This game is a fighting game, with 3D combat in an open area for the stages. There are traps and obstacles, which do not make a sound until one interacts with them.
In Dissidia Final Fantasy, you play as one of a possible 22 characters, all with their own moves, customized by setting them to different slots. A character gains new moves by leveling up, which can be achieved by simply winning battles.
When you first start the game, you’ll be in the title screen. Press Start to enter the Title Menu. There, you’ll find “new game,” “load game,” and “install data.”
Press the A button on “new game,” and follow the onscreen prompts. Note that, if using Retroarch, set your name in the “user” menu and it’ll already be filled in for you, in the first screen where you give your name. If using PPSSPP, you’ll have to configure the ppsspp.ini file to change the name from “ppsspp”. After giving your name, extra experience day, and gamer type (difficulty), you can continue to the tutorial.
The tutorial will teach you how to play Dissidia, but here are the things you must know, in case OCR, or the AI service in Retroarch, doesn’t read the buttons to press properly:
Set the intro movie, the dialog that happens before a fight, to “long” in order to hear which opponent you will be facing in modes other than story mode. For story mode, use OCR before the battle begins.
You can tell which menu item you are focused on by using OCR, or the menu guide. If using OCR, find the description of the item, like “fight through the tales of the warriors summoned by Cosmos and Chaos.” That is story mode.
Using the menu guide, notice that the menus usually wrap, that is, move from the bottom to the top when pressed once. When you hold down a direction, though, the menus stop at the end of whatever direction you pressed. The character selection screen is not like that, though, it does not wrap no matter what, so be careful, and if you get lost, use OCR. So, if you get lost in the main menu, for example, you can just hold down the up arrow, and you’ll end at the top, where you can move down to whichever menu item you intended to reach.
You can block attacks by pressing the R button. When you press R, your character blocks for about a second. Holding R does not cause your character to continuously block attacks. You can hear projectile attacks though, and can use distance to judge timing a bit, so blocking can be achieved by a totally blind player. Note that after you successfully block an attack, your character will stagger from it, thus taking a second or two for the character to be ready for more input.
The chase mechanic is something not found in many fighting games, but can be a fun diversion from the more simple mechanics of the game. To initiate a chase, perform a BRV attack which automatically initiates one. Each character has a specific one or two which causes this, and these may need to be set, or learned through leveling up.
Once the chase mode has been entered, you’ll hear a specific, electronic sound. You could choose not to chase by just doing nothing for a moment, and they’ll hit the ground a distance away. Or, you can chase by pressing X. You’ll hear the dashing sound. At this point, you can do a BRV attack or an HP attack. These are special, short attacks in chase mode. If your attack hits, you can chase after them again to attack once more. If you hear the “wall rush” sound, that means you’ve hit them hard enough to slam them into a wall, and the chase ends there.
However, your chases won’t always be so smooth. Your opponent is able to dodge out of the way. Then, they can chase you in return. You’ll have to dodge their attack with X, either HP or BRV. It is not clear which attack they will use. BRV attacks, on both sides, are usually faster. HP attacks usually are slower, and you may have some warning in advance. Chases, then, have an element of timing and guessing, which livens things up a good deal.
When attacking during a chase, you can also vary your HP and BRV attacks, by using the Up or Down directions on the left analog stick.
Performing Ex-bursts will seem impossible. In fact, they almost always are, besides a few characters, like Cloud, whose ex-burst only involves quickly pressing the X button. Most others are quick time events. To get around this, play normally until level 15 or so. At that time, you’ll get the auto-ex-burst command option, which you can equip to your character through customization. The auto-ex-burst command tries to do the ex-burst for you, so you don’t have to worry about that.
The music can be turned off. To do this, when in the main menu, after the title screen, move up one, press X, then move up seven times, and press right, then Circle to exit options.
You can customize your character in the game to use different attacks, change equipment, or add summons or items. You’ll need OCR for this.
To begin, go to the character select screen, and press Triangle. You have your main list of categories, including abilities, equipment, and summons. If you press X on the first menu item, abilities, you’ll be in the menu with “active”, “passive” abilities, and a way to reset them. Press X again on the first item, and you’ll be in the “active” abilities. Here, you have BRV attacks and HP attacks. Choose which category you want to configure, and you’re given six “slots”. These are
Note that that’s what I call them, it may not be what actually shows onscreen. OCR is a bit hard here, as there are so many layers of categories. Each “slot” can hold one attack. Ground attacks can only be placed in the “ground” slots, and areal attacks can only be placed in the “air” slots.
The first option in each slot is always “remove ability.” The next option begins the list of attacks. Just like with menus, you can tell the attack you’re focused on by its description. After the description are its effects, like “chase”. Usually, before the description is how much of it you’ve learned, like 0/80.
Once you’ve “set” an attack, you’ll hear a satisfying “ching” sound. If you can’t choose the attack, you’ll hear an error sound. If you “unset” an attack, you’ll hear a different sound than the “set” sound.
Once you’ve set an attack, back out of that menu with Circle, and you’ll be back in the list of slots. Once you’re done configuring that, press Circle until you’re back to the character select screen, and your settings should then work.
For customizing your equipment, it is easiest to “optimize equipment.” To do this, go to the customization screen, press Down once to “equipment,” X to select, then hold Down until you reach the bottom of the menu, which should be “optimize equipment,” press X, then Left, then X again to complete it. You’ll hear the same “ability set” sound as if you’ve just set an ability.
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Many events in Dissidia have sounds.
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