Dissidia Final Fantasy/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • So, why isn't Gilgamesh an unlockable character? Seriously. It would be awesome.
    • Maybe because it'd be too awesome? Game Breaker, you know.
      • And it sticks in my craw that Auron is nowhere in sight, while FFX is represented by Tidus, who compels me to put quotes around the word "hero" whenever it's used in reference to him. Dare we hope that Gilgamesh, Auron, and other favorites by the wayside be included in the inevitable International Director's Cut Final Ultimate Remix Edition?
        • Dude, Tidus lead the team at the end of the game, spurred the party to break Sin's cycle, and gave his life to save Spira. What about that isn't heroic?
        • The reason Auron isn't in Dissidia is because then it'd be possible to have an Auron vs. Jecht fight, and the ensuing badass would consume the universe.
        • But c'mon, who wouldn't want to risk it? Hell, I like Tidus' and Jecht's path and I still think that fighting Jecht with Auron would be mind-blowingly awesome. I hold out hope for the inevitable remake/sequel.
        • Auron was not the main character in X. It's about the main characters, not the ones who are most popular. And, really, why should Square care what you think?
          • Obviously because we know better. Duh.
        • Auron was a super character when you got him in X. I thought you were going to lose him after a while.
    • It's because the forces of Chaos would have no chance, because Bartz is on Cosmos' side. We know Bartz is friends with Gilgamesh (use the Gilgamesh summon on him and he reacts with "I feel so betrayed!") and that means Gilgamesh would therefore be on Cosmos' side. Then again, it's Gilgamesh, and he's just as likely to randomly jump in and duel Bartz.
      • Actually, "I feel so betrayed" is what he says whenever you're unlucky and get the "Excalipoor" result from summoning him.
    • No worries folks, Nomura has promised any sequel will include Gliglamesh & Kain.
    • Don't worry, Gilgamesh is in Duodecim.
  • So, why no Razma and Ashley Riot?
    • Cause they're only dealing with the main numbered series.... And Vagrant Story isn't a FF game in the first place.
      • It IS an Ivalice game, though, so that makes the two more strongly connected than the main games are to one another.
        • That what's makes the crossover fun, though
    • Pardon me for being part of the Alternate Character Interpretation bandwagon, but I think it'd be awesome if they had Ramza in for the heroes and Marche for the villains.
  • How could Chaos be a driving force behind this game's plot if Garland IS Chaos (In FF 1 anyway)? The game seems to treat the two as completely separate entities which contradicts FF 1's plot. So we either have a Retcon or the writers Did Not Do the Research.
    • From what I understand, the way Final Fantasy I's Stable Time Loop works means that Chaos and Garland coexisted during the time between Garland being born and his defeat by the Warriors of Light.
      • This is what I figure. After Chaos was defeated by the Warriors of Light, he decided to get revenge, and being a master of exploiting the Stable Time Loop, bootstrapped himself into a god. Then he got the time-traveling Ultimecia to meet up with Garland and they gathered up the rest of the villains and Gabranth and the rest just fell in place. Essentially, Chaos was playing Blitzball with time.
        • Remeber there are TWO Final Fantasy I worlds, world (A) and world (B). The Chaos from the Dissidia games is form world (B), you could say he was the "insperation" for the Chaos of world (A).
        • Chaos and Garland are two separate beings, Chaos was just possessing/manipulating Garland. Garland even stays a good guy after the time loop is fixed in FF 1.
          • They are seperate, but they are the same guy, just taken from different times. Garland says as much in Shade Impulse.
    • Looking for perfect canon conformity in a Massive Multiplayer Crossover is one of the sure paths to madness.
      • That bugged me too. However, they seem to be treating Chaos as a God... which would put him on the same level as half the bad guys, so more of a God. Perhaps Garland, as he is in Dissidia is some kind of high priest of Chaos? You'd also have to reconcile how Cosmos fits in.
        • From my understanding of the plot Chaos had brought 10 villains from the Final Fantasy multiverse, meaning its not the same Chaos as the one from FF I. Cosmos has countered by bringing the heroes. To bad they are not bringing out the guys from FF XII.
          • Dude, they managed to find playable representation of the Final Fantasy MMORPG for Dissidia. I sure SOMEONE from Final Fantasy XII is going to find his way into this mess.
            • Judge Gabranth just showed up and he is AWESOME!
    • A fanfic this troper read (yes, this is hardly Word of God, but it's just speculation) posited that each Final Fantasy Big Bad acted as an agent of Chaos, which the fic presented as some kind of evil Powers That Be. Hence why almost all of them ended up being a nihilistic Omnicidal Maniac or were all along. Kind of like how each Big Bad in Sailor Moon turned out be an aspect of Chaos, the Big Bad of the universe.
    • Everyone who posted to the above ought to go here and read the whole thing. Chaos / Garland IS addressed, and in an ...unexpected way.
    • Report 12, told from Garland's POV, reveals that Garland was freed from Final Fantasy's Stable Time Loop and brought to World B by Shinryu and encountered Cid, Cosmos, and Dissidia's Chaos, who he named after his own One-Winged Angel:

Garland: I heard a voice speak to me as I laid dying - and that voice was my own. My words were the only clues I had of the realm in which I found myself - in which I assumed time has been frozen for 2000 years. The life of endless solitude felt like a nightmare from which there is no waking. In the present, I no longer have an interest in carrying my future self back to the past. But 2000 years is excruciatingly long. As I imagined the hatred building inside me that would eventually and inevitably lead to make an irreparable mistake, all I could do was cower in fear. As I wandered, I happened upon a man who had lost sight of what to protect - and learned that this realm was not 2000 years in the past. With the man was a woman without warmth, and a giant beast curled into a ball. The beast spoke; he was struggling to deny his own destructive nature. I could not help but reach out to him. I often think of the start of the cycle. I as Chaos summon me from the future; once summoned, I become Chaos. This cursed cycle could not have started unless one other than myself carried me to the past. I wonder if the truth will ever be revealed. The beast often spoke of whence he came - of ships that used wind to sail the skies, of precision machines that moved like humans. His stories were considered "lore" in my realm. Intrigued, we told one another about ourselves and imagined where we would return. I shall give a name to this beast one day.

  • I can understand them giving a generic name to "Warrior Of Light", but "Onion Knight" just seems lazy. Why not just call him Luneth?
    • Because he isn't Luneth. In the original Final Fantasy III, the heroes didn't have default names. Luneth didn't exist until the remake for DS. However, Onion Knight has an alternate costume that makes him look like Luneth.
      • If anyone, he's Ingus. Blond hair & red onion armor.
      • For the record, his alt costume looks like Luneth.
      • And now his third costume makes him look more like the Unnamed Hero. He's a Composite Character, OK?
  • Why is Garland acting so mean to the heroes? Why doesn't he just make them some cookies?
    • Because they didn't like his tacos, and NOBODY hates Garland's tacos and lives to tell the tale.
      • That's 'cause they don't remember hating his tacos. Amnesia Peppers, remember? Oh wait... that's tragic. They don't even remember why he's mad at them!
  • Why the hell doesn't the Warrior of Light look anything like any of the available classes in Final Fantasy I? The least they could have done was throw some red in there, but why does he have antlers?
    • Because the Warrior of Light is a separate character from the Final Fantasy I character classes. Warrior of Light is the guy that appears in the logo for the game and the opening FMV.
