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 it will be released in Japan on March 3rd 2011, in North America on March 22nd 2011, Europe on March 25th 2011, and sometime later in Spring 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 will attack to steal Bravery from opponents, which increases their own, as a character lands Bravery attacks. By completely depleting an opponent's Bravery to zero, they become inflicted with Break status, preventing the opponent from inflicting Bravery or HP damage until their Bravery regenerates to a base amount, while the one who inflicted break gets a large boost in Bravery from the Map. When an HP attack connects with the opponent, they take damage equal to the attacking player's Bravery. By collecting EX Force characters can enter EX Mode, boosting their strength, adding exclusive abilities and letting them execute EX Bursts similar to Limit Breaks. New summons, arenas, music tracks and characters will be included.

One of the main new gameplay features is the Assist system, which allows characters to call an ally into battle to attack, allowing new combos to be created by chaining the moves of two characters in different fashions. The Assist system acts as a counterbalance mechanic to the EX Mode system, as landing Assist attack can deplete the opponent's EX gauge. The EX gauge can also be utilized to execute a new technique titled "EX Revenge" which will slows down the opponent's movement for several seconds at the cost of consuming the EX gauge without entering EX Mode. Several characters have gained new attacks since the original Dissidia, and several returning moves have had their properties changed. Firion, Kefka, and Shantotto in particular have been stated to be heavily rebalanced. Several other small tweaks will be implemented as well. A character's HP can now exceed the normal limit of 9999, but the new maximum is unknown. The extra damage dealt by Wall Rush has been reduced to 25% of the base damage from 50%. Chase Sequences are much faster and reward a small amount of EX Force for landing a blow. Critical hits now do 2x times the normal damage instead of 5x times.

Another major new addition is the "RPG Mode" for battle. Switching to this from the traditional "Action Mode" aims to turn combat into something more accessible to players of traditional RPGs by taking over movement and providing a persistent lock-on. Players are thus allowed to focus on attacking and defending, allowing newcomers to learn the game's mechanics in stages. The feature will also feature on-screen suggestions to help players learn the nuances of combat. The game will also have a tournament mode where multiple players can battle, and a Watch Mode will be added to allow players who are not participating in current battles to watch them on their PSP. A new battle mode called "Party Battle" allows a sequence of five battles to be fought between two parties of five characters. The characters can be assigned profiles based on the Job System to help them in battle, such as Black Mages receiving a boost to the power of magic attacks. Dissidia 012 will feature a story structure similar to the Destiny Odysseys of the original game, and will include the ability to play as the warriors of Chaos as well. The story mode utilizes a different method of storyline gameplay than the original Dissidia: a world map is used rather than tiled boards, and players are able to form parties and wander the world freely. The map shown in scans appears to be based on the map for the original Final Fantasy. Depending on the story mode being played, players can either form their own parties or have their parties pre-determined - other mechanics of the party system are currently unknown. The "Skills" command returns. Treasure chests, enemies, shops and other features can be encountered on the map. The enemy system is similar to Final Fantasy XII or Final Fantasy XIII, where enemies are visible on the map and approaching one initiates battle. . However it seems that the enemy will be able to attack and damage the player while on the world map, as shown in the Jumps Festa Trailer. Other in-battle mechanics, such as Quickmove, will be included on the World Map gameplay. Tetsuya Nomura has stated that it will take around 60 hours to beat the game.

Save data from the original Dissidia will be able to be transferred to Dissidia 012, such as character levels and as a bonus, you will receive a special accessory. The storyline of the original Dissidia, adapted to the new story gameplay mechanics, will be playable after the new storyline of Dissidia 012 has been completed.

Characters
All twenty-two playable characters in the original Dissidia will return. In addition to the original roster, eight new characters have been announced: Kain from IV, Lightning from XIII, Tifa from VII, Vaan from XII, Laguna from VIII, Yuna from X, Prishe from XI, and Gilgamesh from V. Aerith from VII is to be included as an Assist character for people who buy the demo, Dissidia Duodecim Prologus. It has been reported that there will be more than a handful of new characters, but not necessarily an equal number of heroes and villains, as in the first game, and there will not be an equal amount of characters per game or per faction. It has also been stated that all new characters will be from the SNES era forward.



