I recently discovered that PSP emulators are a thing, so I decided to try it out. And.. well, I've barely been doing anything else since, I've even put Type-0 on the backburner.
So, onto the main subject, the rather unfortunately titled Dissidia Duodecim 012: Final Fantasy.
I had played the original of course, and loved it and ordinarily if you were playing the sequel, you would play the original game again first right?
Duodecim is a rarity in the gaming world, not only is it a brilliant game in it's own right with a crap ton of new characters, systems and other additions, but it also includes a redone and improved version of the original game inside it.
Story:
Duodecim is not a sequel, it is a prequel, and to properly explain why, and the title of the game, you have to go into spoiler territory:
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS:
Dissidia tells the story of a never ending conflict between the Goddess of Harmony, Cosmos and the God of Discord, Chaos. The nature of the conflict is "never ending" because the conflict repeats in cycles, with the original game, Dissidia, being the 13th cycle in the conflict, and Duodecim, being a prequel, being the 12th cycle, hence the 012 in the title.
Duodecim focuses on 6 warriors of Cosmos, Kain, Tifa, Laguna, Yuna, Vaan and Lightning, who, for reasons revealed during the course of the game, were not present in the 13th cycle.
There are a few surprise twists in this game, one of the biggest for example, is the amount of switching sides that goes on. Of note, Terra, Cloud and Tidus, Warriors of Cosmos (A.K.A, the good guys) in the original game, are on the side of Chaos this time around, while Jecht is a Warrior of Cosmos, with Kuja and Golbez betraying the other villains and setting up multiple plot points that are expanded on in the (sequel?) original game.
The game does a good job of tying the two games together as well, with lots of hidden cutscenes and dialogue explaining or expanding on character relationships, and making reference to events of the previous cycle. The retouched story of the 13th cycle is filled with hidden dialogue like this, making reference to events of the 12th cycle that didn't exist in the first game.
People often shit on Dissidia for its story and its dialogue, but as far as fanwank crossover games go, I respect Dissidia for putting a lot of effort into making a cohesive story, world, and mythos in which having all these characters together makes sense, and as a big Final Fantasy fan, I can often overlook some of the slightly cringey dialogue (the biggest offenders by FAR being Cloud and Sephiroth, who would have guessed it)
The voice acting, ESPECIALLY for the villains, is absolutely brilliant, Kefka's death scene in particular is especially poignant, and characters like Ultimecia, Cloud of Darkness and The Emperor are also amazing.
Gameplay:
Combat in Dissidia is very easy to pick up, but can be rather difficult to master. It revolves around 2 different kinds of attacks, Bravery Attacks and HP Attacks. You basically hit an enemy with a bravery attack to increase your bravery while lowering theirs, and then you use a HP attack to do damage equal to the amount of Bravery you have. This is further augmented through equipment, accessories, summons, and newly added for Duodecim, Assists, where you can call on an ally to perform attacks.
Here's a gameplay video to demonstrate
Also newly added in Duodecim is a world map, which is integrated into the story of the original Dissidia as well. With both a world map and new systems like assists, it makes it feel like a different game almost.
The game has a lot of meat to it and lasts a LONG time as well.
Characters:
There are a LOT of characters. The original Dissidia had 22 playable characters; 11 heroes and 11 villains:
Warrior of Light & Garland (FF1)
Firion & The Emperor (FF2)
Onion Knight & The Cloud of Darkness (FF3)
Cecil & Golbez (FF4)
Bartz & Exdeath (FF5)
Terra & Kefka (FF6)
Cloud & Sephiroth (FF7)
Squall & Ultimecia (FF8)
Zidane & Kuja (FF9)
Tiduss & Jecht (FF10)
And 2 secret characters,
Duodecim expends on this with a further 9 characters:
Kain (FF4)
Tifa (FF7)
Laguna (FF8)
Yuna (FF10)
Vaan (FF12)
Lightning (FF13)
And 3 secret characters,
For a grand total of 31 unique characters, NONE of them play exactly the same way, they are all completely different with the exception of Bartz who is quite literally a mimic who the uses the powers of other fighters, and chains them in various different ways, for example, chaining one of Cloud's attacks into one of Tifa's attacks and then following it up with a unique effect (and rather entertainingly, like a true mimic, he mimics the characters voices as well which is a fun little detail)
Music:
If there is a Final Fantasy track you love, it's probably in here. Man with the Machine Gun, Blinded by Light, Fighting Fate, Battle with Seymour, and the numerous battle themes throughout the series. Through modding (i'll come to that) you can add your own music tracks as well to use in battles.
