YMMV / Dissidia Final Fantasy

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Kefka to Firion:
    "Eeeeeew, aren't you hot?"
    • The original line from the Japanese game literally meant hot: Firion carries a lot of weapons around, so, yeah, one would assume he'd be a bit sweaty under their weight.
    • And then his EX Burst. If you take "titillating" at its literal meaning, then Kefka isn't just having fun destroying things: he's getting off on it!
  • The Bartz and Exdeath Manikins are called "Fallacious Wanderer" and "Fallacious Tree". That second one is begging for bad "wood" jokes.
  • Or the following exchange between Onion Knight and Terra:
    Onion Knight: "Take a good look at your enemy's equipment before a battle."
    Terra: "...Hehe."
  • He goes on to deliver this gem... Anyone who's not looking at the screen when the line is said, and some people who are, will probably collapse in a laughing fit.
    Onion Knight: "I've got something they don't, right here, if you know what I mean!"^note He is, of course, pointing to his head.
  • Keep in mind Kuja is the one wearing the Thong of Shielding and looks highly effeminate. Why did they have to name two of his attacks "Snatch Blow" and "Snatch Shot"?
  • In fact, here's a compilation of a bunch of random Accidental Innuendo's taken out of context.
• Adorkable: Laguna is a huge dork, to the point he even gets a leg cramp when fighting Cloud of Darkness!
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Here.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Boss Rush at the end of 012 storyline in Dissidia 012 pits you against five bosses. Four of them you fought earlier in the story and have had Manikins of themselves throughout the storyline, so you're very familiar with how to fight them. They're only proportionally as strong compared to your party as they were the first time you fought each of them, and depending on your level grinding it's possible to close that level gap or even be higher level than them. The fifth opponent could be genuinely difficult, as his Manikins have only appeared a few times before and he's at Level 39, so you're facing a higher-level opponent with an unfamiliar fighting style. However, he has no weapon, a shield that lowers his defense, and only Level 1 armor, which cripples most of the stat advantages he would have on you otherwise.
• Awesome Ego: Jecht would have you know he's the best fighter in the world. Most fans would concur.
• Awesome Music: A given, considering it's Final Fantasy we're talking about here.
  • "Cosmos". And the Chaos Battle Theme. And "The Messenger" (from the OST). And of course, the Villain Victory Fanfare, a darker version of the regular Victory Fanfare.
  • Heck, most of the soundtrack is this, since most of them are remixes or original versions of already great music. YMMV on whether some remixes are better or worse than the originals.
  • "Cantata Mortis & God in Fire" combines Square-Enix's two favorite musical stylings — Ominous Latin Chanting and The Power of Rock, in a way sounding like a fusion of "One-Winged Angel" and "Otherworld" — and plays during the battle with the Superboss. You don't get more awesome than that.
  • The trailer music for Dissidia 012 MUST be mentioned!
• Badass Decay: Chaos is a much less dangerous foe in Dissidia 012 than in Dissidia when fought at the end of the 13th cycle. He's the exact same as he was before, just a couple levels lower so he has slightly lower stats. But the player has Assists now to more efficiently combo attacks together and get themselves out of Chaos's attacks, which radically changes the fight. Further, the battle is treated as a party battle, so it's your five party members against the three forms of Chaos — in the original Dissidia you had to beat all three forms with one character. Thus, what was a battle of attrition before as Chaos's three forms wore you down over the three-round fight, is now a battle of attrition for Chaos as his three forms fight their way through five of your characters.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • In the middle of Tidus' storyline in Dissidia 012, there's suddenly a text scene of Sephiroth talking to Garland about the nature of the cycle and the motivations of characters. The two don't appear in Tidus' storyline at any other time, neither has any involvement with Tidus' storyline in even a tangential way, and at best their conversation provides some thematic commentary on Tidus' character arc, but nothing that really contributes to it in a meaningful way. The scene seems to be to establish Garland's return after apparently being killed at the start of the Warrior of Light's storyline, but it doesn't even work in that regard — Dissidia 012 puts the Warrior of Light's storyline last, so players playing through them in the order the menu suggests will have no idea Garland was defeated off-screen, and the Theater's timeline of the storylines puts this conversation as happening after another conversation in Cloud's storyline where Garland and Sephiroth spoke, so Sephiroth would already know Garland was defeated and returned and it makes no sense for him to comment on it now like he's just finding out.
