Dissidia Final Fantasy NT Open Beta Review (PS4)

This is a review of the open beta for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, available from 12 January until 21 January with three different sessions. Players can download the open beta from the PlayStation Store, and it is open to all PSN users, regardless whether you have PS Plus membership or not.

This game is meant to be a 3v3 arena fighting game, which is different compared to the previous Dissidia games with no RPG elements. This game is also developed by Team Ninja from Koei Tecmo games, with Square Enix being the publisher for this game. This game was also originally released on the Japanese arcades first.

This game emphasises on 3 on 3 combat, where players must defeat the enemies by depleting their HP. However, this game takes an interesting twist where an enemy's HP cannot be depleted until you deplete an enemy's Bravery points, which can be damaged using Bravery Attacks. Once a character's HP goes down to zero, the character will be KO'ed and will be revived. Each character has their own movesets, such as unique HP attack, unique Bravery combo attacks, and etc.

There are online and offline modes available in the beta. The game mode available in the beta's online mode is the standard 3 on 3 match, where you must deplete an enemy's HP three times to win. The same goes to your opponents. You can play the online mode with a party of your own character and two AI controlled characters, or play with other online players and work with them to win a match.

The offline mode has the Gauntlet Mode, where you fight six matches with different stages and enemy lineups. There are other offline modes such as the Tutorial Mode to teach the basics, as well a the Story Mode where you can view five cutscenes in the beta.

I have played around 5 or 6 matches, and I have equal losses and wins. Each fight is chaotic, but in a fun way. Each character plays almost differently, and I have fun playing as Squall, Cloud, Emperor, and Terra. I do not have much luck using Lightning or Zidane, but they seem pretty decent as well.

The beta emphasises a lot on teamwork, where you must work together to defeat an enemy or back up your ally. Summons also appear in this game, where they can change the tides of the battle quickly depending on different conditions.

This game has the Bravery system, which is also present in the previous Dissidia games where you must deplete a character's Bravery points by attacking him/her with Bravery attacks. Once it has been depleted enough, you can use a HP Attack to deplete the enemy's HP. It is a pretty neat system.

The online matches that I have played are decent, although I suffer a number of lags due to my average Internet connection. It is suffice to say that having good Internet connection may avoid this issue in the full game. Since this is just a beta, I assume it is to test the server connections as well as to find out any bugs or glitches while playing it.

Despite the full game's less emphasis on story, I find that the Story Mode cutscenes in this beta are intriguing enough. The premise is interesting enough, and the characters are pretty decent too.

The graphics are awesome. Great looking character models, environments and animations. HUD is not too cluttered as much as I thought, which is a good thing. The soundtrack is decent, but I do not particularly like all of the new arrangements of many Final Fantasy tracks. Voice acting is good too.

Overall, the open beta is decent. The tutorial mode is helpful, and this game is very different than many other arena-styled fighting games. My main concern about the full game is the possible few variety of customisable moves, which can be detrimental as each character feels lacking in moves department, but perhaps it is to balance the competitive nature of the full game.

I am not particularly sure if the full game will cater to all players, since this game is clearly designed for competitive playing between online players. I hope the full game will have good story mode and decent variety of offline modes, but I remain skeptical.

Cautiously observing the game. Interesting game, but not a day-one purchase anytime soon.

**Image is from official PlayStation game page.