Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy arrived on the PlayStation Portable in March 2011 carrying an unusual promise: it was simultaneously a prequel and a remake of the game that came before it. That structural gambit placed the twelfth war between two gods, Cosmos and Chaos, ahead of a conflict listeners already knew, then folded the original story back in behind it. The result was a single release containing roughly 60 hours of combined play, according to producer and character designer Tetsuya Nomura. How a fighting game built for a handheld console managed that scope, and why it outscored its own predecessor in every major review outlet, is a story that begins in August 2009 and runs through the peculiar logic of sequel-making inside Square Enix's 1st Production Department.

• 2. A Game Inside a Game

  ›

  Development started in August 2009, shortly before the international release of Dissidia Final Fantasy Universal Tuning. Director Mitsunori Takahashi set a clear internal mandate: the sequel should offer more than new characters. That instruction drove changes to existing gameplay systems and the addition of entirely new ones. The original Dissidia had a concrete conclusion, which ruled out a direct continuation. So the team built the new story as a prequel, intending it to send players back to the first game once they finished the second. Nomura had specific hopes for the project from early on. Ideas for a sequel were conceived shortly after the Japanese release of the original, and Nomura wanted to feature Kain Highwind in it from the start.

• 3. Thirty-One Warriors

  ›

  Nine new playable characters joined the full cast of the original Dissidia, bringing the total to thirty-one. Six were available from the start: Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII, Vaan from XII, Laguna Loire from VIII, Yuna from X, Kain Highwind from IV, and Tifa Lockhart from VII. Three more, Prishe from Final Fantasy XI, Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy V, and an alternate form of Chaos, required unlocking through gameplay. Aerith Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII appeared as an assist-only character, not fully playable, and was accessible only through purchasing the companion release Dissidia 012 Prologus Final Fantasy on the PlayStation Network. Choosing which new characters to include proved difficult. The staff weighed popularity against fighting-style potential, and memory limitations on the PSP hardware capped the total number they could add. Vaan's inclusion came with particular friction: his Japanese voice actor, Kouhei Takeda, was unavailable during production. Fan response guided the replacement decision, and Kenshō Ono took the role instead. Battle system director Takeo Kujiraoka then reached out to Final Fantasy XII's Hiroyuki Ito directly to develop Vaan's design and moveset based on his XII appearances, an exchange Ito received well.

• 4. The Assist and Counter Systems

  ›

  Player feedback about the first Dissidia shaped the core mechanical redesign. Critics inside the fanbase felt the EX Mode was too powerful in the original, and the team built the Assist system specifically to counterbalance it. A player who calls an Assist character while the opponent is in EX Mode can trigger an EX Break, forcing the opponent out of EX Mode and stealing the stage's Bravery points. The third countering option, EX Revenge, had existed before but was changed substantially. Where the first game simply halted an opponent's attack when triggered, Dissidia 012 turned EX Revenge into a time-slowing mechanic that let the activating player strike back. The cost was the entire EX Gauge, giving up the ability to use an EX Burst. These three counters, Assist Breaks, EX Breaks, and EX Revenge, were designed to check each other, preventing any single dominant strategy. Firion was the returning character whose moveset received the most revision, a direct response to player feedback about him specifically. Alternate costumes for the characters drew on artwork by Yoshitaka Amano, another designer with deep roots in the Final Fantasy series, alongside Nomura's own work.

• 5. World Map and Story Architecture

  ›

  The single-player mode introduced a 3D world map styled after classic Final Fantasy entries, which was built partly to appeal to RPG fans who might find a pure fighting game unapproachable. Players moved through it in parties of up to five characters, encountered enemies called Manikins on the map surface, and dropped into battle maps when attacked. The story progression drew a direct comparison to Final Fantasy VI. The main narrative followed the twelfth cycle, in which Cosmos sends her warriors to retrieve crystals while Chaos deploys the Manikins, crystalline soldiers capable of negating the gods' power of revival. Lightning leads Vaan, Yuna, Laguna, and Tifa in sealing the Manikin portal, and they succeed, though the group ultimately fades away. The remade thirteenth cycle followed, and completing it unlocked a third arc called "Confessions of the Creator", in which Shinryu traps Cid of the Lufaine in a perpetual nightmare as punishment for rescuing Cosmos's warriors. A separate layer called the Reports filled in backstory for characters including Terra, Cloud, Tidus, and Jecht, explaining how warriors switched sides between cycles and how the Warrior of Light first met Cosmos's earlier companions Prishe and Shantotto.

• 6. Music and Downloadable Content

  ›

  Takeharu Ishimoto composed the score for Dissidia 012, drawing on rearrangements of earlier Final Fantasy themes by other composers. The American band Kidneythieves sang the second part of Feral Chaos's boss theme, titled "God in Fire". Ishimoto wrote the song and requested the collaboration; the band described the experience as entertaining. Square Enix released the Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy Original Soundtrack on the 3rd of March, 2011, across three discs containing 44, 20, and 7 tracks respectively. Downloadable content arrived through multiple channels. Three other Square Enix titles, Final Fantasy Trading Card Game, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Final Mix, and The 3rd Birthday, unlocked alternate outfits for Vaan, Cloud Strife, and Lightning respectively. By June 2011, the PlayStation Network had expanded the downloadable catalog to include additional character costumes, avatars, and BGM packs.

• 7. Critical and Commercial Reception

  ›

  In its first week on sale, Dissidia 012 moved 286,117 units in Japan, topping the Media Create sales charts and displacing Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity. That opening week fell well short of the original Dissidia, which had sold close to 500,000 units in its own first week on the 18th of December, 2008. By January 2012, Japanese sales had reached 465,198 units. Famitsu scored the game 38 out of 40, with four reviewers awarding scores of 10, 9, 10, and 9. That total was two points higher than the score the original Dissidia had received from the same publication. IGN awarded a 9.0, one point above its score for the predecessor, praising graphics and improved gameplay while criticizing the story. PSM3 gave it an 8.2 and called it an improvement with strong fan service. Game Informer landed at 7, arguing the core battle system problems from the first game remained unaddressed, though the publication acknowledged the Assist system added a dimension the original lacked. GamesRadar+ placed it ninth on its list of the best PSP games; IGN ranked it third on a separate list, with comments focused on gameplay. Both lists confirmed the game's standing as one of the strongest titles the platform produced.