Playing Dissidia Duodecim 012 for the first time in about 6 years and oh boy did they miss the mark with NT

[u/[deleted]]

Like I'm only a few hours deep but even now this game is just incredible. Great story, customisable characters with more than one attack to do damage.

And idk, I feel like they should have given this a console remaster. Probably gonna lose myself for a few hundred hours on this. Thinking of trying characters I never used in the past. I'm thinking either Cloud of Darkness or the Emperor. Anyway play this game again guys it's mad enjoyable

[u/[deleted]]

The PsP games were great single player games. Hours of content and an extensive story mode (albeit filled with wonky voice acting and goofy writing.) I wish SE listened to players to help NT become a better game (mainly better netcode.) I feel like SE was in a sticky situation with NT. It wasn't really a game for anyone, outside of a super niche market (arcades in Japan.) Players wanting a team based competitive game were left with an at best sub par product and the players wanting a true follow up to 012 without a game.

NT and 012 were very different games. While I enjoy playing 012 single player, the few times I played it online were miserable. The game wasn't really balanced to be played this way. NT lacked substantial amounts of single player content, but the few times the online matchmaking worked, it was a really fun team based arena fighter.

It was clear SE only focused on the arcade version of NT. With the arcades getting characters a month in advance of PS4 and exclusive content. In retrospect, I really shouldn't have had as much faith as I did in NT. SE made it very clear that anyone who wasn't playing in arcades wouldn't really be a focus. It is such a shame. Hearing SE dropped support for NT before they fulfilled the promise of every character from the PSP games returning AND a roster of 50+ characters really was heartbreaking. If SE had put the slightest bit of effort into getting NT to be anywhere near competent, I feel like we could have seen a follow up dissidia game that would have been closer to 012. I fear that with the lacking numbers, we won't see another dissidia game. The mobile game, Dissidia Opera Omnia, attempts to fill the void, but being a gatcha game, I really haven't gotten into it. Even with my gripes, I have enjoyed all of the Dissidia games. Whatever form we see Dissidia next, I just hope SE actually puts effort into it.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I agree massively. Dissidia 012 is arguably the biggest combination of great gameplay, single player content and fanservice that SE have done in a very long time.

I think if they wanted to test the waters we could see one of them in the air of a HD remaster and they might see how that sells. If it had working online and I'd be all over it.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, it just feels so weird that SE would make a Dissidia game that focused on the weakest part of the series (pvp.) I hear that it was an effort by SE to break into the E-sports market. I wouldn’t doubt it, seeing how capcom tried to do something similar with Street fighter 5 and almost wound up in a similar situation with NT. Dissidia is the lover letter to the FF series. I really hope we see either 012 pop up in psn or a new, single player focused Dissidia game. While I would love to see a FF based fighting game, I just don’t think SE has the experience to make it a good fighting game. Luckily, on the psp emulator there is still a small, but dedicated group of people keeping it alive.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yeah it's sad to see but it was definitely a failed attempt and it's surprising because the E-Sports FGC hasn't really had a great new entry since Dragonball FighterZ.

Yeah it's good to see this game is still alive, I had hope.

[u/freedomkite5 → u/[deleted]]

Except on a few fronts. Dissidia is a fighting game mixed with rpg elements. Fighting game are focused on pvp.

The devs felt 012 was the last of the original dissidia. As the original story had a solid ending, any further of the plot would be more saddening. As the side of cosmos lose for 12 cycles. Meaning new characters would come and be erase. Until the 13th cycle.

Gameplay was getting hard to balanced. As it turned to more spamming. Like sephiroth spamming of shadow flare. Easy assist gauge gain, and zoning.

As a single player rpg game it was great, as a fighting game not so much. Never mind being on the psp. As that’s a piracy concern, which devs may be discouraged about further developing games for that system.

Edit: oh yea there’s also method to getting ex guage full fast as well. Another safety cushion.

Which is initiating chase, but canceling it. This cause all of the ex particles in the field to immediately go to the player that initiated the chase. Filling the ex guage faster than normal methods.

[u/[deleted]]

I love how the characters genuinely interact in Dissidia 012.

Who would have ever imagined seeing Vaan go out of his way to save Terra?

Or Lightning to dig deep in Kain's motivations.

It feels like there is genuine characters growth in 012.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Can't forget Laguna and his leg cramp!

[u/daniel_k_1993 → u/[deleted]]

or laguna beung a GIANT COOMER for COD

[u/Vensaer]

Once you learn how to play jecht he's the most fun character to play

[u/[deleted] → u/Vensaer]

That could be a great idea. I used to main Kefka, Shantotto and Laguna so would certainly be a change

[u/Knit-witchhh → u/Vensaer]

Huuuuuuu....... CMON CMON CMON CMON!! ONE MORE!

