Dissidia Final Fantasy Update

via IGN


With a little over one month left until the Japanese release of Dissidia Final Fantasy, coverage in publications like Famitsu and Dengeki appears to be increasing for the title. Our latest update comes from Famitsu, which offers this week a look at the game's Final Fantasy VI characters and modes of play.

The FFVI characters were first revealed at the Tokyo Game Show. Joining the Dissidia cast from the Super NES classic are Cefca Palazzo and Tina Branford. Both characters focus on magic attacks, and both gain the ability to float during EX Mode.

Primary modes of play for the title include Story Mode, Quick Battle, and Wireless Mode. These shouldn't require too much explanation. The magazine confirms that your character parameters from the Quick Battle mode can be carried over to the story mode. The Wireless mode lets two players face off in local play. The magazine also speculates that you'll be able to go to the Wireless mode to set up your AI characters for trading with other players.

While you won't be fighting, expect to spend a lot of time in the various gallery modes. The PP Catalogue mode lets you exchange PP that you've earned in quick battle and story modes to purchase battle BGM, Another Forms for each character, and other items. The Museum mode lets you view items that you purchased in the PP Catalogue mode and movies that you encountered throughout the game.

Dissidia is so big that it has two modes for settings. The Player Data Settings mode lets you set your name, and review how much time you've spent playing the game. The main Options mode lets you set up camera controls, audio levels and all the other things you'd expect from an options menu. You can also chose to install the game to Memory Stick for faster load times. The installation lets you select from 245, 373 and 528 megabytes, depending on how much space you want to give up.

Square Enix appears to be trying out some new things with Dissidia to keep players playing. In additon to the above modes, the title screen displays the date and time and even gives you access to a calendar of some form. On certain days, you'll see special icons indicating that you can get more experience by playing on that day. It's possible that there are other bonuses as well, although Square Enix ain't talking yet.

There's definitely a lot packed into the Dissidia experience, and thankfully there's just over a month to go until the Japanese release. You can bet we'll be importing this one and delivering plenty of impressions and movies.