Review for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT. Game for PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 11/01/2018
To celebrate the ten years that have passed since the birth of Dissidia Final Fantasy on PlayStation Portable, Square Enix sides with Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo to give life to a new reality of the homonymous series that lands for the first time on home console. Dissidia Final Fantasy NT has only recently arrived in the West on PlayStation 4 after being one of the most talked about titles in recent months and we are here to tell you about it in great detail.
The new role of Dissidia
Let's cut the bull's head directly - this title is basically focused on online multiplayer, due to its arcade nature through which it came to life in the arcades of the Japanese territory a few years ago. Very similar to the original version, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT lands in the West to give everyone the opportunity to approach these new modes, with its pros and cons.
The battle modes will see two opposing teams made up of three members, who will have to work together closely to defeat the opponents. As happened in previous titles, to inflict a KO on the opponent you will first need to accumulate points of Audacity by hitting with basic combos up to a figure equal to or greater than that necessary to unleash a HP attack (Life Points) able to knock out the enemy. The team that will inflict three KOs first will win the match and at the end the scores and rewards will be assigned according to the performance.
The clashes may appear chaotic for those who enter online battles the first few times, but in reality it is enough to learn to have a correct vision of the game: the interface during the fight will become a real ally, showing who of the opposing team has taken you of aim or the distance they have from you thanks to a mini-map. After a dutiful practical session to master at least a couple of the many characters available from the world of Final Fantasy, the real fun will begin and you can begin to indulge yourself with many and different approaches in the upcoming clashes.
The strategy is yourself!
Unlike previous titles, in Dissidia Final Fantasy NT there will be no equipment or a level up system to determine the growth of the character. Adding new HP Attacks to the character will be the Rank you get with this character, for a total of four different HP Attacks once you reach the maximum rank. You will determine the combat strategy with your character and by this we do not mean the only skill in a strategic fighting game. The roster is divided into classes, with their peculiarities, bonuses and malus. We have theStormtrooper, usually slow, but able to steal a huge amount of Audacity points from the enemy with a few attacks and then finish it off with a VP Attack. The Shooterinstead, it is capable of releasing weak but rapid and frequent projectiles from distance towards the enemy to slowly and inexorably steal its audacity, at the expense of insufficient short-range offensive capability. The Sprinter it is perfect for those who prefer free dashes at high speed and prefer to reach the opponent quickly and hit him by surprise, also thanks to its ability to make three consecutive jumps instead of two. Finally we have a wildcard class, lo Specialist. Few are part of this category and they all work in a unique way, they are tedious to use and the player will need constant practice to master them, but the final results will be more than satisfactory.
Thanks to the Classes and a large roster, you will be able to understand in a short time which approach to the fight suits you best and how to be able to correctly exploit the points of advantage at your disposal. Understanding the nature of your class and knowing how to use it against the opposing team is the first step to becoming a good player and you will be the ones to give life to spectacular actions in combat. If some RPG mechanics are no longer present, others have taken their place keeping more and more faith in the nature of "strategic fighting" that Dissidia Final Fantasy NT has taken in this new form.
Summons and Techniques: two fundamental keys of the battle system
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT's fun and fast-paced battle system doesn't just stop at classes, in terms of depth. To make the arcade variant of the title even more strategic is the presence of Summons, but also the possibility to choose two skills to use in battle. The former is a much more tactical component than you think, if used correctly. The basic purpose of summoning is to cause damage to all opponents by drastically decreasing their audacity, but that's not all: each of these creatures gives the whole team a different pre-summon and post-summon benefit, be it an increase in the bar. which allows the dash or a decrease in the cooldown between one technique and another. To summon it will be necessary to fill the gauge located above the remaining life bar of your team and it will be necessary to break the Ex cores that appear every now and then in the arena.
Techniques also have a certain strategic value which can be higher if used with a suitable class. Each player has two techniques to choose from among those available and an EX, unique depending on the character he uses. Techniques can be used whenever its gauge fills up and can trigger effects on the field, alter enemy status, or simply boost self and companions. A Stormtrooper will likely opt for techniques capable of increasing the group's offensive capacity, choosing the Power Shot technique, while those who fight from a distance like a Sprinter might prefer Bioga which poisons the enemy by subtracting Daring points at regular intervals.
