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Dissidia Final Fantasy NT

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT Hands-On

We visited Square Enix in London to try our hand at the FF-themed fighting game.

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Final Fantasy has been around for three decades now, so as you'd imagine there have been a lot of characters gracing the series over this time, from Garland all the way back in the original, through to Noctis in Final Fantasy XV, and the upcoming Dissidia Final Fantasy NT looks to unite a load of these characters, giving them modern polish and setting them against one another in a 3v3 brawler. We recently got to play the game at Square Enix's office in London alongside five other fighters, and after sampling characters from all across the Final Fantasy universe, we've got quite a bit to say about Team Ninja's title.

We were given a guided tutorial by a member of the Square Enix team before our session started, and that was probably for the best, as there are a lot of options available to you from the offset. Once you get your head around each facet of the game, though, it then becomes a lot simpler to manage all of the things happening in-game, especially when it comes to the different moves you can perform, a lot of which is indicated by a rather large UI inherited from the arcade version (that we were assured would be streamlined before release).

To talk about movement firstly, this is much like any other third-person game, since Dissidia is as much a brawler as it is a fighting game in the traditional sense, and while you're not running and jumping around the map, you can dodge with L1 and dash towards an enemy with R1, the latter being especially useful for those fighters who need to quickly close the gap between themselves and their opponent so as to use their heavy melee attacks.

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After we'd (sort of) mastered this, then we were introduced to the combat system; with X you can make a number of quick attacks, but there's a catch in the fact that it doesn't reduce the enemy's health. Instead, what it does is it raises your bravery level, indicated by a number on-screen that starts at 1,000, and the higher this goes the more health you can take off with your character's HP attack, assigned to square. This then turns into a balancing act between whether you build your bravery high enough for one-hit kills (a risky tactic since getting hit reduces your bravery), or do you make more frequent HP attacks for lower damage.

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Then they add even more layers to that, spicing up the combat with additional moves. For instance, as you build up your attacks and the battle progresses, three moves (one with triangle, one with up and triangle, and one with down and triangle) become available to you as well, although a lot of these are support moves, raising the bravery of teammates around you or lowering the dash gauge of enemies, for instance.

Then there comes summons. On each map crystals will spawn which players can hit to raise a bar at the top left of the screen, and once filled by one character you can hold the middle button, or the whole team can hold it to speed things up, to call your summon of choice to the battlefield, which are pretty much huge monsters that deal major damage to the enemy team and have extra effects as well. It's risky since you are vulnerable while summoning, but the payoff is huge.

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The first thing we noticed about Dissidia once we got into the battle was how intense it was. From the get-go players are flying around the screen, forcing you to switch your lock-on target and dodge attacks, and matches can be over in 30 seconds if players are coordinated enough to take down the required three lives needed to win. What's even more interesting is that players can respawn, so in theory one terrible player could get themselves killed three times by the enemy side and lose the match for their entire team.

We're glad we got a solid hour and a half with it because this is a game that really needs you to find the character that you're best with if you're going to produce the best results. Some might be suited to the Assassin class, for instance, which lets you move faster, while some might prefer to keep their distance as a Marksman, or opt for a mid-range all-rounder Vanguard. There are also Specialist fighters too, mixing elements of the others to give their own flavour.

As such, we tried a load of different characters from across the franchise, including Cloud from Final Fantasy VII; Garland from Final Fantasy; Kain Highwind from Final Fantasy IV; Terra Branford from Final Fantasy VI; Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy VIII; Ramza Beoulve from Final Fantasy Tactics; Ace from Final Fantasy Type-0; Kefka Palazzo from Final Fantasy VI; Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII; and many more. As you can tell, then, there's no shortage of characters, and there's also a plethora of maps based on different locations throughout the franchise too.

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Our highlight was certainly Ramza Beoulve, as his HP attack was called Holy, summoning beams of light from the floor to impact enemies around him, but Kefka stood out as a particularly useful Marksman as well, being able to hit enemies from a distance while his teammates got in close. What's worth noticing as well is that there's a rock, paper, scissors effect in play too, so each class (aside from Specialist) has another they're proficient against and another they're weak against, so it's always important to pay attention and call for backup when needed. Just because it's chaotic doesn't mean tactics aren't required, and going after the wrong class or getting juggled by all three opposing fighters can lead to a quick defeat, so balance is needed between splitting up and staying together.

The visuals are worth noting as well, as we were impressed by what we saw, with each character and stadium looking polished and, more-importantly, vibrant. There's a lot of fan-service here in how the team has recreated a plethora of content throughout the series, making it faithful to the original while also bringing it into the modern era. The same applies to the attacks as well, as producer Ichiro Hazama told us when we talked to him, as they handle much like they do in their respective games.

Overall we came away very impressed with Dissidia, as it's both simple and accessible fun while offering enough depth to produce spectacular battles if players know how to use their classes and attacks. It's not just for Final Fantasy fans either, as anyone can jump in and enjoy the colourful combatants and stages, but those who are fans of the series will likely delight in all of the different eras on display.

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Dissidia Final Fantasy NTScore

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT

REVIEW. Written by Ayub Dizaei

"It feels like a lot is missing, and we think there should be a lot more characters available from the start."



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