    • More Specifically, it is the concept art of what I assume is the Fighter or Knight class, drawn by Yoshitaka Amano and given 3D life for Final Fantasy Origins. Since the NES couldn't possibly display that kind of color or detail, they simplified the design and changed the predominant color from blue to red so they would have an equal number of blue and red classes.
      • Fighter is his alt costume. The different costumes for the characters from I-VI are in two categories: Original concepts/ Nomura re-imaginings.
  • Why is Golbez the villain representing Final Fantasy IV and not Zemus/Zeromus? All the other villains were the Big Bad of their games be Golbez was just The Dragon who was never really evil but Brainwashed and Crazy.
    • For the same reason that Jecht is the villain of X instead of Seymour. Emotional connections between the hero and villain.
      • Seymour was a side villain, the point of the whole quest from Tidus and Co.'s perspective for most of the game was to find a way to stop Sin, Seymour was just a unwanted obstacle. Jecht isn't evil but he is Sin, who as already mentioned is the monster you spend a large portion of the game trying to defeat. Him being Tidus' dad helps.
      • If Seymour had been chosen as the villain, Yuna would have been the hero character rather than Tidus.
      • And that is a problem, why?
      • Unfortunately, his absence has eliminated all possibility of the Seymour/Butz matchup.
      • Why does every Jecht vs. Seymour debate forget about Yu Yevon, the actual Big Bad?
      • Come up with a moveset for Yu Yevon please.
        • HP Attack: Charge EX, Brv Attack: Cure (raises Brave), EX Burst: SIN
      • He'd be too much of a Game Breaker. The enemy shows up. Yu Yevon appears. The enemy dies from laughing in front of the worst final boss in the series.
      • Can someone tell me what Seymour actually DID? All I can ever remember him doing was just acting like a prick and trying unsuccessfully to get Yuna in the sack.
      • He wanted to become Sin and kill everyone in the world. He spells it out a couple times for you.
      • Yeah, he didn't really accomplish much, for a villain. Sure, he killed off most of the Ronso, but you don't rven get to see that.
    • Golbez was the main antagonist for like 99.9 percent of the game. Seriously when people think of FF4 villains, I'm pretty sure Golbez is the first guy that comes to mind, not Zemus. Golbez is a pretty prominent figure throughout FF 4, what with him getting lots of screen time, is built up as a major threat, and most of all, has a VERY obvious personal connection with FF4's main character, Cecil. Zemus has no real connection to Cecil, and barely has any presence in the game. You don't even get a chance to legitimately face him; FuSoYa and Golbez do that for you. In general, he's pretty forgettable.
      • You could argue that the same applies to Ultimecia who, again like Zemus, was barely in FFVIII. What seperates them is characterization though. Ultimecia was always a constant, albeit unseen, threat whereas Zemus was more of a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere character. To be fair to Zemus, though, what you said isn't completely true. The party does face him right at the end of the game, and he has a connection to Cecil through Golbez, but therein lies the problem. It's extremely obvious why Zemus wasn't used. The first reason is the one fans always cite and the most obvious in that Golbez has a direct personal connection to Cecil but what many fans don't mention, but is also obvious, is that Zemus is a monster and would be pretty hard to program a moveset for, as has been previous mentioned with Yu Yevon for FFX.
        • I agree with the rest of what you said, and like Golbez as the villain choice. I just have to nitpick though: Zemus isn't a monster, Zeromus is. Zemus is a bald blue-skinned floaty mage, he wouldn't be any harder to program than the Cloud of Darkness.
        • Plus, Ultimecia had direct contol of those she was influencing. Squall didn't fight a brainwashed Edea or get tossed around by brainwashed Rinoa, that was Ultimecia wearing their shells. On the other hand, Golbez was himself the whole time, just brainwashed to be evil.
  • Going by the above logic, why is it that Cloud of Darkness is immune to the "No Giant Space Flea From Nowhere" rule? Granted, Xande may not be the most compelling villain (and no one can really have any emotional connection to a PC like Onion Knight who is given literally no characterization), but he was still the villain for much more of the game than Cloud of Darkness.
    • Rule of Sexy.
    • That and again, most memorable villain from the game. Xande was the main villain for much of the game, but he was pretty damn lame. The Cloud of Darkness knocked the fuck out of the four kids in the first round with her (in the DS version, at least; I haven't played the NES version), is a mostly-naked woman(?), and is the Sealed Evil in a Can. Much more notable than a bitchy mage.
    • Apparently this was also due to Nomura wanting to use Amano's original design for CoD in a game because he thought it was a shame it wasn't used in FFIII.
      • It's really unfortunate though, because he would have a lot more interesting connection to the story. Xande's goal in III was to achieve immortality, even if that meant freezing time. I think he'd absolutely love an infinitely recurring war, and would probably sabotage the efforts of both sides to keep the war going. However, the original Dissidia seemed too focused on rehashing the basic themes of the original games' plots, and not seeing how the various personalities of the characters would interact when they're all together in such a strange situation, so it probably wouldn't have happened anyway.
        • So he's pretty much a proto-Ultimecia? Well, that right there explains why he wouldn't be used. Why include a villain whose similar to one you're already using but inferior in every aspect?
  • Why aren't there stages like the top of the Shinra Building (GEESE HOWARD EAT YOUR HEART OUT), Terra from IX, Gururu Volcano, Mist Cave, ZoZo, The Big Bridge, Luca Stadium, Pandemonium IX, Macalania Woods, Towel of Babil, and many other memorable places?
    • They probably just decided to use ares that they felt lent themselves to more interesting stages. For example: the Void Castle is full of towers, landings, and messed-up geometries that serve as great obstacles during a fight, whereas the Big Bridge is just a big... bridge, it's kind of static and doesn't make for a lot of good cover or room for lateral movement. Also, ZoZo? Really?
      • All the stages are the final dungeons of each game.
      • Except for Final Fantasy IV's, which is merely the Lunar Surface (even though the game seems convinced that it is the Lunar Subterrene).
      • Eh, close enough.
  • Why is it that the plot and setting of Dissidia match so well with Dragon Force (video game)?
    • Maybe the developers are fans? Bands like Dragonforce tend to be huge in Japan.
    • "Dragon Force" the game, not the band.
      • Works either way, really.


  • Bartz's build in Dissidia is impossible under the rules of Final Fantasy V. He is a Mime, so he gets Mimic (likely what he uses to be able to copy the weapons and abilities of the other Cosmos fighters), 3 abilities, and the passive abilities of any class he's mastered. To be able to perform his EX Burst, he needs to have mastered Ninja to have Dual Wield, as well as having Rapid Fire, Spellblade, and Equip Swords (because Mimes don't get Equip swords naturally, even after having mastered Knight). All that I get. However, what bugs me is that in EX Mode, he can also use Goblin Punch, a Blue Magic spell. You couldn't have that build in FFV, that's one too many abilities equipped.
    • That's your gripe? Onion Knight is worse, depending on what version of FF III you prefer he's either supposed to be the all around weakest character or the all around strongest, but instead he's a Fragile Speedster. Though since their abilities aren't really part of the plot square could have done anything(as long as the characters are playable) and we'd have to roll with it. Cecil's class changing is another case (though it makes sense plot wise for his original game).
      • Except for Goblin Punch, Bartz's build is perfectly doable in FF V, and is, in fact the most well known (and arguably his strongest). The fact that he has the addition of a single command that breaks it is what bugs me, far more than if it was just completely out of game mechanics, because it comes so close to being perfectly doable. Onion Knight is another big problem, but at least his Ninja and Sage forms make sense.
