Dissidia! It's like crack...except it only costs you money once!

Final Fantasy has been one of the most amazingly fun series to play in my off-time. While I do not feel that every single thing with Final Fantasy attached to it has been golden... *cough* Crystal Chronicles Crap *cough*As a generality it has been incredible with it's vivid environments and breath-taking visuals. The story has been rich and enjoyable and the characters have been more than memorable, even sometimes epic. Final Fantasy has spurred many geek-outs and tons of cosplay's, among many which should not have been done... /shiver, while also giving inspiration and creative guidance to it's genre's advancement. Many great games have taken some key components from the revolutionary content that Final Fantasy has given birth to and made them shine brilliantly.

This is not to say, however, that the Final Fantasy series did not take ideas from other great games and expand upon them. We have many great games that were made in the Role-playing Genre that have been equally, if not much more, amazing in story, art, architectural design, environmental design, character development, music composition, and the list could go on and on beyond my current one... A few greats come to mind... Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest, and Legend of Dragoon. They all shared something that kept bringing players back and sometimes even to this day. That is addictiveness. These games were so addictive I know that I personally spent many, many hours of my life I should have spent doing other things attempting to get that one last rare item, or beat that one last boss.

Sadly, I have not been impressed enough by many games as of late to the point in which I am with Dissidia. I cannot deny that I bought it with some relativity to the fact that I could play with some of my favorite Final Fantasy characters and that maybe... just maybe that drove me harder than other things to purchase it. In my defense... I did play the demo beforehand. It was amazing. Fairly simplistic, enjoyable, addictive action litters this game throughout it's entirety. I have only played this game for 7 days currently and the amount of content remaining to even be attempted is immense. While I would have loved to play with more characters the amount already playable is very enjoyable and makes up for the want to play as some of my favorite, less mainstream ones. Then again, with today's technology we can see updates to the games we buy and might can look forward to a content upgrade in 3-6 months.

In addition to the interesting storyline, there are your typical modes of play for a fighting game. There is Arcade Mode, Quick Battle, and the online capabilities with the ability to fight friends who you've sparred with in the past in a "ghost" fight. You have the ability to create 3 different sets of equipment per character allowing you to use three different play-styles with the same character. There is a leveling system from 1-100 and any RPG gamer would know the difference that each level can make in any fight. The visuals are amazing, the gameplay is solid, and the storyline even incorporates strategy due to the FF:Tactics style movement progression. You have to choose between fighting two enemies to the left and getting to your end point faster, thus ensuring greater chapter rewards or choosing the more treasure filled route that will make your end of chapter rewards non-existent. If chosen wisely and executed properly you can even get through with all the treasure and still get the best rewards with the Destiny Points Award system. Certain conditions arise on specific enemies that if you fulfill them you gain DP in order to attain greater end-of-chapter rewards. Each turn takes up 1 DP and so your goal is to be strategic in reaching your goal with as many DP's as possible while also accomplishing the most you can.

In addition to all of this there is tracking of your accomplishments and you are rewarded for doing well in fights consistently. You receive many accessories for completing "achievements" such as winning 1000 fights, dealing 100000 damage, obtaining X number of certain items, performing different actions X number of times, and executing certain scenarios flawlessly. All these things alone make the game seem very rewarding to play and with a calendar that is set up to reward you based on your play-style you can play and benefit at your leisure.

If all that wasn't enough there is another mode which I have yet to even unlock called the Duel Coliseum which is apparently a card game that allows you to get the rarer items necessary to create the ultimate armor/weapons. That said, the amount of content in Dissidia is nothing to be scoffed at and I can tell that as addictive as it already is I won't know what to do with myself once I unlock more of it. It's as addictive as crack atm with the exception that it was cheaper, legal, and I can use it in public. ^^