For Final Fantasy fans, the Dissidia series is pretty much the culmination of all your fan-dreams come true. Where else would you get to see the heroes of your favourite games interacting with each other? Well, technically, the Kingdom Hearts series, but in Dissidia it’s a purely Final Fantasy experience. With Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, the tale continues.
All Around Me Are Familiar Faces
Unlike in previous Dissidia games, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT has all its characters available for you to play right off the bat. Outside of Story Mode, that is!
There are essentially three modes in Dissidia Final Fantasy NT. Story Mode, Online Modes, and Offline Modes. Story Mode is pretty straightforward: spend the memoria that you’ve earned to unlock cutscenes and story battles. Story mode battles limit the heroes you can use. For story reasons, obviously. Online Modes lets you play ranked matches against real life people. You can form a party of up to three with your friends and play against another party of people online. May the best friendship-trio win. Or, if you’re like me and have no friends to play with, just go solo. It’s not that bad, really.
(Really.)
On the other hand, if you don’t feel like playing with other people at all, there’s always Offline Modes. You can play in either Gauntlet Mode to practice against AIs with AIs on your team, or make a custom match with Sparring Match mode. You still earn memoria here, don’t worry.
In Online and Offline modes, you have access to all your favourite (and not-so-favourite) characters. Familiar names like Firion, Cecil, Terra, Squall, and more! As the latest Dissidia game, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT also features heroes from more recent games.
More and more characters will be released as the game gets updates. Given that there’s no villain representation from the later games, it’s entirely possible that we might see characters like XV’s Ardyn making an appearance! It would be pretty interesting to see how Ardyn interacts with the other villains, wouldn’t it?
The More The Merrier
Another way in which the game differs from its predecessors is the battle system. Instead of 1v1 matches, fights are now 3v3 situations. It makes things a heck of a lot more chaotic and wild, and it means you can’t just button mash anymore. The tutorial (which is extensive, comprehensive, and a little overwhelming) makes it clear right off the bat that teamwork is key. You have to keep an eye out on your opponents’ Bravery points, as well as your party members’ HP.
Yep, the Bravery/HP system is back. Whittle down your opponents’ Bravery to increase how much damage your HP attacks will do. It’s a little confusing at first, if you’re unfamiliar with the system, but it becomes pretty intuitive after a few matches. That just leaves you with the fun, chaotic mess that is 3v3 gameplay! After all, with 28 characters at launch, that’s a whole lotta potential team combinations.
Each character has a combat class: Vanguard, Assassin, Marksman, or Specialist. Making sure that your team is balanced and able to support each other is key to winning.
Each character’s attacks are all different, though the game doesn’t quite get into explaining it. If you don’t feel up to trying out every single character to get a feel for them, this page with all the character moveset descriptions might help.
What’s a Final Fantasy game without summons? You start the game off with one summon, but there are a whole range to unlock. Summon them together with your teammates during battle to get their aid! You summon faster if all of you are summoning at once, hint hint.
Walk Walk Fashion Baby
The alternate costume system from the previous games is back, this time, with a gacha twist to it! You earn “treasures” by finishing matches, and you can open them to reveal your loot! You’ll be relieved to know that loot here is purely cosmetic.
You can get new outfits, new weapon skins, soundtracks, icons, and more. They’re all cosmetic, and if you really need Sephiroth in his One-Winged Angel outfit but have no luck, you can always buy it! With gil, which you can earn through matches. Whew.
A Game For Old Fans And Newcomers Alike
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is definitely as incredibly fun ride, once you get used to its system. The game doesn’t rely on nostalgia, but on a dynamic and fun battle-system and gameplay.
Sure, the story mode is a little straightforward and easy to get through, but the sheer enjoyability and variety in its fighting system and pvp gameplay more than make up for it. Like a MOBA, each character’s skillset is markedly different, and you can unlock new attacks with each character as you use them.
You’ve pretty much got 28 ways to play the game! And more to come, with the upcoming updates. What are you waiting for?