        • You shouldn't think about the "EX mode" build, but rather the "EX Burst" build. In EX mode he gains another HP attack. Big thing. He also has a bunch of other moves like Holy and Flare he shouldn't be able to use without Black Magic and White Magic. The thing is, when he does his EX Burst, he uses a build that IS completely possible in the original game, because then we are not counting Goblin Punch. I see it as simple as that.
    • The very concept of this game was transplanting old turn-based RPG characters into an action-based fighting system (albeit with RPG stats). Obviously, not everyone or everything was going to make the transition absolutely perfectly. Let it go.


  • The Brave Blade is the ultimate sword that Bartz uses at the end of his EX Burst. However, he spends half of Destiny Odyssey V running from fights.
    • Rule of Funny
    • Onion Knight is the one who runs from fights. Bartz is merely on a sneaking mission.
      • Is the use of stealth required?
      • Not required, but one of his Destiny Odyssey chapters easily illustrates the Game Breaker potential of Invisible. "Go from zero to Stigma of Chaos in 1 DP? How can I lose?"
  • In the English release, the stage from Final Fantasy IV is called "Lunar Subterrane". Only, it's not. It's the Lunar Surface; the Subterrane is the dungeon within the Moon's core.
  • The Character Files say that Cloud Of Darkness was defeated by a flood of light 1000 years ago. But that's wrong, isn't it? The flood of light summoned her, as light surrounding a core of darkness, and she was defeated by the Warriors of Darkness, right?
    • No, a flood of light would have summoned a Cloud of Light. Anyway, that still doesn't really make sense, as the Cloud of Darkness was defeated by the combined forces of light and dark.
      • The naming is just semantics, though. It's still the same entity that the Dark Warriors fought 1000 years ago. They even use the name "Cloud of Darkness", if I remember correctly. In either case, it's wrong; the flood of light (or "Wrath of the Light", or whatever) summoned the "cloud of X", and it was the Dark Warriors who defeated her. The files say that she was defeated by the flood of light, which isn't right. Perhaps the character files were trying to avoid being ambiguous about her being evil, or something?
  • OK, Terra's near-exclusive use of long-range magic doesn't bug me (after all, magic ability is her defining feature in her game). What does bug me is that her equipment options are limited to knives, staves, and rods, despite that A: she uses a sword in gameplay (albeit only in Chase), and B: she's actually unable to use staves and rods in Final Fantasy VI, and could only use a very select few knives. At least her exclusive weapons include the chain flail and morningstar, weapons she could use.
    • I think it was more of an issue of assigning her weaponry that supported her stats. Since her attacks all revolve around ranged magic, giving her swords would be completely pointless.
      • Actually, no. In Dissidia, there is no seperate attack stat for magic and physical strikes. Attack is Attack is Attack. An attack boost from a sword is the same as an attack boost from a staff, rod, or bell.
      • Yes, but I think the point that's being made is that giving her swords doesn't work when it's not the weapon she uses in battle (that weapon being, of course, magic, aside from the sword in Chase). Equipping her with rods and staves in order to increase her attack power/magic power (which, as you pointed out, is the same thing in Dissidia) makes sense in that context. I'll grant that the knives don't work with that explanation, but then again, can't everyone equip knives?
    • Gameplay Story Segregation. The equipment, from the perspective of the story, doesn't exist; it's only for the player to tinker with. It's the same reason that none of the characters' models change based on equipment; Sephiroth always weilds the Masamune even if you haven't got him equipped with it, for example.
  • Terra's treatment in the story mode's opening just bugs me. The other nine heroes get show various levels of badassery. Even the Onion Knight. Terra deflects a spell and has to be rescued. She may have her timidness from the beginning of her own game, but even then she wasn't averse to setting something on fire if it threatened her. Would it really have been so difficult for them to show of some of her magic? She has Holy, Meteor, Meltdown, and Ultima. Even if they didn't want to show skills the characters have to learn, she still has Fire, Blizzara, Flood, and Tornado to work with. No matter what, she has more than enough magic for them to have shown her in a proper mage duel with Kefka, Golbez, Ultimecia, or Kuja.
    • Actually, for what it's worth, Terra handles her fight with Kefka pretty well, even exhibiting an ability that she doesn't get in the actual game: Teleport. Not to mention that, out of all the pre-battle cutscenes, she's one of very few Warriors of Cosmos to not get hit before their battle. Consider:
      • Firon gets trapped in a huge explosion by the Emperor
      • Onion Knight has to tank a huge Particle Beam
      • Cecil gets zapped by Cosmic Ray
      • Bartz has trouble fighting Exdeath's sword
      • Cloud barely manages to block a Scintilla attack
      • Squall is pretty much completely at Ultimecia's teleporting, time-stopping mercy
      • Tidus gets falcon punch'd by Jecht.
    • Only Warrior of Light, Terra, and Zidane get to the main fight without getting hit or knocked away at least once. She teleported to try and get some breathing room; there were too many spells flying around for her to put up a real offensive. See also the opening cinematic, where Terra singlehandedly reflects a full slavo of magic missiles from Ultimecia. Though, I do admit that the other heroes standing up after those attacks makes them look a lot more Badass.
      • That's what bugs me. That's ALL she does. There's no reason why she couldn't have been shown using some of her own magic. At the very least she could have been shown launching a fireball at Ultimecia before needing to be rescued from Mateus' trap. At least it's a consolation that in game she demonstrates how Badass a Squishy Wizard can be, but that makes the Cutscene Incompetence in the opening more jarring.
      • To be fair we dont see the entire fight for the next thing we see is squall and sephiroth in mid battle.
      • That and we see about five seconds of each character in the opening. They don't have time for much. And deflect magic missiles isn't showing off Terra's magical prowess? Not to mention that all the deflected missiles aren't just scattered, but redirected to another Warrior of Chaos.
      • That's something every character can do. Haven't you ever done a well timed block? Or had one used against you? It's still not showing her power in a way that makes her look like she can stand with the other Cosmos warriors.
      • Not quite. Every character can block and redirect magical strikes, but only if you time it well, and only for a limited period of time. What Terra does, though, is throw up a magic shield that stops a very long salvo of attacks cold and scatters them for a sustained amount of time.
      • It seems like most of the opening video was really to show the characters struggling against each other, not to show any hero's power in a really big way. If you want to look at some of the other heroes; Onion Knight's only real act in that same video is to bang his sword on Garland's helmet a few times and outrun one of The Emperor's traps. And all we see of Cecil is him tanking a Particle Beam and changing classes. As the guy above me said, there's not much time for the heroes to do much that is really impressive in that video; the villains do all the really impressive stuff there.
      • Oh, and in response to what you said before, she does launch a fireball at Ultimecia before stepping onto Mateus's trap seal. It's just a little hard to see with all the magic missiles flying about. It's just before she does that huge backflip while dodging Ultimecia's magic arrows.
      • And as someone pointed out earlier, the nine boys were struggling too. So, what? Boys are allowed to get their asses handed to them but girls aren't?
      • Of course girls can get their asses handed to them when the result is the same as the guys getting their asses handed to them. That was not the case here. The guys either got out of their problems themselves or helped each other in a way that makes them look stronger. Terra was made to look like a standard damsel in distress.
      • Yeah because Bartz totally looked stronger clinging for dear life while Exdeath held the void out. And Onion Knight was so Badass the way he was launched by the Emperor's traps.