  • The Warrior of Light's storyline contains numerous scenes of other Warriors of Cosmos walking around and chatting. While this is intended to show them meeting up and traveling together, it was already implicit that at least six of them were together now, so all this does is establish that Squall, Zidane, and Bartz, have met up with them. Otherwise the scenes don't serve any purpose and don't advance the story in any real way. The likely reason they're included is because they were in the original Dissidia and the developers wanted to retain them in Dissidia 012. But whereas the original Dissidia used these scenes at the end of various storylines and could get away with it because it was vague about the timeline of events, Dissidia 012 has an established timeline that players can look at. The result is that the only time these scenes could actually happen is near the end of the Warrior of Light's storyline, since the heroes don't come together in the shown groups until then, thus they got included in his storyline even if they have nothing to do with his story.
  • Everything concerning Gilgamesh. In-universe, no one knows who he is or recognizes him except Exdeath, he doesn't recognize any of them, and he has no idea what's going on with the cycles of war. He just happens to stumble upon World B looking for Bartz and ends up fighting someone before a portal swallows him back to the Rift. He also only has a minimal impact on the story which is relegated to an Official Quest, where his being pulled into the Rift gives Shantotto an idea of how to escape the cycles. And even that, Gilgamesh didn't directly do anything, Prishe saw him get swallowed up and told Shantotto about it.
• Broken Base: Some fans were outraged at the "psycho clown" approach taken to Kefka in Dissidia (which is ironic, given the fact that one of his fan nicknames is the psycho clown), while others believe he was portrayed perfectly. Of course, opinions on how faithful Kefka's characterization is dependent on how you think he was in the original game.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • The entire concept of the game lends itself well to this, given that it lets you beat up on your most hated Final Fantasy characters with your favorite characters. Game mods and model hacks only increase the possibilities, especially since it's possible to pose certain character models in other models' animations.
  • The ability to use Aerith as an Assist in particular invites this. Naturally there's lots of replays of Cloud or Tifa vs Sephiroth with Aerith as their assist, and the finishing blow to Sephiroth is dealt by Aerith's Holy — bonus points if Sephiroth tries to use Hell's Gate on Aerith and the player stops him. With a character mod to make Aerith fully playable (using her model for Terra or Yuna are the most common ones), she's able to kick Sephiroth's ass herself.
    • For that matter, this game has all three members of Final Fantasy VII infamous Love Triangle, plus Sephiroth and whatever crossover pairing you like, waiting to fight each other in any combination you wish.
  • Fans of XII upset that Vaan and Gabranth never had much meaningful interaction (since Gabranth had no interest in Vaan's grudge) will find that remedied with 012, where Vaan can take on Gabranth's gateway and directly be addressed by him (even if it isn't specific dialogue that Gabranth uses for any character). An Official Quest actually makes it canon that Vaan found Gabranth, even though they had no idea who the other was, and they fought each other and had a lengthy conversation about their beliefs and hope that is true to their characters in XII.
• Character Tiers: Yes, the debate on which character matchups put who in what tier are still raging — but actually, the tiers for assists are actually pretty clear and well-accepted. Kuja and (maybe) Sephiroth are generally considered best, with Jecht trailing as third. Sometimes Gilgamesh and Cecil make appearances in more unusual builds, as well. Everyone else is generally considered good only for diversion, not serious play, but Gabranth is low tier because of poor his attacks are as an assist.
• Complete Monster: The Emperor from Final Fantasy II is one of the oldest warriors serving Chaos in his ongoing war with Cosmos. When Tidus appears in the 12th cycle of war as another Chaos warrior, the Emperor manipulates him into conflict with his father Jecht, culminating with him taking Jecht to Chaos and having him be converted into one of his warriors. Cosmos had granted her warriors fragments of her divine power that would manifest as Crystals, and the Emperor's ulterior motive was that Jecht's Crystal would now manifest as a Crystal attuned to darkness. In the 13th cycle, the Emperor masterminds a scheme to allow Cosmos's warriors to get their Crystals, as doing so will siphon her power so Chaos can kill her. With Cosmos dead the world begins to fall apart, and her warriors assault Chaos's realm to destroy him before they fade away. The Emperor reveals he will use the Crystal of darkness Jecht manifested to claim god-like power and reign over the world once both of the gods are dead, and until then he waits for Cosmos's warriors to kill off rivals to his power in their final stand. Cruel, condescending, and caring about no one but himself, the Emperor treats everyone including the gods as pawns to manipulate in his scheme to become a God-Emperor ruling their world.
• Contested Sequel: Dissidia 012. On the one hand, the story arc is stronger, the gameplay is more complex, and there are more characters, with many returning ones being buffed to be more formidable. On the other hand, the game is largely an Expansion Pack Sequel with little originality compared to the first one in all areas, the Assist system makes many characters overpowered by virtue of being able to charge their Assist quicker than others, and most Charged Attacks (and characters that would otherwise rely on them) are now an invitation to get an Assist in the face while you're defenseless, and the numerous gameplay nerfs perhaps go too far. The story is also much darker, with several characters betraying their allies, a lot of characters despairing and angsting over their circumstances, and several characters (mostly heroic ones) are killed off, including most of the new additions to the 012 roster, who sacrifice themselves in a Bolivian Army Ending to seal the portal the Manikins are emerging from.
