Dissidia Final Fantasy NT

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is a team-based fighting game developed by Team Ninja of Koei Tecmo and published by Square Enix and Taito. It was released as Dissidia Final Fantasy in Japan for arcades in November 2015, using modified PlayStation 4 hardware, though Square Enix noted it would not be considered until at least a year after the original release. Later, an enhanced port was announced for PlayStation 4 now named Dissidia Final Fantasy NT in June 2017, which then released in January 2018. Tetsuya Nomura returned to design the characters, while Takeharu Ishimoto provided the score. The game is the third game released in the Dissidia Final Fantasy series, the first to be team-based, and the first not released for PlayStation Portable.

The original arcade release did not contain any story content until the "Battle of the Gods" DLC. The story centers around the conflict between the goddess Materia and the god Spiritus, who have summoned warriors to fight for them against the other.

The game is a three-versus-three based fighting game, in which battles take place in three dimensional stages based on locations from the Final Fantasy series. Players select characters from one of four different classes (Vanguard, Marksman, Assassin or Specialist) and pit them against the other team.

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is related to Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia, which continues the story of the conflict between Spiritus and Materia.

Gameplay
Compared to its predecessors, the game's battle system is said to be remade from the ground up. New to the game is the three-on-three combat feature, where a single player commands three characters, switching direct control between them while the other two characters are AI controlled. A player can choose to have more than one of the same character on their team, and one-on-one combat will still be available.

Playable characters are now divided into four combat categories to identify that characters personal fighting style: the power-orientated Vanguards focus on dealing the highest damage and are the designated tanks of the team; agility-based Assassins have fast mobility or very high attack speed; the ranged-based Marksmen primarily attack from a distance; and the varied Specialists, which have unique battle traits. All fighting styles, bar the Specialists, adhere to a, with Assassins being strong against Marksmen, Marksmen being strong against Vanguards, and Vanguards being strong against Assassins.

The game retains some core elements from the previous Dissidia games. Characters can perform two kinds of attacks, Brave Attacks and HP Attacks. Doing a Brave Attack will decrease the opponent's Bravery stat and increase the attacking player's Bravery by the damage done. Doing an HP Attack will inflict damage equal to the player's current Bravery. Decreasing an opponent's Bravery to zero will result in a Bravery Break, giving the attacking player a substantial increase to their Bravery. Characters have seven Bravery attacks at a time: three ground attacks, three midair attacks, and one attack that can be performed while dashing. Each character can only equip one HP attack. Some attacks that were HP attacks in previous titles are now Bravery attacks, such as Terra's Tornado. Players cannot customize Brave attacks and can customize only one HP Attack and two EX Skills. It is possible to save "battle sets" for characters: 1 HP Attack, 2 EX Skills and a costume.

Each character has an independent HP bar, and the party has one HP bar and a summon bar. When the player character is KO'd, one part of the team HP bar is erased. If the global HP bar depletes, the team loses. Double jumping returns, though some characters can now perform triple jumps, such as Lightning and Onion Knight. Dashing now uses up a stamina gauge, and can only be performed for a limited period of time, though the direction in which can now be changed by using the analog stick mid-air. Dodging is now a step, which has more invincibility frames than the original dodge.

The shield deteriorates very slowly and blocks everything, but every time one blocks an attack, the shield starts to break. Shield deterioration is shown as color changes from green to orange to red. When someone is targeting a player, a blue link will appear above them and the enemy's head, and also on the minimap. When the opponent attacks, the blue link turns red to show when to dodge.

EX Mode returns, renamed "EX Skill," and encompasses up to three skills that a character can activate in battle. Some of these skills are based on the original Dissidia EX Modes, such as Terra entering Trance and Cloud entering a "Limit Break" state, while others have support effects such as Regenga, which recovers the user's HP. EX Skills boost rely on the utility spells encountered in Final Fantasy games. For example, the ability to shield oneself or one's allies, the ability to heal or to use a break attack to destroy the enemy's defense. EX Skills and EX Bursts are available after some time and after using them, one must wait before they become available again; the cooldown is represented as a white circle around the circles and the biggest circle is the EX Burst. EX Bursts have been made weaker in comparison to the previous Dissidia games where they were often so powerful as to gain an instant win. EX Bursts are also weaker than summons.

Summoned Monsters can be called by filling a Summon Gauge during battle by hitting the opponent or shattering crystal cores located sporadically, then charging the gauge it to call a summon. If all three members charge the gauge simultaneously, the summon sequence will instantly commence. Summons are auto-controlled allies that assist the player in battle directly, and change the battlefield's appearance (e.g. when summoning Ifrit the arena is engulfed in an aura of fire). The effect disappears as the summon is dismissed after 30 seconds. If the player is hit while channeling a summon, the summoning will be interrupted.