      • The opening was also designed to show that the characters were working together. Bartz needed Zidane and Tidus to bail him out when Exdeath had him dangling from the cliff, which, if anything, makes him come off as even weaker than Terra, who was able to hold her own against Ultimecia for a fair amount of time before the sheer number of pointy, death-causing magic arrows reaches an overwhelming point, at which point she she fires off one last fire spell before flipping off to try her hand elsewhere. It's only then that the Emperor gets her in a trap. The other characters coming in to bail her out really seems to me to be more of a way of showing that, again, the characters are helping each other, and to give Cloud and the Warrior of Light something more to do in the video.
      • Let's be fair, though. Bartz was against Exdeath.
      • Well, she only looked like a damsel in distress because the villains were trying to capture her, not kill her. And why were they trying to capture her? Because of the raw power she commands. Bartz, Zidane, and Onion Knight had stints as a male Damsel in Distress, too. The only reason Terra didn't fight her way out like they did is because Onion Knight had had to knock her out when she started rampaging, and she wasn't able to wake up until he had already made his way to her. And because in her case, the villains actually cared about keeping her hostage.
      • They weren't trying to take her hostage in the opening. I've already stated that it's her treatment in the opening that bothers me, not her treatment ingame.
      • And she wasn't a Damsel in Distress in the opening, so what exactly are you complaining about again?
      • And the answer to that is that she pulled off something fairly awesome anyway and wasn't made out to be any more helpless than some of the other combatants, such as Bartz and the Onion Knight.
    • And another thing about Terra; in her story mode, Kefka basically tells her she's nothing but a force for distruction, like him. Coupled with the fact that her powers seemed to be going out of control, I think she's allowed to be scared and upset.
      • My issue is not with her ingame personality. My issue is that in the opening she was made to look almost helpless when even in the begining of her own game she was anything but.
      • I beg to differ on that last point. Remember when she got hopelessly cornered in the Narshe Mines and Locke had to rescue her? After her amnesia took hold, she was very vulnerable, scared and confused. Much like Destiny Oddessy VI, now that I think about it.
      • Point taken about the Narshe mines, but it's not very long after that that she starts setting magiteck armored knights on fire even though there's been almost zero change to her personality. It's not Gameplay and Story Segregation either, casting a fire spell triggers a conversion with Locke and Edgar that's continued after the battle.
      • Yes, she does it in self-defense and is extremely self-conscious about her powers and how she can be abused. And she still needs Edgar and Locke to help her out. She doesn't gain anything close to confidence for the first half of the game and she's only a one-woman army in some of the cutscenes.
  • OK, so, those spell-balls that Kuja floats around with him and uses to attack aren't connected to him in any visible way. So why is it that when an attack using the spell-balls directly is blocked, Kuja staggers as if the enemy blocked a punch?
    • Uh, there's probably only one reaction programed in for being blocked.
      • Actually, after playing Kuja for a bit. I suspect that the spell-balls are programed as Kuja's "physical" attacks, so, therefore, he gets the standard physical attack stagger when he's blocked.
      • Or perhaps he's not physically linked to the orbs but psychically linked; both him and Shantotto react the same way when they're blocked (well, Shantotto's aerial boomerang staff attack) so maybe blocking those attacks has some effect on their link and they suffer a "backlash" of sorts... not sure if I'm making any sense...
  • A dagger is statistically superior in every aspect to a broadsword. How does that make sense?
    • Same reason Icicle Inn has more-powerful weapons than Junon. Which reason is that? I dunno. The lulz, is my best guess.
  • Why does the fandom insist on calling Onion Knight "Luneth" when he is not Luneth.
    • Because his alternate costume looks like Luneth, as I understand it.
      • But that's just an alternate costume. It does not make him Luneth!
    • I could pretty much be the need for a name. In the game, as far as I remember, only Cloud of Darkness refered to him as Onion Knight, but only once. And any time Terra mentioned him, he refered to him as "that boy", which on the long run ends up feeling awkward. Warrior of Light has a justification, he doesn't know his own name, but Onion Knight doesn't have anything like that, so shouldn't it be that he must have a name and not just a tittle? That much anyone can assume, and when looking for a name, what better than the one given to the main character from the Final Fantasy III remake? Sure, maybe Dissidia's Onion Knight isn't the remake's Luneth, but does it hurt to give him that proper name as well?
      • Yes, it is akward, and it gives me trouble when I write fanfics, I'll admit. But it still doesn't make him Luneth. Luneth is a completly different character than the Onion Knight, with a completly different characterization.
    • But the thing is, I don't see (or at least don't think) people are treating him like he is the very same character. They are just giving him a name.
      • But they do. There's way too much fanart and fanfics out there that treat his alt costume as if it were his canon appearence. I want to see stuff with Onion for a change.
    • Given that Luneth doesn't really have much of a personality or characterization, is it really so bad if people project Onion Knight's characterization onto him and give him that name?
      • To be fair, Luneth does have a personality. He's kind of like Bartz minus the latter's Character Development; while Arc is cowardly but growing, Refia is rebellious, and Ingus is a loyal knight. Luneth is more "Hey, adventure, cool beans."
      • Yeah, and The Onion Knight is sort of a know-it-all brat.
  • I can't recall offhand, but do Garland and Kuja ever meet? Would/does Kuja hate that Garland, too? Are they the same(expyish) person? This troper feels cheated and disappointed that there wasn't an epic battle between them.
    • You can blame Jecht. They almost had a fight (for different reasons than irrational Garland-hate), but Jecht defused the situation by asking to join in. After that, Kuja basically went "screw it" and left.
      • Interestingly enough, if you fight Kuja with Garland, Kuja will say: "You make my skin crawl... Garland!", in a furious tone. As if we didn't have enough Epileptic Trees already.
      • It's a Continuity Nod, plain and simple. For those who aren't familiar with the story in Final Fantasy IX, one of the main villains in IX (not counting Kuja or Necron) is a Badass Grandpa named... wait for it... Garland. It is Garland who reveals Kuja's origin as a genome (and an inferior one at that). The revelation from being the Flawed Prototype to Zidane, The Angel of Death (and the Anti-Anti-Christ) causes Kuja to experience his Villainous Breakdown, which in turn causes Kuja to become... er... Kuja, Destroyer of Terra. Thus, the whole Garland vs. Kuja thing (as is all of Dissidia) is a nod to Final Fantasy. Garland's own quote ("I sense you are haunted by your fate") even references Kuja's fear of dying alone and his role as an imperfect Angel of Death. furthermore, he and Zidane have some choice words for each other when they have fights. Garland says "I will erase you, and your soul!" as a reference to the part in IX where Garland was going to take back the soul he gave Zidane. In return, Zidane will say "This place will be your grave!", or something like that; apparently sort of referencing a line where he says that he is the angel of Garland's death.
  • Even though FFX is more of an ensemble cast then previous ones, it bugs me Tidus/Jecht were chosen for FFX and not Yuna/Seymour. I admit that the two of them do "fit" as the hero and villain, and that Tidus is one of the more major characters for FFX, and that their storyline in game was intresting. But it feels that Yuna fit more. For the good majority of the game, it focuses on Yuna. Her journey, her struggle, her sacrifice etc. and Tidus is just along for the journey. Tidus and Jecht being the FFX representatives makes sense, but Yuna is a better candidate. Plus it would help to balance her heroes out more (both in terms of might over magic and in male-female ratio) and it would have added in an interesting play style (what with her white magic and even possibility to use Lulu's black magic as well).
