Since I'm the resident Dissidia fan on the forum, and I was just whining about making a new entry awhile ago, I should probably talk about this.
So yeah... we got a new Dissidia and I'm currently Beta testing it. Yes, this is exactly what it looks like as we hit the video game equivalent of taking a franchise into space, and the FF cast are now in the real world, Tokyo to be exact. The plot is still a bit murky, even in the beta as the party just finds themselves trapped in Tokyo due to some weird crystals appearing everywhere. The FF villains corrupt these crystals which sucks the life force out of everyone in the vicinity and summons monsters. The heroes don't necessarily get killed, but instead have their powers drained, which is then used to create this game's versions of the manikens. The heroes have the power to heal the crystal if they can kill all the monsters but eventually a boss monster does appear which also needs to be taken down.
The game is a three team competitive actiony rpg where you choose a character from the current roster and play with two other people as a team to neutralize the boss monster before another three party team does. You have five slots for abilities which stem from spells and abilities from the series as a whole. These skills, in addition to what you can do in battle also dictate your stats, so make sure you're leveling them up and equipping properly. Characters also have unique skills that are tailored for them and getting them in the game's gacha mechanics will give you a major stat boost and unique skill tailored for the characters class and fighting style. Class is pretty simple. Melee for frontline fighters like Cloud, Tank for defensive types like Warrior of Light, Shooter for long range types like Terra, Support for characters like Krile, and finally agile for speed focused characters like Lightning.
So far we have Rank matches where the game lets three active players team up at random to fight for points used to advance the plot and earn loot for gacha stuff. There is also the challenge section where you can pick two AI versions of other players you've chosen to follow and are based on their current setups. These matches require you to do something in addition to winning the match such as using certain skills a certain amount of time or killing X amount of something. Completing these challenges nets you items and job badges which can be used to modify stats. I won a Monk job which increased my HP values for instance. There is also a casual mode which lets you team up with other players you've met for live three team battles, but this mode is not active in the beta.
The narrative starts with Cloud being caught in a void along with Sephiroth. Sephiroth figures out how to escape and Cloud tries to stop him only fro Cloud to get sucked into a portal and wake up in Tokyo where he meets a kid named Ren. They see Sephiroth who corrupts a crystal that drains the life of all the people in the area except Ren and summons monsters and manikens. Cloud gets ready to fight when he's stopped by the arrival of WoL, Lightning, and Terra. They catch Cloud up to speed and they all battle it out with the Manikens and the Behemoth. After winning, the party speaks with Ren who calls them Ghosts due to the nature of the FF heroes always "vanishing" after these weird crystal instances. Cloud joins the fray and offscreen gets his smart phone and dashing fashion change. Other cutscenes are done on cell phones with WoL and Terra both struggling sometimes to figure out how to get phones to work since their worlds don't have the technology. Cloud is right at home though, but it is hilarious watching stoic WoL posting chibi pictures of himself on there.
The gameplay is pretty smooth, though the game concept is not really for me, seeing how I don't care for competitive team gameplay which largely turned me off of Dissidia NT. The setting also feels a bit scratching the bottom of the barrel in terms of ideas, but I guess it gives the development team the freedom to put the familiar FF characters into cute modern outfits in addition to some of their classic outfits. The narrative feels slow, but that's largely because I'm not playing ranked matches as often as I should, so I'll get back to you on that.
One issue I have noticed is that sometimes the opposing team, and even your own team will spend more time killing each other than the actual boss monsters resulting in everyone losing the match. I chose Terra as my starter, but I've already managed to unlock Kain, Zidane, and Prompto. Other characters include, Gaia, Krile, Cloud, Lightning, and Rinoa. There is already plans for a second wave of characters in the main website.
Okay, I spent this evening actually doing the rank matches, which are the quests that give you the points needed to unlock the story. I'm very early in, so not much to say except someone is manipulating the crystals (gee, I wonder who it could be?) and some of the characters trying to get used to living in Tokyo. So far the most fun scene is watching Rinoa and Prompto bond over being the normies of their respective games, with both chatting about how they always were useless to their respective teams. Gaia is whining about going back to school, and I never played XIV, so I have no idea what to think of her characterization, but I do find it amusing she's basically playing the Squall surrogate to Rinoa who is always violating her personal space.
As for ranked missions, I'm getting decent with the game. I still haven't unlocked Terra's SR or above skills, but I've managed to level up a lot of her magic to lethal levels and have quickly learned that Terra and Kain might be the most dangerous characters in terms of PVP. Kain can just move fast and do high damage he can easily combo into your death, while Terra's magic not only hit hard but can often hit multiple characters. The one personal skill I do have for her is Graviga, which is basically her starter unique skill that's not Tornado, and this move not only does high damage to anyone silly enough to get too close to her, but the move also involves Terra quickly back-dashing away from ground zero of the attack while simultaneously pulling all her opponents close together which Terra can then follow up with another powerful spell like Blizzara or Firaga. I've managed to wipe entire teams with some careful use of this strategy.
In terms of boss monsters, I've only seen three: Behemoth, Iron Giant, and Malboro. Behemoth is surprisingly easy as long as he doesn't pull off Meteor, but even then. it's easy to dodge since it lands directly in front of it. Iron Giant is the next most difficult. He can hit hard, but his biggest annoyance factor is a move where it just swings around like a top with its sword and juggling any unlucky player in range. Even more annoying is that it has pretty high priority and the range is long enough to even hit Range fighters like Terra and Prompto in their combat range. Malboro is unsurprisingly the most annoying boss if you're not using chain attack with your team. Foul Breath has ridiculous range and can juggle. It only inflicts poison at the moment, but seeing how death resets your BRV, this critter can be a nightmare if you're fighting another team that's super aggressive about killing the other team. Not helped is that Malboro has annoying swing attacks not too dissimilar to Iron Giant's attacks and I plain just find it to be the most aggressive of the bosses. Despite that, I think it has more weaknesses than Iron Giant, but again, depending on what the other team is doing, your chances to attack can be more limited.
I did manage to work with one really good team tonight and we crushed our poor opposing team. Like one of the fastest victories I've seen. It was with a Cloud and WoL player and all three of us seemed to know what we were doing. We managed split up fairly quickly and capture three crystal points in less than thirty seconds. We all descended on the fourth one as the boss spawned. The fourth one is in the opposing territory and WoL got their first and managed to tank the opposing teams attacks long enough for our Cloud and myself to get their and wreck them. This was where that strategy I mentioned before for Terra came in handy as Cloud and WoL knocked the opposing team to half health while my Terra picked off the weakest members and any fool who managed to come near me. From there we were able to release a chain that took out two-thirds of the boss's health before we dispersed again to reclaim crystal points again, fight off the opposing team one more time, and then Cloud and WoL performed a massive chain that finished off the boss.
Consequently, I also had a match where my team got wiped with little effort. I was with a Gaia and a Lightning facing a Terra, Lightning, and Kain party. It was here I discovered how dangerous Kain was at PVP. He has a move that launches him quickly towards an opponent and if it lands, he can follow it up with another attack that gets a damage bonus if his lunge connects, practically killing me in one combo. By the time my team managed to get out bearings and started finally claiming crystals, the other team had killed the boss.
Despite not being my thing, I will say that the gameplay is growing on me. I need to unlock more story to see if I'll care for the plot. The real issue at hand is that DFFOO set a pretty high bar for narrative within the Dissidia series. So it's going to be really difficult to top that. Not helped is that I'm not really a fan of "let's take the characters into the real world" type scenarios as I see it as the equivalent of taking a franchise into space for film. We'll see. I'm going to keep an open mind.
Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy
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