Dissidia Duodecim Final Fantasy : Prologus

As some of you may know, the new Dissidia Final Fantasy - Dissidia Duodecim Final Fantasy (DDFF) will soon be released but for those who follow a little more in depth also know that the Japanese demo is out on their PSN marketplace for a little more than $3. North America and Europe should be getting a demo on their respective market places at some point but for now, I've got my hands on the Japanese version and would like to throw out some opinions about the core system changes from Dissidia to Duodecim.

Assist System

The assist system is brand new to the DFF series and tries to address the issue of some characters having a hard time landing brave or HP attacks. It works really well and they play a big role in the gameplay. It's definitely something you'll need to adapt to because not using them will handicap you severely and not learning to deal with them properly will allow for your opponent to score big combos.

Some characters like Jecht (my personal main) are able to score three consecutive HP hits thanks to the assist system and how it works with his personal moveset. Other characters might rely on assists for long, damaging combos to score breaks (and the brave pool). Almost everyone can set "traps" with their assists which range from punishing dodges to forcing the opponent to choose between getting hit by your HP attack or your assists HP attack. Characters like Cecil should have an easier time with their brave game and characters like Squall should be able to grab those hard-to-find HP opportunities a little easier.

Building assist is usually done simply by using attacks BUT if you're low on HP or very low on brave and score a counter hit, you'll get something called "Assist Charge". Depending on how much risk you took to land that counter attack (ex: very low HP) you could fill up your entire Assist gauge or half of the gauge. It puts a lot of risk and reward into the game and leaves players with more questions like "Will he really take that chance?". I think this system will provide for a much richer Player versus Player (PvP) experience.

EX System

A lot about EX has been changed. For one, a lot of moves no longer produce a lot of EX force and the player needs to be more mindful of what moves create a lot of EX force for them and what doesn't and use those moves accordingly. Thanks to less EX force in general, EX cores don't usually have a lot of EX to offer when someone gets to them unless they are left to build up.

EX Countering/Splicing/etc has been completely removed. Now, if you use your EX mode while being hit or while suffering from hitstun/knockback you'll enter something called EX Revenge. You expend your entire EX Bar for ~5 seconds of free attacks. Some characters like Garland can really use this to their advantage to do some serious damage while other characters like Jecht might want to use their EX mode instead (situational dependent obviously).

If you DON'T use EX Revenge, you'll enter EX mode just like in the original Dissidia and have ~22 seconds of time to play with your added abilities and possibly score an HP hit and burst (again, just like Dissidia).

Assists and EX are opposites

The two were designed to be opposite of each other to help balance the game out. In practice, it works really well. If a player enters EX mode, the opponents Assist gauge drops to 0 BUT if the opposing player hits the EX moded character with an Assist attack, they'll score an EX Break. This kicks the player out of EX mode and gives the other player the brave pool. If the EX mode player can predict and counter the assist, they score an Assist Break which seals off the Assist gauge for the opponent and gives the EX moded player the brave pool.

As you can see, there isn't a "safe" tactic or strategy, it's more up to the player to decide which approach they'll be more comfortable with and what they can more readily deal with.

Extra

Obviously a lot of characters have seen a lot of changes ranging from something small like the ending lag on a move being reduced to having complete game changing overhauls. I won't cover them all because there is a lot but know that all characters have changed in at least some way.

Some of the core system mechanics have been tweaked a bit as well. For example, now you get severely punished for wiffing a block. If the opponent guard crushes or punishes the block cooldown, they score a 100% critical rate. Riposte no longer scores 100% criticals and criticals themselves have been reduced from x5 damage to x1.85. Brave pools seem significantly more balanced and players can't easily rely on one or two breaks for a win now.

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There have been a lot of changes made and the game is a lot more solid this time around. We're also looking at quite a few new characters:
- Kain (FFIV)
- Gilgamesh (FFV)
- Tifa (FFVII)
- Laguna (FFVIII)
- Yuna (FFX)
- Prishe (FFXI)
- Vaan (FFXII)
- Lightning (FFXIII)

I can't possibly cover everything, but just know that the game is completely different and plays a lot better this time around. I highly encourage everyone interested to grab the demo when it comes out in their areas since you can unlock items that carry over to the final game and (at least for the Japanese demo) you'll unlock and exclusive Aerith Assist in the final game as well. If you want more in depth information, the following sites are fairly well maintained and have a lot of good information floating around:

http://dissidiaforums.com
http://www.counterburst.com/forum.php

Finally, here are a few gameplay videos of hard arcade mode with Jecht for those interested:

Fights 1-5

Fights 6-10

Fights 11-15

Fights 16-20

Fights 21-25

Fights 26-30

That's all for now
~Veysey