    • Yuna's shtick in FFX is summoning. It would not have transfered over very well into the game where several of the summons are part of another game mechanic, and have vastly different effects. It'd be impossible to give her a move-set for the game without going into X-2 for it. And Seymour isn't impressive as a villain compared to Jecht, and would only add another anoying omnicidal maniac to the villain's lineup.
    • Again, people, the main, playable characters and biggest villains of the first ten Final Fantasies. What is so hard to grasp about this concept? Not that Yuna wouldn't have been cool, but while the game focused on her journey, you played as Tidus and he had his story, so he's the FFX representative.
      • Besides, Yuna's in Duodecim, now, anyway.
  • The fact that Ultimicia was the villainous representative from FFVIII bothered This Troper partially because, like Zemus, she isn't known as the Big Bad for long enough to be identified with the game like Kefka, Sephiroth, etc..., and partially because there is, to This Troper's mind, a much better candidate: Seifer. While, yes, this would screw with the male/female and magic/might ratios even more, and even though, technically, he was only The Dragon, he fought you so hard and so often that he would have been a much better antagonist for Squall.
    • Actually, if you think about, Ultemicia was the Big Bad long enough, since everything Edea says and does up until The Reveal is basically Ultemicia speaking/acting through Edea.
    • Not to mention bringing up The Rival for Squall would potentially come off as repetitive in comparison to Sephiroth and Cloud. Besides, what motivation could you give him since he had been mostly manipulated and mind-controlled during the events of Final Fantasy VIII? He's fighting Squall to see who ends up with Rinoa? Yeah, talk about making the villain into a joke. I, for one, am happy that they decided to take a less popular and character and expand it, even if just a little, portraying Ultimencia as having a bit of Foe Yay with Squall, and some comments that make her seem like a Well-Intentioned Extremist. That's without mentioning she's much more powerful than Seifer or Edea or ANY other antagonist of her game, so why would Chaos pick anyone else instead of her?
    • Gameplay-wise, I think it would be needlessly difficult to come up with a moveset for Seifer that didn't shamelessly crib off of Squall's.
    • Squall flat out said that Seifer wasn't anything special to him in terms of being a enemy. Compare this with how acted towards Ultimecia in general and you can see Ulti was Squall's main rival.
    • Besides, would you want someone like Sorceress Adel to be the main villain(ess)?
  • After going through this entire JBM page, it bugs me that a lot of the JBM's are less Fridge Logic and more "why isn't X character I like in this game and why is Y character I HATE HATE HATE in this game?". ...oh, wait...
    • It's the Final Fantasy Fan Dumb, er I mean fandom, what did you expect?
      • Well now, most of what I see seems specifically aimed at Yuna/Seymour. There's the one bit including Rydia or Rosa, but that's really all I got. I, for one, happened to be content with the selections. (Maybe because I came into it late, happen to fangirl Final Fantasy IX the hardest of them, and am generally not very combative over things.)
  • SE already jossed the "Ultimecia=Rinoa Theory," so why are Utly's exclusive weapons based on Rinoa's? Are they taking a page from Tite Kubo?
  • This might be a more literal version of "Just Bugs Me," but... Kuja and that damned constant "WELL NOW WELL NOW WELL NOW!" Jeez. Not to mention Sephiroth's little chuckle (to say nothing of his dialogue. Man, talk about Foe Yay. They're not even bothering with just Subtext anymore).
  • So Chaos and Cosmos are gods to the Final Fantasy characters. I get that, that's fine. But what about creatures like FFVI's Warring Triad, or other beings likened to or referred to as gods in their own games? What are Chaos and Cosmos to them? Are they stronger? Equal?
    • Of differing category. Chaos and Cosmos are in charge of Light and Darkness. The Warring Triad, by contrast, is in charge of magic. They have different portfolios. As for comparative levels of divinity, who the smeg knows. They may not even be the same type of gods- one may be anthropomorphic personifications of a concept, whereas the other may simply be of a creator-species that is so far above man as to be deemed a god.
      • Aren't they all from different universes anyway? The Warring Triad could only hold power over the world they themselves live in instead of all reality.
  • Something odd about the progression of events. the order that the Destiny Odyssey cutscenes are shown in the Theatre mode is canon, with each cutscene shown in chronological order (which creates a lot of overlapping and dipping into other stories). But one scene just bugs me. So; Firion is attacked by Sephiroth, who steals his Wild Rose. Cloud fights Sephiroth and takes the rose back from him; with the intention of returning it to Firion. That's fine. But in one scene, Cloud meets with Terra, and shows him the Wild Rose; but in the immediate next cutscene, we have the start of Destiny Odyssey II, with Firion producing the Wild Rose himself. This happens in between Destiny Odyssey VI cutscenes, while Cloud (who still has the Wild Rose) is travelling with Terra, looking for Onion Knight. So how the smeg did Firion get his Rose back for that cutscene? Are there two of them? If so, why would he care, to the point of fighting Sephiroth until he was down on one knee from exhaustion, about getting back the one that Sephiroth stole?
    • If you're refering to that scene where Firion and Tidus are taking a break, I think that Firion is NOT materializing the Wild Rose. He's just remembering it, and the game show it to us to show us what he's thinking, but I believe the "animation" for the rose to appear is different from any other time. He's just remembering the Wild Rose as if wondering, "Where did it go?" and then he realizes it must have been during that fight against Sephiroth.
  • Okay, while I was squeeing over various pieces of merch, it hit me. Cosmos is not just another word for the universe, but we derived it from the greek word which is opposite of chaos, whether you call it "Law," "Order," or just "Non-chaos." I don't think there's more than three of the Cosmos Champions are non Chaotic Good. Why are, among other things, a rebel, a free spirit, at least two terrorists, a thief, and various others who have probably had their faces on wanted posters at some point in their stories fighting for the personification of the force which oppresses their nature? (Okay, yeah, I know, it's a Good v. Evil thing that wasn't expecting people to catch any of the Gratuitous Latin and Greek, but it still is kind of strange to me.)
    • Since when did a thief or a terrorrist have to be free spirited? Just because they are breaking the law doesn't mean they are against Order . You are confusing being "Lawful" (a Dungeons & Dragons term) with being on the side of "Order".
    • This is a questionable element, certainly, but I don't think there's any real answer to this. Based on their names, we could argue that the concept of the conflict is that of Order Versus Chaos, but instead, it's really about Good vs. Evil and, to a point, Light VS Darkness, which makes it a bit contradictory altogether.
    • Who knows, maybe the producers originally did intend for things to different to the final result. Earlier Trailer had scenes with the villains saying things that suggested that Cosmos wasn't good either, and even Warrior of Light seemed to be aware of it. So perhaps the game, as originally intended, might have allowed you to choose your side.
    • And now that I mention that, weren't the original promotional material of Dissidia claiming that you could actually pick the side of Cosmos or the side of Chaos, suggesting you would also be able to play a Story Mode with the Villains? (Now, wouldn't that be awesome?)
    • Overall, I personally believe there were some abandoned ideas in the final result of the project that was Dissidia, resulting in a story much more simplier. But of course, this is all expeculation.
    • Eh, there's a better explanation. Cosmos is order, and Chaos is... chaos. But they don't always need to use ordered people to get order. Cosmos wants peace, because peace is order, and Chaos wants destruction, because that's disorder. Even the chaotic heroes want peace and even the lawful villains want destruction.