It also has one of the most kickass final boss themes I've heard in gaming: God in Fire
On PC?
Transferring the game onto my PC was super easy, and it's even possible to transfer the save file from the PC to the PSP and vice versa for on the go (and you can do this for any PSP game) using only a USB cable.
The benefits of this are huge. The game looks fantastic in full screen, and the standard emulator ability to speed up the game with the click of a button is amazing for skipping through Victory/Defeat scenes and other slow animations.
Probably the biggest thing though is the fact that there is basically no load times at all. Loading times on the PSP were atrocious, and being able to go from battle to battle incredibly quickly is a god send.
There were a couple of problems with the emulation though, only during the 13th cycle, where the cutscenes (ported from the original game) would chug really slowly and a couple of the story mode sections would cause the emulator to crash, causing me to get through that section on the PSP instead.
Modding you say?
Yes! and it's incredibly easy!
There is a big and still active modding community for this game, and you can create or apply modded costumes for any character, and even add your own music tracks to the game (I recently added tracks from Final Fantasy Type-0 and Bravely Default)
Adding a costume is as simple as downloading some files and putting them in a folder, above I posted a screenshot of Terra wearing a costume that essentially turns her into Aerith, and there are lots more too, like a Type-0 costume for Tifa:
or a Paine costume for Lightning:
Modding is incredibly addictive, once I started doing it, I spent pretty much the whole day finding and applying different costumes for my characters.
Verdict:
I really, really love this game. I did way back when I first played it, and having the improvements of a bigger resolution, better graphics, better controls (playing this game with a controller instead of the PSP controls is godly) as well as being able to modify or add new characters to the game has just enhanced the experience even further. It saddens me slightly that the new Dissidia game looks so different because now I honestly feel like Duodecim on PC is the absolute best version of Dissidia and i'm quite disappointed that it was never officially ported over, especially now that Type-0 has been.
So, onto the main subject, the rather unfortunately titled Dissidia Duodecim 012: Final Fantasy.
I had played the original of course, and loved it and ordinarily if you were playing the sequel, you would play the original game again first right?
Duodecim is a rarity in the gaming world, not only is it a brilliant game in it's own right with a crap ton of new characters, systems and other additions, but it also includes a redone and improved version of the original game inside it.
Story:
Duodecim is not a sequel, it is a prequel, and to properly explain why, and the title of the game, you have to go into spoiler territory:
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS:
Dissidia tells the story of a never ending conflict between the Goddess of Harmony, Cosmos and the God of Discord, Chaos. The nature of the conflict is "never ending" because the conflict repeats in cycles, with the original game, Dissidia, being the 13th cycle in the conflict, and Duodecim, being a prequel, being the 12th cycle, hence the 012 in the title.
Duodecim focuses on 6 warriors of Cosmos, Kain, Tifa, Laguna, Yuna, Vaan and Lightning, who, for reasons revealed during the course of the game, were not present in the 13th cycle.
There are a few surprise twists in this game, one of the biggest for example, is the amount of switching sides that goes on. Of note, Terra, Cloud and Tidus, Warriors of Cosmos (A.K.A, the good guys) in the original game, are on the side of Chaos this time around, while Jecht is a Warrior of Cosmos, with Kuja and Golbez betraying the other villains and setting up multiple plot points that are expanded on in the (sequel?) original game.
The game does a good job of tying the two games together as well, with lots of hidden cutscenes and dialogue explaining or expanding on character relationships, and making reference to events of the previous cycle. The retouched story of the 13th cycle is filled with hidden dialogue like this, making reference to events of the 12th cycle that didn't exist in the first game.
People often shit on Dissidia for its story and its dialogue, but as far as fanwank crossover games go, I respect Dissidia for putting a lot of effort into making a cohesive story, world, and mythos in which having all these characters together makes sense, and as a big Final Fantasy fan, I can often overlook some of the slightly cringey dialogue (the biggest offenders by FAR being Cloud and Sephiroth, who would have guessed it)
The voice acting, ESPECIALLY for the villains, is absolutely brilliant, Kefka's death scene in particular is especially poignant, and characters like Ultimecia, Cloud of Darkness and The Emperor are also amazing.
