Dissidia 012: Duodecim Final Fantasy

 PSP
User Score
8.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 291 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 227 out of 291
  2. Mixed: 30 out of 291
  3. Negative: 34 out of 291
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  1. IdolMaster
    Mar 30, 2011
    7
    Dissidia Duodecim 012 is only a lot of DLC characters of previous chapter. There are too few news for you to take it to the launch if you're not a hardcore fan of the series. The story mode is an adhesive to make you stupid fight with various characters of final fantasy saga. A good game but nothing more
  2. dz9
    Aug 1, 2011
    7
    The Goods: The game has fun fighting mechanics, fan service to the extreme, gorgeous graphics especially cutscenes, thousands upon thousands of hours for sidequests, a good roster, and good online. The Bad: Horrible tutorials, lackluster story, boring campaign. Wow!! The sequel to Final Fantasy's Super Smash Bros. It has simplistic yet complex fighting mechanics which will amaze theThe Goods: The game has fun fighting mechanics, fan service to the extreme, gorgeous graphics especially cutscenes, thousands upon thousands of hours for sidequests, a good roster, and good online. The Bad: Horrible tutorials, lackluster story, boring campaign. Wow!! The sequel to Final Fantasy's Super Smash Bros. It has simplistic yet complex fighting mechanics which will amaze the rpg fan. Although, they do in fact become very complex and a lot of the most fun features of the combat are buried upon layers of tactics, and the game never gives you enough guidance to even begin to understand them. If you've played the first, you know how horrible the story is, but this one expands it by giving the player a prequel, adding Vaan, Lightning, Tifa, Kain Highwind, Yuna, and Laguna into the mix. I know that no one is really playing this game to undergo a life changing story, but this game doesn't even surpass the low bar that it had to atleast get to. The story is confusing, vague, and uninteresting. On top of that, how you actually play through the story is even more boring and bland than the first. The open world is repetitive and linear, and after only scratching the surface of the story, I lost complete interest in the game. Not to fear though, this game still has killer cutscenes and graphics which one could assume a square enix game would have, an overall fantastic combat system (excluding rpg mode), tons of side quests, tons upon tons of fan service, and it even gives you the entire first game upon completion of Duodecim's story.… Expand
  3. Zzgashi
    Apr 3, 2011
    6
    The base gameplay has a lot of potential to be very fun, but it's hidden behind layers and layers of convoluted mechanics designed only to waste the players time.
  4. blakfayt
    Jun 29, 2016
    5
    Time to update this review.

    Dissidia is a sort of arena brawler/fighting game hybrid concept using Final Fantasy characters. Duodecim 012 is an updated version. The 012 portion of the game is really more of a prologue to the primary section of the game, which is the same story from the original Dissidia. The story itself is interesting in a lot of ways, but is completely secondary to    Time to update this review.

    Dissidia is a sort of arena brawler/fighting game hybrid concept using Final Fantasy characters. Duodecim 012 is an updated version. The 012 portion of the game is really more of a prologue to the primary section of the game, which is the same story from the original Dissidia. The story itself is interesting in a lot of ways, but is completely secondary to the combat. The story involves two deities, Cosmos and Chaos, who have brought together all these different heroes to fight on their sides. The 012 is the number of conflict, the Duodecim story is the 12th fight, and the original story (Which you get in 012 after clearing the 012 story) is the 13th conflict. It essentially justifies all these characters coming together.

    The combat is where I feel 012 went off the rails. Combat is simple, you have an HP number and a Bravery number. You can store bravery by attacking with the O button and the bravery that you have stocked deals HP damaged when you press square (assuming the square attack lands). Being hit by an enemy's O attacks drains your bravery, as yours does to theirs. Basically, it's tug of war with numbers. The tipping point is in stage bravery. When you reduce your enemy's bravery to negatives you get a bonus based on stage gimmicks. The enemy can do the same. When your bravery is broken it reduces to the negative of your max (If you have a maximum of 1000 bravery your bravery becomes -1000) and slowly goes back up to 0. When it reaches 0 you instantly get your max Bravery back. There's also blocking and dodging as any arena game would have.

    What separates this from others is the EX and Assist gauges. Now, here is where Square messed up in my opinion. The two gauges are supposed to balance each other out. The EX gauge, when filled up and activated, can do one of two things. Either stop time for a few seconds, or change your character into their super form for a minute. (Cloud, for example, gets Ultima weapon, Sephiroth goes into One Winged Angel form, etc). The Assist gauge lets you call in your partner who will do a preset attack. If your partner hits the enemy while they are in EX mode, they lose their gauge. This is faulty because they also made it take forever to build EX, but you can spam Assist attacks all night and day. EX builds up by collecting EX cores or gathering little motes of light after hitting enemies. Assist gauge fills up by hitting guys. The EX gauge, if you're not boosting it with items, can take five or six fully powered up cores. The Assist gauge will fill up in about four attacks. EX cores take over a minute to show up, you can attack a lot in one minute. This leads to a situation where you obtain your really cool EX mode, and lose it instantly because the AI Assist character cast a simple fireball that traveled half the arena to hit you.