Memoriae and the conclusion of Dissidia
Let's talk now about the single player side, starting from the story. If you have seen our interview with Producer Ichiro Hazama, you will already be aware that Dissidia Final Fantasy NT does not contain a real linear story, but of the episodes destined to combine in a single climax before the final battle. The contents in this mode must be unlocked with the Memoriae that the player accumulates as he engages in online and offline modes. In this last plot relating to Dissidia Final Fantasy we have a last time cycle of a world already in ruins, ruled by the deities born from the residual will of Cosmos and Chaos, respectively Materia and Spiritus, which are in eternal conflict and evoke the various protagonists and Final Fantasy antagonists for a clash to the death in order to feed the world with spiritual energy. NT is a true sequel, as indicated by the presence of the new gods, but also by the fact that all warriors have memories of their previous battles and recognize each other, except for a few new warriors like Noctis.
The story no longer sees the personal events of each individual character as in the previous titles, but after a general introduction, the player will have to go through five short storyline nodes separately in which the various paths that the protagonists, divided into groups, will take will be followed. A fan more in search of the development of the characters could turn up their noses in front of a very short plot that gives space only to the main battle, but it must be specified that all the episodes relating to the growth of the characters and references to their world of belonging are already been addressed and above all concluded in Dissidia Final Fantasy Duodecim. Therefore, in NT we will finally see the final conclusion of the time cycles that for more than twelve times have followed each other in eternal struggles between Harmony and Chaos, bringing out those who really got something out of the time loop.
Continuing in the single player field, we have the raid mode, which allows the player to engage in two types of clashes flanked by two AI against an opposing team. In addition to the random fight, the core hunt is available, a mode where the objective is no longer to KO the opponent, but to destroy the EX core present in the opponent's base. All this will happen in a succession of six clashes that will increase in difficulty as you proceed and upon completion numerous gil and treasures will be awarded based on the results obtained.
Loot Box? No thanks!
The new competitive and multiplayer nature of Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, as well as the ability to open chests and find items, certainly alarmed many players during last month's Open Beta. Square Enix instead seems to say a sharp "no" to this component often hated by fans and demonstrates it more than explicitly by the total impossibility of obtaining treasures using real currency, as well as by the fact that nothing found in the treasures positively affects the parameters of a character or unbalance the game balance. What can be found in the chests are objects used purely for the aesthetic structure of the characters and their weapons, or famous phrases pronounced in their world of origin to be used in combat, but also ornaments for our player card, including countless avatars , titles and songs from all Final Fantasy. Finally, treasures can only be opened by fighting and ranking up, so ... no Loot Box!
If on the one hand we have the problem of Loot Boxes solved, on the other hand we have another one, which has remained unsolved since the Beta: Online stability. Ironic or not, a game based mostly on online multiplayer continues - despite the more than clear feedback following the session open to all in January - to show, albeit to a slightly lesser extent, several problems. The matchmaking is slightly faster, but the waiting time is not yet acceptable and the same can be said of the netcode and the penalties that afflict those who want to enter the competitive. The lag is once again the worst among the opponents and albeit with a lower frequency, it is not able to play repeated games without falling victim to this beast. Furthermore, if for any reason you end up disconnected from the match, even if not by our will, you are penalized with a defeat. In this context it is clear that the title needs to be balanced again in order to give an enjoyable experience for all players, but it is still something that can be solved with the passage of time and perhaps with a couple of updates or patches, wishing us that these can also implement the heavy lack of 1 VS 1 mode for the more nostalgic.
The spectacular and intense multiplayer challenges of Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, surrounded by an excellent sound sector, are the new frontier for those looking for a title on which to spend hours of fun between frenetic but strategic actions at the same time. It is not free from defects, which should actually be remedied as a 1 VS 1 mode and more, but above all the search for greater constant online stability in terms of lag and matchmaking. However, this strategic fighting game will bewitch players with its gameplay and huge and varied roster of characters which, let's face it, a Final Fantasy fan cannot resist in any way.
► Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is a fighting game developed by Team Ninja and published by Koei Tecmo Square Enix for PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 11/01/2018
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