Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy Review

By PSM3 Staff for PSM3 Magazine Subscribe now!

Despite toting an utterly pretentious title, Dissidia 012 is an incredible sequel. It builds on Dissidia's surprisingly successful mix of fan-service and ninja-fast fighting action, bringing in a wealth of new content and improvements.

New characters, levels, abilities, customisation options; there are plenty of innovative ideas that may be overwhelming to the fresh-faced fighter.

However, with a comprehensive tutorial, it's rare that this will get in the way of the face-bashing fun. The main improvement can be found in Story mode.

Previously, you moved your chosen character across a chessboard, engaging enemy pieces; rather dull. Now, as well as this, you're given a whole world map to romp around, hunting treasure and fighting baddies.

The story itself is a lot more enjoyable, full of some genuinely shocking twists that will have FF fans, if no-one else, gripped.

Role call Of course, the biggest attraction is the addition of eight new characters, who join the original heroes and villains from the first title.

Of the eight Kain, Tifa, Laguna, Va'an and Lightning appear immediately, with FFXIII's star proving to be the best new challenger. Lightning possesses all the stylish agility of her FFXIII self, and wields both magical and physical attacks, making her double hard.

In fact, every single contender has a more defined fighting style, making it an absolute pleasure - and challenge - to get to grips with the varying flashy magic spells and breathlessly aerodynamic kicks.

The AI is also sharper, pushing you to take full advantage of the wide array of offensive and defensive moves.

There's a lot on offer here, including an impressively rich multi-player mode and a campaign creator, where you can create your own conflicts to share with friends.

Thanks to the wealth of gameplay options, Dissidia 012 is a necessity for FF fans... but do you pick it up if you're not a series follower? It stands alone as a solid portable brawler, but some of the best features will be lost on you.

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