Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy

Unreleased

Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy​ is the prequel to Dissidia Final Fantasy. It is currently in development for the PlayStation Portable and in the Spring of 2011, it will be released within Japan, and sometime in 2011 for the rest of the world.

Gameplay
Dissidia Duodecim's gameplay will be very similar to the original's, featuring all of the original gameplay elements, characters and arenas. Fighters have Bravery points that increase when they use Bravery attacks and decrease when they are hit with a Bravery attack. Depleting an opponent's Bravery to zero inflicts a Bravery Break on them, boosting the player's Brave greatly and preventing the opponent from inflicting Brave damage until their Brave regenerates. When an HP attack is used, the opponent takes damage equal to the attacking player's Brave. By collecting EX Force characters can enter EX Mode, boosting their strength and letting them execute EX Bursts similar to Limit Breaks. Several characters have gained new attacks since the original Dissidia, and Firion's fighting style has been entirely redone. New summons, arenas, music tracks and characters will be included. Characters will be able to have more than 9,999 HP, but it is unknown if attacks and Brave will also be able to break this limit.

The main new gameplay feature shown thus far is the "Assist" system, represented by two bars underneath the HP gauges. The bars fill during battle and can be used to call a pre-set ally into battle to perform an attack, depending on how many bars are filled. This allows new combos to be executed by combining the skills of different characters. The player can execute an "Assist Lock" by attacking the opponent's ally when they are called to attack, temporarily disabling the opponent's ability to use Assists. An "Assist Change" allows the player to call an ally into battle when being attacked to take the brunt of the attack and protect them. Finally, an "Assist Charge" is executed when blocking and attacking the opponent when low on HP or close to Brave Break, and instantly charged the Assist gauge to full. >The Assist attacks break enemy combos, and thus entering EX Mode, commonly called an "EX Guard" no longer does this. Instead, a new feature called "EX Revenge" blocks the opponent's attack, but consumes the entire EX Gauge without allowing EX Mode. Because EX Bursts are intended to be Limit Break-like attacks used to end battles or do heavy damage, Assists are meant to act as an opposite mechanic to them by doing minor damage over time and being used repeatedly. To accommodate this new system many equipment pieces and attacks have been re-balanced.

Save data from the original Dissidia will be able to be transferred to Dissidia 012, but the effects of this are currently unknown. The game will feature a story structure similar to the Destiny Odysseys of the original game, and will include Chaos story modes as well.

Characters
In a recent interview with Tetsuya Nomura it has been stated that all characters will return. In addition, three new characters have been announced: Kain from IV, Lightning from XIII, and Tifa from VII, all three of whom are aligned with Cosmos. Also, bundled with the first shipments of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Final Mix and The 3rd Birthday are access codes that can be used to unlock Cloud's Kingdom Hearts and Lightning's Aya Brea attire as alternate costumes, respectively. It is not currently known whether or not there are more upcoming games that will have access codes for other costumes, or if the known games have more access codes that are not yet revealed. It has been stated that more than just a handful of new characters will be included, but there will not be an equal amount of characters per game or per faction. Also, it has been revealed that there will be between 4-10 new characters, with 3 of them already revealed thus far.

Arenas
According to the fansite Final Fantasy Network, all of the Arenas return, with two new additions confirmed: Orphan's Cradle and Sky Fortress Bahamut. The last floor of Pandaemonium has been seen, but it is currently unknown if it is its own arena or an extension of the original Pandaemonium arena. Also, the extended trailer shows a new arena that resembles the Prima Vista. Tetsuya Nomura stated that Square Enix would include as many new stages as new characters.

Music
It has been announced that Square Enix will include nearly twice as many music tracks and more of them will be original/retro, compared to the original. The game's soundtrack will be composed/arranged by Takeharu Ishimoto, who was also responsible for the first Dissidia's music.

Plot
Dissidia 012 will tell the story of the 12th cycle of battle between the warriors of the gods. According to Siliconera, the game will feature something like the Destiny Odysseys, only they will include Chaos characters as well. The game's main focus is on the new characters and explaining what happened to them, and why they won't be present in the 13th cycle shown in Dissidia.

Development
Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy was announced in the Japanese magazine Shonen Jump in early September 2010. It had previously been hinted at by the Dissidia development team, who stated that they would love to make a sequel and that the decision would depend on the success of the first installment; and JD Cullum, Kuja's English voice actor, who offhandedly stated he had recorded his lines for Dissidia 012 in the Summer 2010. Judging from statements by the other voice actors, it appears that the whole English script of Dissidia 012 was recorded at the start of Summer 2010.

According to an interview between Takashi Arakawa and Yoshinori Kitase (director, writer, and producer of Dissidia) with a German gaming site, Kitase stated that a sequel would be "very interesting", and might even include Kingdom Hearts characters, although it would still have to be discussed with Disney. Tetsuya Nomura has stated that for a potential sequel, he would like to include Kain Highwind, Gilgamesh, and Sazh Katzroy, but would not include Kingdom Hearts characters.

Etymology
Duodecim, pronounced with a hard "c", is Latin for "twelve".

Trivia

 * Prior to the official announcement, two separate hoaxes had "revealed" that Kain and Lightning would appear in Dissidia Final Fantasy: Universal Tuning. The hoaxes involved elaborate fake magazine pages created in Photoshop and complete with fake Kain artwork and fake Lightning 3D models.
 * Kain and Lightning were considered to be included in the original Dissidia but were excluded for various reasons.
 * Bobby Edner stated in May 2010 he recorded lines for Vaan for a new Final Fantasy game. It is currently unconfirmed if he meant Dissidia 012 or another game to be announced.
 * Interestingly, Cosmos and Chaos's positions on the logo have been swapped from that of the original Dissidia.
 * According to Siliconrea a possible prologue titled Dissidia Duodecim Prologus was found in Europe.