http://www.gamingunion.net/news/dissidia-nearing-western-release-looks-very-solid--49.html
Square Enix have tried their hand at fighting games in the past, with Ehrgeiz and Bushido Blade being some of their previous attempts. So when an announcement was made about a new 3D based Final Fantasy fighting game for the Sony PSP called Dissidia: Final Fantasy, the initial reaction was one of pessimism.
The idea for Dissidia was initially conceived by Square Enix veteran Tetsuya Nomura while working on Kingdom Hearts II. The plan was to make a successful fighting game that mirrored fight scenes seen in the film Advent Children, while also making it a game that celebrated the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy. To do this, the game features a multitude of characters from the franchise, with two being present from each game between Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy X. Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XII are also present, but they only have one representative each. To make it fair, each game has one heroic character and one villainous character; except the final two, of course.
The main bulk of the game is made up with the story mode. Initially only the heroic characters are available for selection, and each of their campaigns is given a difficulty grade. Upon completion of the campaign, the respective character for that game is unlocked on the villain side. The story is incredibly deep, and it was difficult to try and meld all of the characters into the same story. At a recent Square Enix event, Takeshi Arakawa, the game's director, had the following to say on the subject:
It was difficult at times [to bring all the characters together]. Obviously Dissidia has its own original story and the idea was that we chose one heroic character and one villain from all the FF games in the past and obviously there are lots and lots of characters we would like to choose, but we had to stick to the concept of this new game. So we chose the characters which would fit in better with the new game.
Progression through the story mode is achieved by moving through a grid-type system. There will be fights which have to be won in order to progress, or to obtain the special items that can be found on that specific level. Upon completing of these fights, the final battle is unlocked and winning this allows access to the next stage and a progression in the story.
The gameplay is actually very unique and a large amount of effort has gone into trying to make this game a much different experience than people are used to. One such difference is the Brave System. As well as having Hit Points (HP), each character also has Brave Points, and the addition of this extra level makes combat much more tactical. A character can perform both a physical attack and a brave attack, but the physical attack does damage equivalent to the amount of Brave Points held by the user. After a powerful physical attack is performed, the amount of Brave Points held then resets to 0 and more must be acquired by performing brave attacks on the opponent. 
In addition to this, characters can also enter an EX-Mode, which enables them to perform much more powerful attacks and they can also use Summons. These factors, in conjunction with the interesting evading techniques and active elements, which allow interaction with the level, make the gameplay very varied and rewarding.
The other component of the game is the online mode. This allows players to connect over the internet and battle against each other with the characters they've been using throughout their single-playing campaign. Experience gained in these fights actually counts towards the offline campaign, and there are other nice touches like being able to choose specific battle music from any Final Fantasy game featured.
Although initial views about the game were sceptical, Dissidia: Final Fantasy looks set to be the complete package and it's what Final Fantasy fans have been craving for all these years. Finally they will be able to determine who really would win a fight between Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart and in style too. There is still no definitive release date for Dissidia: Final Fantasy in the western world other than Mid-2009 in North America and Autumn 2009 in Europe, but it looks like it could definitely be worth checking out when it does finally materialise.