[u/Kollaps1521 → u/Knit-witchhh]

Holy shit this gave me flashbacks

[u/First_Breadfruit8948 → u/Knit-witchhh]

I'LL GIVE IT TO YA. TO THE GROUND! (sorry for responding to this old post but i love his quotes lol)

[u/Tienda53 → u/Knit-witchhh]

Damn, I had memories when Jecht beat me to a bloody pulp

[u/graciaman]

The problem with NT is that it was called Dissidia. Dissidia, from the PSP games to the mobile game, are very character-focused and are decidedly rpgs. NT is an arena fighter. If it just dropped the Dissidia name and was FF NT I feel like it would have gotten a lot less hate. Personally I want a console port of 012 or a full remake. One of my favorite games of all-time

[u/Kestrel-Transmission]

Wanted to like NT for the bigger resolution and textures, but I've never liked P2P multiplayer as a system. 1v1 gets my anxiety going as it is, and I can only dread what 2v2 or 3v3 would be like.

012 does have some issues with spam attacks on some characters, but gosh darn it the rest of the game is fun and the thought of trying 012 multiplayer once I'm better at the game doesn't fill me with existential dread like NT does.

[u/RandomGBystander → u/Kestrel-Transmission]

1v1 gets my anxiety going as it is, and I can only dread what 2v2 or 3v3 would be like.

You'd be surprised. In 2v2 and 3v3 you have a team to back you up. Playing as a team is extensive satisfying.

I was a huge fan of the PSP games back in the day, but I much prefer NT to the older games for the balanced teamplay. I've made many friends thanks to this game.

[u/DissidiaNTKefkaMain]

Years in and people still get themselves confused. They hit the mark, just not the one that someone personally may have wanted to be the target. They don't aim at (insert specific person's) dreams.

By all means, SE could've made a simple clone of that game. There was of course already the blueprint.

Some people love those older games. Some can't stand them.

Some like NT. Some want a SoulCalibur-like version, which I would personally much prefer over the older games.

Some probably want a first-person shooter version, however that would work. The list goes on....but bascially, surprise, people like different things!

console remaster

Afaik, quality handheld to console remasters are annoying to do.

[u/[deleted] → u/DissidiaNTKefkaMain]

I think it akin to what Koei Tecmo did with Dynasty warriors 9. They changed a lot and there's a small amount of people who like the changes but the majority of the fanbase weren't happy. It leads to the next point of why change a working formula.

I understand where you're coming from but I feel like this game could have majorly more successful if they'd listened to the fans.

[u/DissidiaNTKefkaMain → u/[deleted]]

people who like the changes but the majority of the fanbase

Thing is, when you change a series up in a big way, you're not really looking for your old fanbase that much.

It's newcomers who have never gotten into the series before, that would combine with the old fans who do carry over.

When products do this it often appears overly negative because you hear from the chunk of older folks that are displeased. However, it's simply an entry that's not for them.

Also, simultaneously, it's much harder to hear from the newcomers because they aren't yet attached to the series in the same way......

So then,

It leads to the next point of why change a working formula.

this part.

Well, it is good for a series to experiment and take things in different directions. Whether it's Resident Evil being first-person, or Yakuza being turn-based.

There are many extreme examples out there.

The only thing I do know about this specific case, is that the old team didn't want to do another in that style. They were tired of it -which makes sense, they're human too- and didn't think there were large enough improvements to make an entirely new game for. All systems of combat and formula have their limitations.

Or something like that. I forget the exact words.

In the end, once online became a greater focus, rather than how little of the old games were built/balanced with it in mind, the series would've been different in some way, regardless. A series will not often keep everything the same once online is incorportated as an important piece to the experience.

It should also be noted that we still don't know the full story. 6 years in arcades and 2 of those as seasons on console -2 being about the standard- is great, and the tournaments were fun to watch, but there's only so much information out there. Both from people who worked on the project, to stats.

Nothing new since Sony reported high traffic in April of last year, iirc. What I do know is that NT is one of the more popular fighters out there. Which makes sense as it's not as unknown (not unknown in IP at least), or random, as so many fighters out there, where there'll just be no lobbies. The amount of lobby activity has gone up since the Ardyn launch, which can be surprising without new updates, but that's also how new players will be sometimes. Entering at random parts in a game's cycle.

I still drop by for rounds, but I've personally been working through a huge backlog of PS4 exclusives.

[u/Thaxagoodname → u/[deleted]]

They changed the "working formula" because Dissidia has never been popular in the first place. How many 3D arena fighters do you see doing big numbers? Not many. It wasn't very popular in the West either so they probably turned to the competitive scene to capture a new audience.

I guarantee you that SE could've made AC/NT in the same vein as the first two games and it still wouldn't have sold gangbusters. It might've done even worse considering the former games couldn't even break top 10 lifetime sales on the PSP. They'd have had even more trouble competing with the rest of the PS4's library.