Character customisation is another new feature, enabling players to swap out colors for each character attire, and also the weapons wielded by them in battle.

Setting
The console launch version has fourteen arenas, one from each of the main series through Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy XIV, and more stages from other series will be added in the future.

Each stage features a change in atmosphere after half the time during battle has passed or if either teams HP gauge are depleted by two-thirds. These changes reflect the events that took place within that location's original game, and represents when battles are reaching their climax.

Characters


There are 28 characters available at launch in the console version, and an additional 6 with the DLC included, totalling the roster to 34.

The Season Pass revealed that there will be at least six more characters available as downloadable content after the console release, of which five of them are new to the series. Hints from the developers teased who they were before the games' Japanese release; Three male characters from the recent Final Fantasy titles, one male from the older titles, and two females from the recent titles, one of which is returning from the PlayStation Portable games. Characters from older titles are through Final Fantasy to VII, while recent titles are through Final Fantasy VIII to XV.

Characters in Italics are available as DLC, and/or as part of the Season Pass.

Summons
Summons play a more active role in battles in that they participate during the battle itself, damaging opponents with their signature attacks, and dealing other attacks across the stage. When a summon is present, the stage will not commence its stage transition until the summon has completed its attacks, unless it has already transitioned mid-battle, and the timer stops temporarily until the summon has completed its sequence, giving players more time to act in battle.

Each summon has a beneficial boost to a specific battle mechanic, and these boosts take effect both before and after the summon appears in battle (e.g. Alexander boosts the teams HP gauge and Leviathan improves debuff skills).

Summons in Italics are added via update.

Story
Long after the events of the previous thirteen cycles, the dimension of World B is revitalized for a conflict between Materia, the goddess of protection, and Spiritus, the god of destruction, who respectively summon the warriors of Cosmos and Chaos as their champions. Unlike their prior involvements, both the heroes and the antagonists summoned to the new war no longer have their memories wiped out; all of the warriors regain their lost memories from the old conflict, learn all information about the thirteen cycles, and retain their memories of their original worlds.

Noctis is presumably riding in the back seat of the Regalia when he is engulfed in white light, finding himself transported to a seemingly uninhabited land, only to soon encounter an Evanescent Glimmer. Just as it is about to strike, Noctis is saved by the real Lightning, who eliminates the manikin and assures that she is real. Recognizing that this is his first time in this realm, she explains there should be other champions who have arrived, and the two are greeted by the Warrior of Light. As the two welcome Noctis to the fight, he reluctantly accompanies them to see the new goddess that succeeds Cosmos. Meanwhile, Shantotto stumbles upon Sephiroth with the Cloud of Darkness and Kefka heading to meet Spiritus, while Zidane Tribal/Dissidia converges with Firion/Dissidia and Cecil Harvey/Dissidia, as well as Squall and the newcomer Y'shtola, with all parties seeking to reach her domain.

At Materia's tower, Materia introduces herself as the champions are informed by her that she summoned in order to fight each other so as to produce enough energy to sustain the existence of this world. Because many of these champions had participated in the endless wars that the world had once been a stage to, most were unwilling to fight. However, their meeting is interrupted by Spiritus, who declares that he rules that world, instigating the conflict between them. Materia then orders her champions to fight his forces. Noctis asks how they are to return to their home worlds, but Materia dismisses his question.

Suspicious of the gods' unfamiliarity with their world and each other, Materia's warriors separate to further investigate the reason behind the new conflict.

They learn from the world's summons that both gods were created from Cosmos's desire to protect the world. They also discover a separate threat in the form of "planesgorgers"—manifestations of Shinryu, the draconic being responsible for creating the previous cycle of war between Cosmos and Chaos—which threaten to absorb the world's energy and eradicate the world. When the world becomes overwhelmed with planesgorgers, the two sides form a truce to vanquish Shinryu himself, leading to a deliberate clash that lures him out. The warriors destroy Shinryu and return to their respective worlds, leaving behind duplicates of themselves with their memories of World B so that they may continue fighting on the gods' behalf.

Hardware
Around the end of 2012, producer Takeo Kujiraoka was talking with Dissidia Final Fantasy director Mitsunori Takahashi about creating the next Dissidia entry. The first thing the two tried to nail down was which hardware platform to go with. At the time, it was being planned as a sequel to a PlayStation Portable game, and thus going for the PlayStation Vita was a natural choice, but Taito, a subsidiary of Square Enix, suggested doing an arcade Final Fantasy game.

Character designer Tetsuya Nomura felt that "all that there is was to do" was accomplished by the two PlayStation Portable Dissidia games and took the stance that it was "completed." That's why the direction with the new Dissidia Final Fantasy was decided to be different from the start. Ichiro Hazama, the producer, approached Nomura with the idea for an arcade version, and Nomura gave the go ahead.