      • Peace isn't necessarily order; where's the order in constant peace with no war to balance it? It seems more that Cosmos is supposed to balance the scales and Chaos unbalances it to keep the multiverse flowing. She enlists the heroes to bring peace because the cycle of war has gone on for 13 times already, Chaos has unbalanced the scales for too long. Also, not all villains want destruction (Golbez wants peace, Mateus wants to rule) and not all heroes want peace (Tidus is in it to off Jecht, Shantotto is/was known and feared for destruction).
    • More importantly, these are not Dungeons and Dragons characters and there is more to these characters than their presumed alignment. Remember, the Final Fantasy series never actually used the Dungeons and Dragons alignment so there is no reason to assume that "Character X from Show X is for sure alignment Y, so X can't do Y" unless the writers actually use them. This means that characters like Cloud have no canonical alignment so saying that he can't do something that seems to be contraticting to that alignment you interpreted would be wrong, it just means that perhaps you need to reinterpret that alignment you gave to him. In an extreme example,if you say that a presumed Knight in Shining Armour is Lawful Good, that does not mean that in situation X he can't go around murdeing innocent people for money, it just means that in this case you need to reinterpret his alignment to Chaotic Evil. Similarily but less dramatically, if you assume an psychopath who wants nothing more than to kill people for pleasure to be Chaotic Evil it does not mean he can't be willing to take orders from someone else it just means that in that hypothetical scenario you need to reinterpret the psychopath's alignment to be Neutral Evil.
      • Yes, exactly. To take a specific example of how character alignment can change within one game: in Final Fantasy VII Squall and the rest of the See Ds start off Lawful Good, are imprisoned and chased by officers of the law several times throughout the game, and pretty much end up Lawful/Neutral Good again at the end when the authorities give them the blessing to go and stop Ultimecia. For another, Cecil starts off as Lawful Evil in FFIV and quickly becomes Neutral Good. In Final Fantasy IX Tantalus manages to be both Chaotic Good and Lawful Good at the same time by engaging in thievery and kidnapping under Cid's orders. There is nothing straightforward about the heroic characters' development in any of the post-III games (and this also goes for a few of those in the first three, like Leon) aside from the fact they essentially have and fulfill the potential to fight for good.
      • Um... Firstly... Kidnapping is Evil. Secondly the point I was trying to make is that these characters technically have no alignment by virtue of not being D&D characters-in other words for example, Cloud "being" Chaotic Good is just an opinion, not fact as different people have different ideas of what characters from works not canonically using alignments have what alignment- See Batman for an obvious example of someone who's alignment is being argued and usually whether or not Batman is considered Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic Good depends on how you interpret his character as well as how you interpret alignments to mean.
    • I think that what we're forgetting here is that Cosmos and Chaos aren't gods of order and disorder, they're gods of harmony and discord, which aren't quite the same thing. Consider the Chaotic Good Robin Hood and his Merry Men living in the forest in relative harmony, while the Lawful Evil Sheriff and Prince John cause discord with their taxation and oppression. Not to mention that in the secret ending that getting all the Reports unlocks, it says that order and disorder are just concepts made up by people anyway.
  • A joke fan-made screenshot made it seem like Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII was going to be in this game. It wasn't true of course, but it leads me to an interesting question: Why isn't Lightning in this game? It would have been an awesome secret character, and a nice taste of the plot and battle system of FFXIII. Instead we have... well nobody. Off topic, and purely my own fanwankery but the game also needed Balthier.
    • She's not in it because the guy in charge of the games didn't want players to be spoiled as to her fighting style. I forget exactly where, but this is cited in a few places on TV Tropes.
      • Then Nomura rejected it for the exact same reason I wanted it? How perfect!
      • Lightning was rejected for Dissidia because FF13 hadn't come out by the time Dissidia was released in Japan; one of the developers (not 100% sure it was Nomura) said that they didn't want her fighting style set in stone before the release of her debut game.
    • Then again, hadn't FF13 already come out by the time of the latest Dissidia's updated release?
    • In one part of the world, yes. And yes, it was a rumor and hoax that Lightning would be in it.
    • Well, she's in Duodecim, now, so there you go.
  • Why can't Exdeath use Sap?
    • Is this a tree pun?
  • The Chocobo Accessories are the Down, Wing and Feather. Going by what the terms actually mean, "down" (soft feathers of young birds) makes sense as the weakest, but why is an entire wing not as effective as a lone feather?
    • A friend of mine supposes ANIMAL CRUELTY!
  • ....who's running the shop? Final Fantasy has always let us win gil and items from random enemies, let's not ponder that. But Dissidia explicitly states that the worlds have been shattered, and only the fighters have survived to carry on the battle. So who the heck is running the shop? Okay, maybe a Moogle, they seem to have survived if Mognet is any indication, but this raises the question of what they plan to use the gil for since they're the only shop left in existence.
    • The shop exist purely for gameplay function. After all, no matter what you equip on the characters, it never changes what they are wielding. Even if you equip Lionheart in Squall, he only wields it in Ex-Mode. So in short, the shop is something totally non-existant in the "story" of the game.
  • At the risk of sounding like a Shipper, why was Terra paired with Onion Knight in Destiny Odyssey? Or more accurately, if Squeenix was trying to mimic the opening of FFVI and needed a Locke-expy, why didn't they use Zidane? Zidane's womanizing was practically his defining trait for the first half of FFIX, so you'd expect him to have at least a few words for the only playable female on their side. But instead, all we see of it in Dissidia is a throwaway line towards Cosmos. If he and Onion Knight switched positions, it would've made the comparisons between that storyline and =FFVI=] much stronger (it could even work both ways if you pictured Terra as a stand-in for Garnet). Onion Knight's cautious intelligence would've contrasted nicely with Bartz' free-spirited impulsiveness, as well, so it's not like Zidane needed to be where he was, either. It feels like so much more could have been done if they had just switched those two characters.
    • Well, shipping-wise, Zidane is Happily Married, or at least engaged. He's working with Bartz simply because their personalities are quite similar; if they met in any circumstances they'd be fast friends (not like that. Don't you pervs know the meaning of the word friendship?) As for plot reasons... Onion Knight's story needed an innocent civillian-type for him to develop a backbone about protecting; if he had been with Bartz, he would have been reliant on Bartz by default right up until the end of his story rather than evolving over the course of the story into a pillar of strength for the partner to rely on.
      • Did Bartz strike you as being particularly reliable for the majority of the Destiny Odyssey? Besides, as III and V are the only two games in the main series with interchangeable Job Class systems, This Troper reckons it could have worked. Of course, bits and pieces would have needed changing as a result (like, for instance, how, or even if, Zidane would have driven away Exdeath like the Onion Knight did)...
      • Have it being Garland who shows up instead of Exdeath and Zidane actually fights him, so they can have the fight that refers back to Final Fantasy IX's Garland. And you can freely put Exdeath as the one helping Ultimecia in the end and there would hardly be much difference.
      • Just saying. ^^
      • I personally think they paired Bartz and Zidane together because of Squall. Think about it. Bartz is similar to Zell, personality-wise, while Zidane reminds me of Irvine. At least, that's what I think.
    • Well, switching the roles of Zidane and Onion Knight personally sounds like a good idea to me. Squall interacting with Onion Knight instead of Zidane could also have served to bring a Shout-Out to Squall's own childhood traumas. But what's done is done. At any rate, I think that the reason Terra and Onion Knight were paired is because they are from Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy VI, the later which first arrived to America as Final Fantasy III, so I think we probably got a reference to that right there.