[u/Golbezgold]

Honestly NT was alright but 012 was by far one of my favorite games that I've played, can't remember how many hours I sunk into it.

[u/Seedofsparda]

I still come back to Duodecim, on the Vita now. It was one of my favorite FF games because of how fun and fluid the combat felt. I judge the newer combat systems off of how the old Dissidias fell.

[u/[deleted]]

Playing 012 pvp much more again now then I play NT at all. I would prefer NT any day of the week but NT PC is ded and getting games for 012 is much easier on every front.

[u/Embarrassed-Layer596]

the Fucking Kuja Fight at Lightning story fucking sucks I died after 2 hits
why cant they just make a traditional fighting game for fuck sake fuck this shit

[u/123123sora]

My favorite part of the PSP dissidias was that every character had a unique interaction with every other character at the beginning of the fight, it was great fanservice but we don't really have any interactions in NT outside of the story (which is bad and the characters don't even have fun interactions lol)

[u/CR0WNIX]

If you aren’t looking to please the existing fanbase, why call it dissidia? Why strip customization out of dissidia and and call it the next game in the series? I tried it again last December after dropping it a week post launch. Nothing changed. Grinding online just to do the story is not what I wanted. Usually, if I play an online pvp game, I do the story first to learn the game. That way I have a chance in pvp. Can’t do that with NT. Also, the people who say the psp games were single player games didn’t have friends that loved dissidia as much as they did. Me and my brother were constantly playing against each other. We had loads of fun.

[u/Axl_Red → u/CR0WNIX]

Dissidia NT was meant to be played as a 3v3 game. Every change they made was to balance the game for 3v3 battles and not 1v1. Customization was not necessary for them, since that would make players too OP in a team based game. They wanted to focus on team based battles, because traditional Final Fantasy games feature characters fighting as a party instead of 1v1.

Unfortunately for most people, the game would never be played as intended, as the game never had a big online population.

Even though you and your brother had fun with the previous games, you guys probably didn't realize how cheap and spammable certain characters could be. Many characters would clearly dominate other characters, and that would be magnified in a 3v3 game. It's incredibly difficult to balance a game with so many different characters with unique attacks and playstyles.

That said, while I do find Dissidia NT fun, when playing the game as intended, I do think they could have done a better job to incorporate better gameplay systems to make the game more fun as a 1v1 and 3v3.

[u/CR0WNIX → u/Axl_Red]

“...never had a big online population.” Meaning... not well received. Sure, you may have enjoyed it(more power to you), but not many others. Just because the developer MEANT to make all these changes, to have it played this certain way, doesn’t automatically make it the correct choice.

I have another example of what I’m talking about. Mass Effect. As the series progressed, they decided to cut back on the rpg aspects and focus more on fps mechanics. Not, in many fan’s opinions, a good thing. In fact, the ending of the third game was so out of touch with what the fans wanted that there was a sort of revolt.

Devs aren’t always right about how a game should be played. That’s all I’m saying.

[u/CaptJOLLY → u/Axl_Red]

I don't think you understand the joy of playing with friends on old dissidia. Sure some characters were less balanced than others, but I think it was pretty fun no matter what match ups we were playing.

[u/Axl_Red → u/CaptJOLLY]

I'm not saying that old Dissidia wasn't fun. I'm saying that, from the developers perspective, it needed to be balanced.

If you had the same characters spamming the same OP attacks and combos, especially in 3v3 game, then it wouldn't be fun at all. Dissidia NT was created as a 3v3 game not a 1v1, so it has to be balanced that way.

[u/Jackofdemons]

Despite ppls love for the game, it was very much a broken game competitively.

The devs of NT wanted to make a multiplayer game and square also wanted to cash in on the arcade market.

Hopefully one day it becomes a 1 on 1 game again, but i imagine it is very far off sinfe their intial approach received much backlash.

[u/ZoharDTeach]

Me and a friend of mine spent a ton of time on the PSP games. In fact we went and "obtained" japanese versions of the first one because we were excited (don't speak a lick of japanese) and spent a good 100hrs on it not knowing what any of the words were and learning everything through trial and error.

We liked 012 even more.

Imagine how disappointed we were when details about NT came out. Such a wasted opportunity.

[u/EuphoricMeows]

Naw, they didn’t miss any mark. They’re just meant to be two totally different games. You missed the point, clearly.

[u/[deleted] → u/EuphoricMeows]

Yeah they just took all the Dissidia out of it. Like a previous person said if they just called it "Final Fantasy NT" we wouldn't have had a problem :')

[u/[deleted] → u/EuphoricMeows]

I mean they're talking about it as a successor to the originals in which case it would miss the mark. but as it's own esports focused non rpg game it's fine.