Gameplay:
Combat in Dissidia is very easy to pick up, but can be rather difficult to master. It revolves around 2 different kinds of attacks, Bravery Attacks and HP Attacks. You basically hit an enemy with a bravery attack to increase your bravery while lowering theirs, and then you use a HP attack to do damage equal to the amount of Bravery you have. This is further augmented through equipment, accessories, summons, and newly added for Duodecim, Assists, where you can call on an ally to perform attacks.
Here's a gameplay video to demonstrate
Also newly added in Duodecim is a world map, which is integrated into the story of the original Dissidia as well. With both a world map and new systems like assists, it makes it feel like a different game almost.
The game has a lot of meat to it and lasts a LONG time as well.
Characters:
There are a LOT of characters. The original Dissidia had 22 playable characters; 11 heroes and 11 villains:
Warrior of Light & Garland (FF1)
Firion & The Emperor (FF2)
Onion Knight & The Cloud of Darkness (FF3)
Cecil & Golbez (FF4)
Bartz & Exdeath (FF5)
Terra & Kefka (FF6)
Cloud & Sephiroth (FF7)
Squall & Ultimecia (FF8)
Zidane & Kuja (FF9)
Tiduss & Jecht (FF10)
And 2 secret characters,
Shantotto (FF11) & Gabranth (FF12)
Duodecim expends on this with a further 9 characters:
Kain (FF4)
Tifa (FF7)
Laguna (FF8)
Yuna (FF10)
Vaan (FF12)
Lightning (FF13)
And 3 secret characters,
Prishe (FF11), Gilgamesh (FF5) and Feral Chaos (Original)
For a grand total of 31 unique characters, NONE of them play exactly the same way, they are all completely different with the exception of Bartz who is quite literally a mimic who the uses the powers of other fighters, and chains them in various different ways, for example, chaining one of Cloud's attacks into one of Tifa's attacks and then following it up with a unique effect (and rather entertainingly, like a true mimic, he mimics the characters voices as well which is a fun little detail)
Music:
If there is a Final Fantasy track you love, it's probably in here. Man with the Machine Gun, Blinded by Light, Fighting Fate, Battle with Seymour, and the numerous battle themes throughout the series. Through modding (i'll come to that) you can add your own music tracks as well to use in battles.
It also has one of the most kickass final boss themes I've heard in gaming: God in Fire
On PC?
Transferring the game onto my PC was super easy, and it's even possible to transfer the save file from the PC to the PSP and vice versa for on the go (and you can do this for any PSP game) using only a USB cable.
The benefits of this are huge. The game looks fantastic in full screen, and the standard emulator ability to speed up the game with the click of a button is amazing for skipping through Victory/Defeat scenes and other slow animations.
Probably the biggest thing though is the fact that there is basically no load times at all. Loading times on the PSP were atrocious, and being able to go from battle to battle incredibly quickly is a god send.
There were a couple of problems with the emulation though, only during the 13th cycle, where the cutscenes (ported from the original game) would chug really slowly and a couple of the story mode sections would cause the emulator to crash, causing me to get through that section on the PSP instead.
Modding you say?
Yes! and it's incredibly easy!
There is a big and still active modding community for this game, and you can create or apply modded costumes for any character, and even add your own music tracks to the game (I recently added tracks from Final Fantasy Type-0 and Bravely Default)
Adding a costume is as simple as downloading some files and putting them in a folder, above I posted a screenshot of Terra wearing a costume that essentially turns her into Aerith, and there are lots more too, like a Type-0 costume for Tifa:
or a Paine costume for Lightning:
Modding is incredibly addictive, once I started doing it, I spent pretty much the whole day finding and applying different costumes for my characters.
Verdict:
I really, really love this game. I did way back when I first played it, and having the improvements of a bigger resolution, better graphics, better controls (playing this game with a controller instead of the PSP controls is godly) as well as being able to modify or add new characters to the game has just enhanced the experience even further. It saddens me slightly that the new Dissidia game looks so different because now I honestly feel like Duodecim on PC is the absolute best version of Dissidia and i'm quite disappointed that it was never officially ported over, especially now that Type-0 has been.
