The Dissidia NT beta is a cruel reminder that I stopped playing the original PSP game a long time ago. You might remember Disposable Media covering the game’s announcement back in June, and at the time the details of the Dissidia NT beta hadn’t been revealed. However, colleagues in online communities helpfully shared links when beta sign-ups became available. I’m not someone who signs up to every beta going, but as a fan of the first PSP game I liked the idea of getting an early look at this new entry in the Dissidia series. Luckily, at around 11am this morning I received a confirmation email and download link for the Dissidia NT beta, so what follows are some initial impressions of the game.

The Dissidia NT beta lets you view a tutorial, practice against AI or jump straight into matchmaking. Since it had been a while since I last played the game, I looked at the tutorial first – it opens by fading in the controller layout (annoyingly, it automatically fades out so you’d better burn that controller image into your mind when you can) and then proceeds to show numerous captioned videos that explain the various techniques. Triggers target foes, bumpers guard and dash, circle jumps, square and cross handle bravery and HP attacks respectively and triangle (when pressed with an analogue stick direction) performs special EX skills that are governed by cooldown gauges and selected when picking your character. You can also vote on a summon for your team – each one comes with passive perks (whilst unsummoned) and active perks (whilst summoned) and there are seven to choose from. Think of it like the grooves in Capcom vs SNK or the Infinity Stones in MvC Infinite, but for the whole team.

Lobbying and battling in the Dissidia NT beta

The lobby system feels a bit rough, but that’s to be expected in a beta – there’s lots of waiting for a match to initiate, sometimes I wasn’t sure if the lobby had broken or not, and attempting to back out could sometimes result in the game failing to respond to your button presses. On a more positive note, the presentation of the lobby is tidy – it shows both teams, the characters the loadouts, the summons and the battle location. You can also chat to others by selecting preset messages, which is a thoughtful inclusion.

When you’re finally in a match the battles are fast and flashy, and it’s a harsh learning curve at first. The Dissidia NT beta showcases traditional Dissidia gameplay; that is, using bravery moves to boost your attack power, and then cashing it out for big damage. (A nice touch is being able to see how much damage you’ll do at your current bravery level, indicated by glowing highlights on enemy health bars.) However, until you learn to use dashes effectively and jump cancel out of animations, you’ll be cornered and pounded by attacks in moments. Movement plays a big part in the Dissidia NT beta, as you want to get out when you’re on the ropes, but a stamina bar prevents continued dashes. Even when you’re on the offensive, some attacks can take a while to come out and so if you try and go in on someone without checking your surroundings, their allies can sweep in and stop what you’re about to do. The most bizarre elements of the initial learning curve come from the strangely sluggish startup of certain attacks and the equally slow recovery after each knockdown, although you quickly learn to jump cancel… and often with the PSP game there would be a trade-off between speed and damage, so it’s probably worth experimenting with the roster. Besides, the strongest attacks are never free – you have to work to get the opportunity for the big damage, and if you’re the one on the receiving end of that big damage then you deserve what’s coming to you.

Picking and choosing in the Dissidia NT beta

Where general fighting game box ticking in concerned, the roster in the Dissidia NT beta features 14 characters – each from the first 14 Final Fantasy games – and whilst playing online I didn’t really see any single character dominating. How much of that is due to players experimenting with the cast of characters, or the game being genuinely balanced, remains to be seen. With this game being released after Final Fantasy XV, I have to wonder if the developer will look into DLC in the future.

Dissidia was a hard game to get into back then, and going back to it now hasn’t been easy. Players have to get out of the fighting game mindset of wearing down an opponent’s health bar with a series of blows, and instead pay attention to bravery values and work towards doing significant damage – or preferably taking someone out – in one strike. There’s a lot of visual information to help you figure out when this is possible, so the game does a lot to inform players, but you still have to adjust to that ruleset. Even so, there’s still nothing else out there quite like it, and it just makes determining the next big thing in fighting games even trickier – this, Marvel, the new Arika game and DBZ all look excellent. As always, if you’ve tried the Dissidia NT beta and would like to share your thoughts, leave a comment below.

Dissidia NT is coming to PlayStation 4 in 2018

Here at Disposable Media we all like to point and laugh at Final Fantasy for having one of the most inappropriate names for a videogame series, but amongst the mainline RPGs there are also a lot of interesting spin-offs that can appeal to fans of all kinds of genres. Admittedly there are more than a few bad cash-ins and missteps (Final Fantasy: All The Bravest, anyone?) but sometimes we end up with gems such as the Dissidia Final Fantasy series. The original Dissidia was a 1v1 fighting game where players would either use HP attacks to drain the health of the opponent, or use “Bravery Attacks” to drain an opponent’s defensive and offensive power (and increase their own attack/defence.) To keep things balanced, each HP attack would reduce the attacker’s “bravery”, ensuring that the attacker would have to build it back up with additional bravery attacks before striking again. Aside from the obvious draw of being to bat Cloud about for a bit, it made for an engaging and tactical vs. game where one powered-up attack could swing the battle in your favour. Dissidia later received a sequel and there was even an arcade game revealed in 2015, but there haven’t been many new Dissidia games on the horizon for home console gamers. That is, until we recently learned that Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is coming…

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is coming – and it looks great

Earlier this week an announcement trailer was revealed for a new game in the Dissidia Final Fantasy series. Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is coming to home consoles sometime next year, and it appears to be based on the arcade game that most people imagined would remain in Japan forever. Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is coming to PS4 and is reported to feature online multiplayer as well as the same 3v3 battle format that was featured in the arcade game. It’s being developed by Team Ninja and will feature a new story mode written by Nojima, but the combat and gameplay should be enough of a draw for most fans. The arcade game has always looked slick, fast-paced and a lot of fun – the PSP game had a lot of replay value but the hardware always made the arena battles feel a little bit unremarkable, so the big-screen treatment should work well here. Besides, in an age of gaming where everyone’s looking for conventional 1v1 fighters that can be resurrected – see Street Figher V, Tekken 7, Marvel vs Capcom Infinite – it’s refreshing to see this odd tactical fighter enjoy another home console release.

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is coming – get to know the earlier games

Knowing that Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is coming to gamers is great news for people who were looking at the arcade release with envy – the PSP original was released sometime in between Disposable Media’s PDF origins and online rebirth, so I don’t think I ever covered it here. With E3 just around the corner, there will hopefully be some more news on the game shortly. And if you’re entirely new to the Dissidia series, there’s no harm in checking out the earlier games – both the original and Duodecim are available from the PlayStation Store and playable on Vita or PSP. Admittedly it may not be easy to find online competition for these games today, but you can at least find out what you’re getting into. (And you’ll probably get more fun out of it than you will trying to play something like Ehrgeiz: God Bless The Ring.) As always, if you have fond memories of the earlier Dissidia games or wish to share your thoughts on NT, let us know below.