When It Begins (Day 352)

After playing a series of tactical or otherwise turn-based RPGs, I thought it might be a nice change of pace to play something a little more action-oriented. Borderlands 2 was great, but I haven't played a good single-player action game in quite some time. After spending some time trying to decide what game I'd like to tackle next from my backlog, I came across Dissidia 012, the second in a series of fighting/action games based on the Final Fantasy series. As is evidenced on many previous entries of this blog, I'm a big Final Fantasy fan even if I am quick to acknowledge the series' many flaws. I really enjoyed the first Dissidia game because of its unique combat system and fast pace. In that regard, Dissidia 012 is much the same--with several new characters to boot.

New character Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII, then a new release

 Like Dissidia before it, 012 is a fighting/action RPG hybrid that features a skeletal storyline supported by some minor exploration--as well as a puzzle game board system that allows your selected character to encounter opponents. Most opponents are mannequin copies of other playable characters from the game, of which there are many. Winning battles will award you KP, which can be used to purchase equipment from the moogle-owned shop. Defeating opponents in sequence will award additional KP, but this can only be done if your character is adjacent to multiple enemies on the game board or through using an item like Cross Chain or Round Chain which allows you to engage multiple enemies in a certain pattern.

Yuna from Final Fantasy X on the game board

The combat system is very fast paced and non-traditional for the genre. Like Super Smash Bros, opponents cannot be defeated simply through reducing a life bar to 0--or rather, they can, but there's more to it than that. There are two types of attacks in Dissidia 012: Bravery attacks and HP attacks. Bravery attacks are typically quicker and can be woven into combos, whereas HP attacks generally have a large windup and can be dodged easily. Bravery attacks steal the opponent's Bravery and the higher one's Bravery, the more damage an HP attack deals. It is frequently possible to build up enough Bravery to defeat an enemy with only one HP attack.

Yuna in combat

The main draw of the game for me is the fact that there are so many RPG elements included, none of which detract from the experience. I can think of a few games in which RPG elements are shoehorned in for no real extra value. Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy--a game in which those elements are completely superfluous--comes to mind here. In Dissidia 012, all playable characters level up and acquire new skills. A character can possess six Bravery skills and six HP attack skills, three apiece on the ground and in the air. These skills can be set to whichever buttons you choose, allowing you to customize your character to your personal preferences.

Chapter select screen

As has been the case in many of the games I've played recently, my primary attraction to Dissidia 012 is the gameplay--but that's not all the game has to offer. There is actually a fairly extensive plot attached to this game that intertwines the plots of all the various characters together--but let's be honest. The story is kind of terrible and I tend to zone out during just about every cutscene. Don't get me wrong--I love several of these characters--but I'm not in love with how many of them are portrayed. Terra from Final Fantasy VI in particular is portrayed as a weak damsel-in-distress kind of character and I've never felt that's what she was.

As I said before, I've beaten the original Dissidia game and my primary character of choice was Cecil Harvey from Final Fantasy IV. This was not accomplished before defeating the game's final boss, who was hellishly difficult. I'm not sure I've ever faced a final boss as difficult as that one and I've played a lot of video games in my time. I'm a little worried that I'll eventually hit a brick wall in this game and not be able to progress any further--which would be quite the detriment to my plan to complete as many games in my backlog as possible this year.