Has anyone else here been playing this? I’ve racked in around 60 hours now and I don’t see myself stopping any time soon. I think I’ve only delved into around 5 or 6 characters so far so I’ve still got, like, 23 more characters to explore.
Every character of course has unique movesets but there are two kinds of attacks in Dissidia. First you have a large number of Bravery Attacks which are relatively quick and varied in their utility, and hitting with these raises your damage potential and lowers your target’s. Then you equip one of several HP attacks that deal actual HP damage equal to however much damage potential you had raised, but these attacks are typically so slow that they can be dodged or counter-attacked before activating. So there’s a risk/reward system of trying to increase your damage potential but risking losing it before you can use it.
HP attacks are purposely difficult to hit with because being a 3v3 game, Dissidia NT is designed to encourage teamwork. The two steps to success in a match are:
- While an enemy is focused on your teammate you hit them from behind with a bravery attack
- When you see your ally hitting an enemy with a bravery attack, you join in with a Bravery/HP attack of your own for a guaranteed hit
That two person combo is the core of the game. Even with randoms online it’s easy to intuit that you want to stick together and keep an eye out for when someone scores a bravery hit so you can be close enough to combo into an HP attack. In the chaos of an actual match that can be more difficult in practice, but it’s an easy gameplan to understand.
I think the 3v3 format also works surprisingly well as opposed to a lower number. 2v2 is oddly easy to manage because you can see one person at all times and then you can mentally track the second person with peripheral vision. But adding a third person adds just enough extra information that it’s not as easy to keep track of and isn’t as manageable by yourself, so you rely on teammates to have your back.
I really like how well designed the cast is and how intuitive their role in battle become once you understand the game’s fundamentals. I like how important managing vertical movement and vertical space control is, and how it’s a part of character moveset designs. There’s also this EX Skill system where you can equip additional abilities that add some extra ways to fine tune your individual playstyle and team roles.
The Summon system is also intelligently done, where they provide team wide buffs when summoned but to summon them you have to destroy these Summon Cores that periodically appear on the field, forcing both teams into close quarters and moving the conflict to the different part of the environment.
The strategy surrounding the targeting system is neat, in that you have the FF12 style targeting lines that show you when and from where you’re being targeted and they turn red when you’re being actively attacked. But you can play with this expectation by attacking and then switching targets to remove your targeting line, or moving up on someone using only the radar and then switching targets right before you attack to catch someone by surprise.
Overall I’ve been finding it to just be a really cool game. I did not expect to like it as much as I do. If anyone else got it let’s team up sometime!