Dissidia - Final Fantasy Member Review for the PSP

I'm no fanboy, but I honestly have to disagree with GR on this one. In most cases I find their reviews to be pretty fair, but this is just ridiculous. Dissidia is one of the best games available on the psp and probably offers some of the most in terms of content. There are a total of 22 playable characters (23 if you count Chaos who is playable through hacks) of which all are generally balanced. They all bring their own stories into the mix, which sometimes doesn't make sense, but is a nice touch. In other words, emo-cloud from ff7 is still emo-cloud in dissidia. The characters bring their moves from their original games as well, with a few changes for balance. The GR article claims that the game is horribly unbalanced, which is not actually true. Yes, some characters are a bit more powerful, but they all have their weaknesses that can be properly exploited or covered. Terra, for example, seems to be pretty overpowered considering how fast a certain attack of hers is and how difficult it can be to dodge. Later though, you might notice that this attack does almost no damage and can be deflected back at her to set up one of your more powerful counter attack moves.

The combat system isn't half as flat as the reviewer made it seem as well. The combat system is not all about bravery breaking, that's just one part of it. You have four options. You can just hp kill them, you can eat up their bravery and unleash a single powerful blow, you can break their bravery and earn the stage bravery that has accumulated to finish them off, or you can pickup your attack's residual energy and a few powerups to enter ex-mode for a truly spectacular overdrive attack. Last I checked, most fighting games only leave you the hp option.

When played right, the fights are absolutely epic. The musical scores from each game are brought in as well, with some of the earlier midis updated to their full orchestral might. That indeed means you can pit cloud versus sephiroth with the original one-winged angel theme in the background if you want. With 20 characters, all of whom have their own unique moves, play styles, and stories, it's hard to say there's not much to do. Even after completing the story, new modes open up that provide a whole new world of gameplay.

The loads are also not that bad if you install the game on the memory stick. Even if you don't, the loads are nothing in the face of the length of some of the more challenging fights. Considering the massive amount of content in this game, I'm surprised the psp can even load the game to begin with. Also, what's with the GR reviewer trashing the graphics? The graphics in Dissidia are better than those in just about every psp game on the market, what the hell? Not liking the game is one thing, but dissing the graphics? That doesn't make sense, they're beautiful. I honestly couldn't recommend this game more, and seeing the reviews of other game sites and magazines, I can say that I'm not the only one. The production value of this game is unprecedented for a psp title, and is truly deserving of the Square-Enix publisher name.