      • It's also a reference how Terra became a guardian for the orphans. And since Onion Knight was an orphan in his game...
  • Exdeath's sword. It just looks so er...I dunno, not sword-like. I thought it was a slab of metal at first.
    • Well, he IS pimarily a mage-like character.
  • Who decided that it was a good idea for the villains to fight the same exact heroes who had defeated them before?
    • Someone who noticed that last time, they had a full party of backup? Its made pretty clear that even in the "multiple cycles of Chaos and Cosmos" war, this is pretty much the first time they've fought one-one-one, due to the requirements of Crystal-getting.
    • And who said they've already defeated the villains before? Just where in the timeline of each game the characters are grabbed from is murky at best, and the ending cinema seems to imply they're all heading off to the start of each of their games. Especially when you consider that nearly all those villains are, you know, dead after being defeated in their main game (with the exception of Golbez), and at least one of the heroes is as well.
    • So, would it be right to say that like Kingdom Hearts, these are different characters than the ones from the main games, and that the only reason they act antagonistic towards each other is because of the previous cycles of war and not their own games?
      • Maybe. The bodies are all new, provided for them by Chaos and Cosmos,[1] but the souls are wandering spirits Chaos and Cosmos found. Its left ambiguous if the spirits are echos of people yet to be, the souls of the dead, or the spirits of those from other worlds. It could be the same characters before their games began, it could be the same characters having adventures in their sleep, it could be clones the real characters are unaware of, etc. The relevant Reports are infuriatingly vague; even the wise ones in-story aren't entirely certain where they got the souls from.


  • How come Golbez is on Chaos's Side? He's clearly working for Cosmos the entire time: helping the heroes get their Crystals and all. Golbez is the most obvious double-agent ever. And also, why does he need to fight Cecil? THEY'RE ON THE SAME SIDE!!! THEY HAVE THE SAME GOAL!! And they don't just fight once - they fight like three times! There is nothing to fight about! Nothing! What's to stop Golbez from simply switching sides and taking kicking Chaos's face in? Is he that concerned with what side of the box art he's been placed on? This is stupid!
    • Because he's based on the game. And in the game Golbez and Cecil are enemies until near the ending, then they become allies (though Golbez believing he is beyond redemption). And even though he may help the warriors of Cosmos, that doesn't neccesarily mean he's aligned with Chaos (Jecht also helps the warriors of Cosmos and was even formerly fought for her). It's entirely possible that he was more antagonistic towards Cecil and wanted to destroy him but got redeemed in one of the past battles. Please at least do SOME research before you start trashing a character in a crossover.
    • Furthermore, Golbez (at least in Dissidia) is a textbook True Neutral character. If you fight Chaos with Golbez, Golbez even specifically says that he doesn't care for the forces of order and chaos. While he does seek atonement for his actions in the past, Golbez believes that his darkness will keep him from fully being good, yet he doesn't associate with the villains (aside from his masterful facade of "aiding" them) because they are a truly detestable lot.
  • Okay, Why just why wouldn't they just put Luneth in as the representative hero from Final Fantasy III?
    • Because Luneth wasn't in the original version of Final Fantasy III, and therefore is not a suitable representative. The original game stared four unnamed youths dressed up as Onion Knights, thus the Final Fantasy III representative hero is an unnamed youth dressed as an Onion Knight. Still, since Onion Knight, and Warrior of Light for that matter, have no default name, you can call them Luneth and Fighter McWarrior respectively if you really want to...
      • It bothers me as well, since the orphans from the original Final Fantasy III weren't characters, as they had no real designs or personalities. This means that instead of picking an actual character from the remade III, they invented an entirely new character, not from any version of III, to put in Dissidia. Warrior of Light has the excuse that there's still no remake or anything that has given him a character, so they were forced to make something up. Onion Knight doesn't have that excuse.
    • Also because picking Luneth would probably ensure rage in Japan, which is still the market S-E cares about most. The NES version of FFIII was a huge hit in Japan and even now, that version is seen there as the canon, authentic one, unlike for us Westerners.
  • According to the reports, Garland was such a badass he killed the summoned beasts and Omega in the world of Final Fantasy I. So when it comes to the start of that game, why can your level 3 team beat him around?
    • Maybe he was really, really, really wounded from the effort of killing Omega and all the summons, with stat-reduction curses, crippled limbs, and torn muscles galore. Fusing with himself and the Fiends brought him back to full health, which was the real source of the increase in power. Maybe his kidnapping of the Princess was an attempt to get back to full power another way?
    • Gameplay and Story Segregation, dude, Gameplay and Story Segregation.
    • Garland did all that while being used as a weapon by Lufenia. He had the powers of Chaos at the time, allowing him to defeat Omega and banish it to the Rift. by the time your party in FFI comes around, he has killed you, become Chaos, created the Fiends of Chaos from the crystals of the past, and wiped his own memory. As he says at the end of FFI, he does this so that you will kill him, allowing the Fiends of Chaos to send him backward in time to where he becomes Chaos.
  • Lightning uses Curasa in her Medic role. Curasa was one of the spells that Lightning never learned in her original game. It just bugs me that she can use Curasa in Dissidia.
    • And Bartz never got the Buster Sword in his original game. And his combination of moves would've been impossible in FFV. Terra can't equip swords, despite having them in her original game. Cecil sure as shit couldn't switch back to Dark Knight after he became a Paladin.
      She's there to represent the game, which means the game as a whole. She's not a carbon copy of her abilities in the original game, just like nobody else is.
    • It bugs me that you're only bugged by the fact she uses Curasa and not that she uses Odin's attacks as her own.
    • The translators probably were thinking this, since the English version has it renamed Cura.
  • Where did Cecil's whole brother complex thing come from? It's so fanservice-y and I love it, but really, it just didn't fit. It also just bugs me that I can't find the correct trope to describe it either.
    • Well, there IS Big Brother Complex, but that's undergoing some tinkering...
    • In Final Fantasy IV, while the playable characters are a lot more developed than ever before, the game is still pretty short and low on character development compared to those that follow. Obviously Cecil (along with Kain) had the most character development in the original game as is, but imo, it would have been nicer to have a little more of it. Specifically the two things that could have been interesting to see would have been Cecil before he attacked Mysidia (you could have observed the atmosphere in Baron before the mission, controlled him during the invasion there, and more slowly seen the doubts forming in him about the king. Cecil turns good ridiculously quickly- 15 minutes into gameplay, really?- and I found that jarring) and to see more of his thoughts on Golbez and his ancestry. Maybe there could have been a sidequest about the latter. Anyway, my point is that due to tech constraints or it simply not occurring to the developers, this is missing from the original game. I think they realized opportunities for development of Cecil's character were missed then, and decided to try and make up for it in Dissidia by giving his relationship with Golbez a more central role. It looks a bit random if you played the original game because he had no idea about Golbez being his brother until the last minute and had a very muted reaction, but still, there is more potential there than there would have been if Zemus had been put on the opposing team.
    • And to add to the above in a less tl;dr manner, the first five games (less so with Cec and Bartz, but still) all have this problem. They don't have the most interesting and developed personalities of the franchise, so it's more obvious (and potentially OOC-looking) when the developers extrapolate on some aspect of them that wasn't as defined in their original game, or totally make up a personality for them in the case of the Light Warrior. Personally I prefer this to having Zidane and Cloud recite uninventive lines that fit well with their original characterizations, but your mileage may vary.