    Beyond that there's little systems that irk me, like Chase attacks which basically involve a very short, but boring and pace shattering mini game of dodge the attack. It's not hard, but it does shatter the flow of battle.

    For a PSP game the graphics are great, and frankly the game still looks good on the Vita. However, the little issues with combat, and the fact that this version only really adds eight new characters or so just doesn't do it for me. The original Dissidia was great, I sunk 80 hours into it easily, I would play quick matches against the AI all the time. 012 adds a lot of new things that just pad the game unnecessarily, to the point that some people have made guides on how to get the best equipment in a matter of HOURS. Yeah, HOURS! Of fighting the same guy over and over that has a material with a .01% drop rate to make one sword and you need one of that material for every single character in the game. FUN! (That's worse than the FF 14 MMO drop rates.)    … Expand
  5. Zemeckis
    Mar 23, 2014
    5
    I'm a huge fan of Final Fantasy and there was no title in the main franchise that disappointed me. Then I decided to play this spin-off because it contains the name "Final Fantasy" and... boom. What a disaster. There are two main reasons which make Dissidia a game that should be skipped.

    Firstly, repetition. There is a few number of real enemies. The rest of them are "clones" of the    I'm a huge fan of Final Fantasy and there was no title in the main franchise that disappointed me. Then I decided to play this spin-off because it contains the name "Final Fantasy" and... boom. What a disaster. There are two main reasons which make Dissidia a game that should be skipped.

    Firstly, repetition. There is a few number of real enemies. The rest of them are "clones" of the characters that you play with. So you keep fighting with and against Lightning, Tifa, Laguna... over and over again. Oh, and a boss that you have defeated, guess what: he becomes an ordinary enemy. This is recycled content, which is pretty bad for any game. Not to mention that walking through the map is tedious, and there is nothing to break the routine.

    Secondly, loading screens. Loading, enter the map, loading, enter the portal, loading, start a battle, loading, fight the battle, loading, return to map. And each loading may take up to several seconds. The player must be very patient to deal with it.

    At least graphics and soundtrack are good. The plot has nothing to be highlighted and seems to have been made in a way to purely justify the crossover between the different games.

    I'm very disappointed with this game but I'll consider it is not a real Final Fantasy.    … Expand
  6. MegaR
    May 21, 2012
    7
    Like It! Its about Combat and does not have violence! its fun and has cool features!

    So this is Highly Recommended for people who want to play anything with combat but the parents do not want violence!!
  7. Notdavidbowie
    Jun 21, 2012
    7
    Dissidia 2012 is essentially a expansion to the original Dissidia game. Not long after buying the original I went and purchased this. The stages remain much the same with only a few extra and of course your additional characters. I paid full retail for this but felt it could not be a stand alone game. If you were going to buy one of the two games, just buy this one, absolutely nothing willDissidia 2012 is essentially a expansion to the original Dissidia game. Not long after buying the original I went and purchased this. The stages remain much the same with only a few extra and of course your additional characters. I paid full retail for this but felt it could not be a stand alone game. If you were going to buy one of the two games, just buy this one, absolutely nothing will yield from buying the previous as it's entirely the same. Overall it's a great game with Dragonball Z feel fighting with all our favourite Final Fantasy characters. Personally I was delighted to see Laguna from Final Fantasy 8 appear. For those who like Final Fantasy and fighting games in general, it for sure holds up as a great game with potential for much larger and interesting games in the future.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

6
#6 Best PSP Game of 2011
2
#2 Most Discussed PSP Game of 2011
9
#9 Most Shared PSP Game of 2011

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 52 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 37 out of 52
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 52
  3. Negative: 1 out of 52
  1. Gamer Limit
    Jun 29, 2011
    70
    Dissidia 012 is technically an improvement on its predecessor. The stylish combat is still a blast and Final Fantasy fans will be as enamored as ever, but a number of the improvements seem half-realized.
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  2. Game Chronicles
    May 23, 2011
    90
    Dissidia 012[duodecim] FINAL Fantasy is a unique title has a lot to offer. The sheer amount of things to do, deep customization and fantastic character line-up make Dissidia 012[duodecim] FINAL Fantasy an absolute must for Final Fantasy fans and PSP owners.
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  3. Game Over Online
    May 9, 2011
    83
    Dissidia 012: Duodecim Final Fantasy is a better game than the original with its refined gameplay mechanics and battle system. Though the story leaves much to be desired, Square has addressed many of the problems from the original game by giving fans more of what they want. A feeling of déjà vu still exists but Square has managed to keep things fresh with Dissidia 012: Duodecim Final Fantasy, which is a worthy game for series' veterans and fans.
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