Kujiraoka was unfamiliar with the current arcade scene, and started with research. He was shocked how much arcades had changed since his youth, with people now using ID cards for save data. Discovering this feature was the catalyst to go with the arcade platform. With a console release that includes the desired characters and features and adds new characters through DLC and rebalances the old ones, the number of players still steadily decreases. With arcades, however, players can go and play and always have the most up to date version of the game, creating a fair online environment for everyone. The user can save their game, and Square Enix can keep adding new characters. Thus, the developers figured the arcade platform was workable both for players and creators.

As this was this development team's first foray into arcade gaming, Kujiraoka talked with people who had previously published arcade games with Square Enix, like the Lord of Vermillion producer Takamasa Murasaki. He was told how interesting arcades can be with the short distance between developers and players, and the possibility of going to an arcade and seeing people play the game, gather feedback and respond to it in a timely manner. This was an attractive proposition to Kujiraoka, who had witnessed players' excitement at Dissidia Final Fantasy tournaments.

Hayashi's team felt that 60fps was necessary, despite members outside of the team expressing doubt over it. Hayashi has explained it makes the game glide along in a simple, stress-free way—something he considers integral to getting people into arcades day after day.

Dissidia Final Fantasy was announced during the Japan Amusement Expo (JAEPO) trade show in Chiba, Japan on February 14, 2015.

In a press conference on April 10, 2015, Sony Interactive Entertainment president Atsushi Morita revealed that the game is being developed with the core technology of the PlayStation 4. Square Enix said that they want to release it for arcades first and the console version will not be available until at least a year after the launch. Producer Ichiro Hazama contacted Sony (SCEJA) about getting PS4-based arcade hardware. What he got was literally an arcade machine with a PS4 inside it, albeit one that had been customized for arcade use. The game will use a controller akin to a divided DualShock 4 in lieu of traditional arcade buttons and stick to help traditional Final Fantasy players get into the game.

Cooperation with Team Ninja
The work started on the game at the beginning of 2013, and full development by the end of the year. Team Ninja put Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate Arcade out in 2013 under Sega Interactive, and the team was in talks with Taito to work with them. Acting director from Tecmo Koei, Yosuke Hayashi, told he would create something on the condition he could use Final Fantasy characters, but at the time he was not thinking specifically of doing a Dissidia game. The producers Ichiro Hazama and Takeo Kujiraoka introduced Hayashi to the Dissidia development team. Kujiraoka stands in as director from Square Enix's side, but other than that, Team Ninja handles everything internally with Yosuke Hayashi at the helm. The team does get indirect cooperation from Square Enix, such as overseeing the CG work. Tetsuya Nomura is one of the people on the Square Enix side overseeing the graphics.

Battle system
It was decided early on to go with a 3 vs 3 concept. The developers wanted to give the game the "FF party feeling" by including multiple characters to a player's side. A 1 vs 1 concept was ruled out as Team Ninja already had a 1 vs 1 fighting game IP (Dead or Alive), so even if the team was to create a new one, it would inevitably be the same fundamental gameplay, and the team felt it would be difficult to alter that into something distinct. 3 vs 3 allowed the developers to think of something new, and a chance for players to co-operate with friends, play against others, and create a team they could call a "party."

Although design briefs did not change much there was a time, Kujiraoka's feelings on the 3 vs 3 player count would change daily. He considered exploring 1 vs 1, or having the computer take over for two of the characters, or even having teams of four. At one point, he even considered 10 vs 10. During the development of Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, Takahashi said that creating a party was an expected part of a numbered Final Fantasy–something he wanted to replicate. He felt convinced they could create Final Fantasy-like battles if they used something like the party battle system in the previous Dissidia, where the player controlled one character at a time.

Conceptually, the new Dissidia Final Fantasy game was to be fun to play socially, but also fun to play seriously. When releasing an arcade game, it was not enough to just be fun socially, as players need to understand why they lost. Hayashi explained to Kujiraoka why it was necessary for the game to be fun on the basis of pure action and that is why the RPG elements of the previous Dissidia games needed to be mostly stripped. Kujiraoka, in turn. had Hayashi play Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy to showcase the feel of the game he was looking for.

Although the team is trying to replicate the visual and sound effects from the previous Dissidia games, there will be some changes as before since the animation would freeze during Bravery Breaks; this was deemed unacceptable in a tense match. At one point, there were talks about scrapping the Brave system, but ultimately it was kept in, as it was conceived as a way for those who struggle with fighting games to have a chance of turning the tables, and it had been received well previously.

There will be only few arenas available for the game's initial phase because level design has changed a lot from the previous games, and the team wants to see how people play and the kind of strategies they come up with so that the developers can add new arenas accordingly.

