The day started pretty well with a short training session with your friends, then you went and got a bite to eat, and finally, you are sucked into a portal that appeared out of nowhere. You are whisked away to a land that is barren except for two glowing tall towers staring each other down. You are greeted by an attack and are quickly saved by someone who you are not sure of. This is our review for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT.
From Developer Team Ninja and Publisher Square Enix comes the next iteration of the Final Fantasy fighting genre with Dissidia Final Fantasy NT. When we take a look at the surface of the product all Final Fantasy fans will be like “oh my goodness all the characters I want.” This really isn’t the case as there are many missing characters but maybe some will be added at some point. I like the idea of a Final Fantasy fighting game but there are a few things that I don’t get about the game. Let’s dig into this one.
At its core, the game is all about fighting. Whether you are fighting online or offline, or in tutorials. You fight using beloved characters from all of the current Final Fantasy games. Entering into a battle as Cloud Strike, or Squall Lionheart has always been a dream of mine, and they are just two of the best characters in Final Fantasy. The character models are gorgeous in this game, and the voice acting is really good as well. Squall finally has a voice and I can’t say that it is bad, because it kind of suits him. Each character has their own special attacks and moves that they would have used in their respective games. This is a plus, but it also means that some attacks may seem more powerful than other attacks. You have a heavy attack and a light type attack and the ability to use a magic attack. There are also cores you can destroy during battle to call in a summon that your team chooses at the beginning of the match. There are good and bad characters from each game to give you more to look at from the sides of good and evil.
The story mode is a thing in the game, but even though there are beautiful cut scenes and things to look at and watch this mode seems like an afterthought. When I look at a fighting game, I look at games like Injustice or Injustice 2. Games that give the characters an actual story mode to fight through, with the multiplayer as the second part to the game. I mean Final Fantasy is about the story as much as it is about battles. It would have been good to see the story as the main feature in this game and the multiplayer battles as the second part. That being said I have played the multiplayer several times and in each of the times I have played there have been issues. I have been disconnected before the games fully started several times, and this causes you to have penalties added to your profile for early leaving.
I have also had nothing but lag issue after lag issue. I am running with an XR700 router with a great internet connection of over 100mb/s and my computer can run at 1440p with 144fps without a problem in most games. Dissidia fails me though, the connection to opponents is so laggy that if you do get into a game you are moving in slow motion the entire time and can barely get attacks in. I have changed my in-game settings and it still acts like this. Big miss in my mind for something that is supposed to be the main part of the game.
Note: Our copy was reviewed on Steam with a code provided by PR.