  • Why do people here consider the Alignment changes of Terra, Cloud, Tidus, and Jecht spoilers? Not only was it heavily implied that Terra was a Warrior of Chaos once in the first game, but the changes are on the bloody cover of the game.
    • Who the hell is considering it a spoiler beyond the "too obvious" type?
  • The game's gonna be out in three weeks in North America, where's the English trailer? I mean, I'm glad that Square seems to have acknowledged that we follow the Japanese news. But not everyone does, and there should have been an English trailer a while ago.
    • There has been some released videos of fights with the English voices, so I think some promotioning there is.
    • There's finally a full trailer with English voices floating around on the internet. About time...
  • How does Squall still exist if his father now, thanks to the Manikins, never even existed in the first place?
    • Same way Amy Pond continued exist after her parents fell through the crack in her wall. Chunks have been clipped out of history without anything new scrawled in to replace 'em.
    • Because he still does. Nothing in the game indicates that anyone has ceased to exist in their own games In fact, in the 13th cycle, Cloud, Tidus and Squall all still remember Tifa, Yuna and Laguna enough to recognize the manikins in their image. And it's memories of their worlds, not the 12th cycle.
    • You're right that they didn't cease to exist in their own games. Yet, In terms of the Dissidia universe and the FF worlds in said universe: they have ceased to exist. Once the 13th cycle ends they will not return to their original worlds. Likewise, Squall presumably disappears since he no longer has a father. My guess is that it was a delayed reaction due to being in "the eye of the storm".
    • Actually, in the character descriptions it says that all those who were killed by Manikins were brought back after the last cycle due to Cosmos finally winning.


  • If being defeated by a manikin makes you Ret Goned from the War of Chaos and Cosmos, why doesn't that happen for the people defeated by Warrior of Light, if WoL is just a really high-quality manikin?
    • That is a very good question. An Anachronic Order Induced Plot Hole, perhaps? And technically speaking, if Cosmos were ever to fight, wouldn't the same deal apply for her since she's more or less the same as WoL, only better (and with the memories of Garland/Chaos' foster mother)?
    • My guess is that it's because he's a "perfect" manikin, and maybe because since he's a Cosmos warrior now, he's bound by the rules of the cycle.
      • That seems likely. I don't think the ability to negate the gods ability to summon you is an innate ability of the manikins, but more a side effect of them not really playing by the rules of the game.
  • Why did WoL seem to lose his memories of the 12th cycle if he actually survived the cycle? (the only Warrior of Cosmos to do so, in fact)
    • Because they lost. The Emperor mentions to Golbez in a Report that only those who had won are permitted to keep their memories of the previous cycles.
  • So what happened to Prishe? All the other secret characters are given reasons for no longer taking part in the war (Shantoto eventually decided the war was beneath her and left to research her "Ultimate Spell", Gabranth went into hiding after losing to Shantoto and eventually landed a job as Hell's gatekeeper, and Gilgamesh is still wandering from world to world via the Rift), but what about her? Did Shinryu just decide one cycle to just send her home?
    • It's never mentioned why Prishe disappeared from the cycle, though there's several possibilities. Considering how she apparently goes off by herself fairly often, it's possible that she was simply killed by Manikins, or else her body just couldn't take so many purifications after a certain point (one of the Reports mentions that some just don't survive the process for whatever reason).
      • Scenario 000 revealed that those who can no longer give their strength or memories to Shinryu are erased by him and not brought back into the conflict. So it's possible that she outlived her usefulness if she wasn't brought back.
  • What was up with the advertising for Duodecim claiming it would have a campaign for the Chaos warriors when it...y'know...doesn't? 000 doesn't count since it can be any five characters with no bearing on the story, and the Reports don't count since not only are they really just little snippets highlighting interesting goings-on in various cycles rather than a full cohesive story arc, you're playing Cosmos warriors in them as often as you are Chaos warriors.
    • It's advertising. In order to draw attention to the game, they highlight some aspect of the game in order to make it sound really awesome when, in reality, it doesn't really come up that often. The ads were probably referring to the Reports, even though those aren't really enough to consider a whole campaign, especially since most of them aren't that long. The disappointing part is that 012 would have been the perfect time to introduce a proper villain campaign because, y'know, the villains actually win this one, meaning that a story starring them exclusively wouldn't just end in their being killed off.
    • I'm wondering why you still bought the game when a promised feature wasn't actually in the game. Sounds like you got screwed.
      • Because it's still fun.
  • So wait... all the new characters technically die at the end? That seems like kind of a rip off. Why couldn't they just have this take place in a cycle after the first game instead of before or something like that? Gameplay wise it doesn't mean anything, but I'm a fan of storytelling, so it just kind of bothers me, it seems like it's the designers' way of saying "oh crap we forgot this is a prequel, better get rid of these guys". I mean, it couldn't be done otherwise due to the way that it was written, but I'm sure they could've thought of something.
    • Because it was already established that certain characters had already switched sides, and it would make the heroes side horribly unbalanced due to them having kept Terra, Tidus and Cloud along witht eh other new 6. Also as shown in the final story, the 13th was the last cycle (Cid got trapped in parallel world where it didn't end)
  • On an entirely different note, the ending music from the first game has bits of music from each character's game. For FFVI's bit, they have...Cyan's theme? Cyan isn't even in Dissidia. His theme is a great piece of music, but it hardly represents FFVI. Since Terra's the one in the game, why not play her theme?
    • Each bit of music is from the end credits theme of each game, and FF 6's is a long medley of every character theme in your party. Cyan's is around the middle, so his theme it is.
  • Kind of a minor design quibble, but did anyone else notice that Vaan's victory pose is kind of impossible? Look, the Claymore he usually uses doesn't have a crossguard to sit on, and the Tournesol only has two little fragile looking points. Why not use either a different pose or different weapons? He's got plenty to choose from.
  • I think it's been asked before, but what is the exact relationship between Garland and Chaos in the Dissidia series? In Dissidia, Garland explicitly states that he and Dissidia's Chaos are the same being, and that after the heroes defeat him he was sent back in time to become Chaos himself - as he did in Final Fantasy 1. Dissidia 012 seemingly averts this by having Chaos be an artificial bioweapon creaded by Cid of the Luftian hundreds of years prior to the events of Final Fantasy 1. From what I've been able to understand, Garland's monologue in Report 12 indicates that he was freed from the Garland --> Final Fantasy 1 Chaos time loop by Shinryu and brought to World B to corrupt Dissidia Chaos, who he empathized with due to the time loop in Final Fantasy 1, and that he named Dissidia Chaos after his own One-Winged Angel form. Further muddying the issue, it is stated by Penelo in Garland's 012 equipment profile that his 3rd alt. is actually what he looks like under his armour, lending credit to the Garland = Dissidia Chaos = Final Fantasy 1 Chaos theory. Another question is that if the Warrior of Light was born during the Dissidia games, how did Garland know who he was when he and Prishe came across him, but I read someewhere that Word of God stated that Garland was taken after his defeat at the hands of the Warrior, while the final cutscene sets the stage for the beginning of Final Fantasy 1.
  • Stage Destructibility! God it's awesome and fun to smash Malevolent Architecture to pieces! And you can do it to the palace of hell, the core of the planet, lunar rock formations, shrines to ancient hideous gods—almost everywhere! ...But one of the places that lacks destructible elements is the MS Prima Vista...which is a stage prop castle. I can smash up the crystal world at the end of creation, but not a cheap fake castle? Buh?
  1. ↑ the manikins are the rejects
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