranks online and offline. If you’re more of a passive fan, then I can only recommend Dissidia NT if you either like arena based fighting games or if you have friends to form a party to play online. Otherwise this game will not be very fun for you. Still, if you plan to pick up this game, you’re in for a pretty decent time stepping into the world of Dissidia NT.

 

 

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