Baby, You're In Luck (Day 356)

I'm pretty impressed with the amount of content that Dissidia 012 has to offer. I've only completed what might be considered the prologue scenario so far, which introduces all of the new characters and concludes with a chapter in which those characters form a party together. Even just that took me about 10-11 hours to complete--and now I have chapters for each of the characters returning from the original game to do. I would assume that once that's all done, I'll be able to play yet another chapter where I'll be able to assemble a party of my choosing.

My favorite character from the original Dissidia was definitely Cecil Harvey of Final Fantasy IV, whose HP attacks would change him between his paladin and dark knight forms depending on whether or not he used them in the air or on the ground. After completing all of the characters' chapters in that game, I focused primarily on leveling him up for the final encounters of the game. In 012, I'll likely have to rotate between a few different characters to achieve the same goal, but I imagine I'll definitely be using Cecil again. Out of the new characters, Vaan seems really appealing--but many of the returning characters have also been tweaked in some way. As overrated a game as Final Fantasy VII is, I have to admit that Cloud is quite fun to play.

I really love that the characters in Dissidia 012 level up and acquire new moves over time. I've already swapped out a couple of moves to better suit my playstyle on Vaan, for instance. His moveset focuses primarily on switching through a large variety of different weaponry--an homage, no doubt, to Final Fantasy XII's License Board system, which allowed any character to use any weapon, provided they had the right licenses unlocked. Vaan's attacks have a primary effect that is static and then a secondary effect that only occurs if you're swapping weapons. For instance, if you use your Katana attack in mid air and then follow up with Sword and Shield, you'll throw out a block right before executing a flip attack.

I have to admit I never cared much for Vaan as a character. Even though he was the protagonist of Final Fantasy XII, he was largely irrelevant to the game's overall plot. I've heard rumors that Vaan (and his friend Penelo) were only included in the game in an effort to appeal to a younger demographic. Other playable characters in the game are integral to the plot and--perhaps more importantly--are noticeably older. I would have been much happier with having Basch as a playable character in Dissidia 012, but it wouldn't have been right to include a secondary character over a protagonist when no other characters from Final Fantasy XII have appeared before him. Still, his playstyle ended up being really fun, so I suppose it's all for the best.