Arenas
All arenas present in the original Dissidia are set to reappear, with four new additions confirmed: Orphan's Cradle, Sky Fortress Bahamut, the Crystal Tower, and the Prima Vista. An area resembling the last floor of Pandaemonium has been seen in TGS 2010 trailer. Additionally, the Jump Festa trailer showed two new arenas which appeared to be the Phantom Train and the Empyreal Paradox. It has been stated there will be as many new stages as there are new characters, but there won't necessarily exist a connection between the new stages and the 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. Dissidia 012 features these 37 new tracks: Aside of those, Dissidia 012 features all default tracks from Dissidia Final Fantasy. The soundtrack is scheduled to be released in Japan on March 2, 2011.
 * Final Fantasy ' s "Chaos Shrine", "Matoya's Cave", "Gurgu Volcano"
 * Final Fantasy II ' s "Castle Pandaemonium", "Imperial Army Theme", "Dungeon"
 * Final Fantasy III ' s "Battle 1", "Crystal Cave", "Let Me Know The Truth"
 * Final Fantasy IV ' s "Battle 1", "Theme of Love", "Suspicion", "Into The Darkness"
 * Final Fantasy V ' s "Neo Exdeath", "My Home, Sweet Home", "Dungeon"
 * Final Fantasy VI ' s "Battle 1", "Phantom Forest", "Searching For Friends"
 * Final Fantasy VII ' s "J-E-N-O-V-A", "Tifa's Theme", "Those Who Fight", "Forested Temple"
 * Final Fantasy VIII ' s "Force Your Way", "Find Your Way", "Julia", "Premonition"
 * Final Fantasy IX ' s "Grand Cross", "You're Not Alone", "The Place I'll Return To Someday"
 * Final Fantasy X ' s "Summoned Beast Battle", "Yuna's Theme", "Via Purifico", "A Fleeting Dream"
 * Final Fantasy XII ' s "Esper Battle"
 * Final Fantasy XIII ' s "Blinded By Light" and "Saber's Edge"

Summons
Furthermore, it appears that additional summons will be added to Duodecim as well. Brynhildr from Final Fantasy XIII, which can double Map Bravery, has been seen in the Jump Festa 2011 trailer with her concept art. It is however as of yet unknown how many other summons will be added as well.

Plot
Dissidia 012 will tell the story of the twelfth 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. During the war, a few of the characters from the previous game were on separate sides, as Terra, Cloud, and Tidus worked for Chaos, while Jecht was on the side of Cosmos. The game's main focus is on the new characters and explaining what happened to them, and why they didn't appear in the thirteenth 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. Nomura had previously expressed a desire to have Kain and Lightning in the first Dissidia, but they were left out.

Dissidia 012 Prologus Final Fantasy
On January 18, 2011, Square Enix released Dissidia 012 Prologus over the PlayStation Network, available in Japan for 300 Yen. The demo of the game features an 8-character arcade mode and a single story scenario following Lightning and the Warrior of Light.

Downloadable Content
It has been said that several games and demos will contain codes and such, which will allow full experience of game. These are:
 * Dissidia 012 Prologus Final Fantasy: Aerith as battle character (Assist only)
 * Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy Special Edition: Bonus outfit for Tifa (Yoshitaka Amano Art Costume)
 * Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Final Mix: Bonus outfit for Cloud (Kingdom Hearts Costume)
 * The 3rd Birthday: Bonus outfit for Lightning (Aya Brea Costume)
 * Final Fantasy IV Complete Collection: TBA
 * February 21st issue of V-Jump Magazine: Unknown outfit for Squall

Square-Enix also plans to make more downloadable content for the game in the future, and more battle themes and outfits will be purchasable this way.

Merchandise
Similar to the first Dissidia, the Dissidia 012 cast will be made into Trading Arts Figures, posing in their positions as depicted in their Dissidia 012 artwork.

In Europe, a special limited edition will be released and will include a special packaging, an artbook, a mini-OST and a fourth costume for Tifa.

Etymology
Duodecim, which is normally pronounced with a hard "c," is instead pronounced with a hard "s" for purposes of the game's title. Duodecim is Latin for "twelve," which gives the title relevance to the game's story as it revolves around the battles waged during Dissidia's twelfth cycle.

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, Lightning, Vaan, Yuna, and Prishe were all considered to be included in the original Dissidia but were excluded for various reasons.