The PlayStation 4 version has 1 vs. 1, 1 vs. 2, 1 vs. 3, 2 vs. 2, and 2 vs. 3 options apart from the default 3 vs. 3 gameplay.

Story
Both the arcade and console versions share the same worldview and story written by Kazushige Nojima based on Saori Itamuro's draft, with the console version chronologically taking place first. Ichiro Hazama explains that the new conflict between Materia and Spiritus "is not just a simple battle between good and evil," contrasting how the old conflict between Cosmos and Chaos was depicted as "a classic struggle between good and evil for the fate of that world" in the previous Dissidia games. He emphasizes the storyline will center on the warriors discovering why they have been called back to this world and why the new conflict is taking place between Materia and Spiritus. The tale is told through cutscenes known as "Events" that can be unlocked by participating in battles. The game will have over 60 minutes of cutscenes. When asked whether or not characters like Ramza and Ace will be involved in the story and the possibility of adding more cutscenes after the game's release through patches and DLC that would allow them to participate, Hazama reveals that Tetsuya Nomura has expressed interest in adding new story cutscenes through DLC after the game's release.

Characters
Upon the game's initial arcade release, there were only the 14 characters. However, through regular updates the count is increasing towards the developers' goal of 50 characters, including those from spin-off titles. The developers have even stated that once the goal of 50 characters has been reached, they would like to include even more as to them, as "50 feels like a small number" to them. They also wish for characters playable in previous games to return.

Tetsuya Nomura has said he'd like to see Minwu from Final Fantasy II in the game, but there has been no statement from the development staff on his inclusion otherwise. Ichiro Hazama and Takeo Kujiraoka said they'd personally want Umaro from Final Fantasy VI as well as Auron from Final Fantasy X and Aranea Highwind from Final Fantasy XV respectively, to be playable as well. Hazama also stated that, although he was impressed with the idea, including Beatrix from Final Fantasy IX would be "impossible" (at least for the 'Villains Year', which was 2017). Kujiraoka also stated that he would be interested in seeing a character who would make use of a partner be playable, using Rinoa Heartilly and Angelo from Final Fantasy VIII as an example for this case, and that he would be interested in seeing Noel Kreiss from Final Fantasy XIII-2 become playable, and that Kenichi Suzumura, the voice actor of Zack Fair from Final Fantasy VII, approached him and asked to have a role in the game. Producer of Final Fantasy XIV Naoki Yoshida also expressed his approval for Nael van Darnus, Alphinaud Leveilleur, and Zenos yae Galvus to be added. Furthermore, Team Ninja has stated that it has no plans to include Dead or Alive characters; however, they have brought up the idea of including guest characters from other Square Enix franchises. In the Secretum event, Auron and Rinoa are mentioned. Further, Phoenix was featured during the live reading, though whether or not it will appear as a summon in the game is unknown.

Music
Takeharu Ishimoto, the composer for the two prior Dissidia games, returns to compose the soundtrack. Two new vocal versions of the series theme "DISSIDIA", the orchestral "Explosion" and the rock "Massive Explosion", appear as the game's main themes and battle themes. "Massive Explosion" is performed by Ishimoto's band The Death March, while the vocals for both versions are provided by Death March singer Chris Ito.

The soundtrack includes a number of new arrangements of tracks from the series, some of which had been featured in the previous Dissidia games in their original forms, as well as some returning arrangements from the Dissidia series. All of the new rearranged tracks are performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, including the new tracks originating from Final Fantasy Tactics that were implemented along with Ramza Beoulve in later versions. The recordings were done in in United Kingdom.

Songs both old and new included are available in their original format as well.

Etymology
The arcade version shares the same title as the original Dissidia game, because the developers wanted to show their earnestness in doing an arcade version and so felt that not adding any numbers or subtitles and simply rebooting was the best choice.

The "NT" in Dissidia Final Fantasy NT began as simply taking character designer Tetsuya Nomura's initials in order to later find a meaning. "New Tale" was the decided result. . During the prior 30th anniversary livestream, the additional meanings of "New Trial" and "New Tournament" were given alongside this. "New Tale" may refer to the story being about the fight between Materia and Spiritus, instead of Cosmos and Chaos, while "New Trial" and "New Tournament" might just refer to it being a reboot.

Coincidentally, it could also stand for "Ninja Team", referencing the partnership between Square Enix and Team Ninja for this game.

Trivia

 * This is the first Dissidia game to feature playable characters outside of the main series.
 * On the official website, the images for each stage feature an image of their appearance in their original series. The Eden stage initially featured the image of its destruction in the ending of Final Fantasy XIII, but was later changed to feature that of its original appearance in-game.
 * With three representatives, Final Fantasy IV is the series with the most playable characters at launch, and the first series where all its representatives from Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy were confirmed to return.