• Crack Pairing: Cloud Of Darkness and Exdeath, mainly due to their fascination with THE VOID.
• Crazy Is Cool: Gilgamesh. His attacks include spinning in place to create a cyclone, whipping out a giant cartoon missile from Hammerspace, firing a pair of giant boxing gloves as a Rocket Punch, and leaping into the air to deliver a diving headbutt straight down. He's without question the wackiest character, and he makes it work.
• Damsel Scrappy: Terra. While she's often victimised and confused in Final Fantasy VI, she becomes confident as soon as it becomes clear that Edgar sees her as a person, growing more so once she regains her memories, and often finds time for teasing Sabin and showing open enjoyment about fighting the Empire. In Dissidia, Kefka's menace takes on an I Have You Now, My Pretty tone, her personality becomes much more negative and serious, and she is constantly rescued by male characters for their benefit, or getting lectured by Cloud (of all people) about the importance of knowing who you really are. The fact that Terra is the only woman of Cosmos' Warriors doesn't make this seem any more classy; the remake mitigate this somewhat by altering Terra's dialogue as much as the recordings allow. In Dissidia NT, she is as confident as any of the other heroes and gets her Mama Bear protectiveness back.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The world map in "Confessions of the Creator" is populated with strong Manikins like Golbez, Garland, and Kuja. The attacks they use to initiate battle are hard to predict and dodge, so you'll need to be quick to get first strike on them. And then in battle they're Level 123 and thus will have several thousand Bravery, over 10,000 HP, top-grade equipment and accessories, and they're fond of the Ultima Weapon and Omega summons, either of which can completely ruin any game-winning final blow you're preparing. The saving grace of these battles is that you can use your entire party to fight them in turn and will be fully healed afterwards since you're fighting on the overworld.
  • The late-game gateways in "Confessions of the Creator", particularly in the Lands of Chaos, are full of these by nature. Most enemies you encounter in the northern regions of the world are Level 100 and above, come with great equipment and accessory builds, have good AI, and have powerful summons including Ultima Weapon and Omega again. Within Gateways, where you'll need skills to heal off damage, have to face multiple enemies to clear the area, and may have to deal with red emblems crippling your party, the going becomes extremely difficult. And some of these Gateways have multiple floors. But it gets worse — in the actual gateways, they're just as powerful, and you don't get the luxury of a first strike or being able to use your entire party without consequence.
• Designated Villain: Despite being the Big Bad and his Obviously Evil appearance, Chaos isn't particularly... evil. He has a tragic backstory as a Tyke Bomb, he fights because his memories have faded and he doesn't know anything different (and he originally just wanted to go home to his world, a goal shared by Cosmos), his demeanor is cold and aloof but not particularly Jerkass, he treats his minions mercifully, his Orcus on His Throne behavior limits the opportunities he has to do evil, and he has scattered sympathetic traits shown here and there like his love for his mother and his strange dream about a world where he ruled alongside Cosmos in harmony. About the most evil thing he does is kill Cosmos, and he goes insane out of guilt immediately afterwards. The bulk of the evil in the game is done by his underlings and Shinryu, and Chaos spends his time being the one manipulated by them.
• Disappointing Last Level: Both the original Dissidia and Dissidia 012 suffer from this.
  • The 4th chapter of Shade Impulse in Dissidia has cool thematic fights, with the fight to Chaos being a gauntlet of ten Manikins, each of one of the villains. However they're only Hard pieces and your character is thus probably higher level than them, and they're not much more challenging than you'd expect of a Hard piece (which is basically code for "on-par with or slightly below your character in power"). Further, the first stage has a Potion halfway through the gauntlet and there's another on the next floor, so your character will be fully healed between fights, and there's no Destiny Points to worry about for score.
  • The final gateway in the 012 storyline in Dissidia 012 only has four Hard enemies in a linear path through the first two floors, and when you reach the third floor (which has no enemies) the party is restored to full HP. This is a necessary compromise to make sure each character is prepared for the Boss Rush coming up, but its still a letdown, especially since this place is supposed to be where the Manikins are coming from, thus one would at least expect either a lot of enemies or really powerful ones. The final gateway in the 013 storyline is even worse, since the path to Chaos is entirely linear with all enemies (Hard ones, naturally) on each floor optional and blocking some Potions and Phoenix Downs; which you would only need if you did badly in these fights in the first place. The last floor hands you a Potion so you can go into Chaos with the party leader with a full EX Gauge, too.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Exdeath was considered a rather unremarkable Big Bad for his home game. But here, thanks to particularly hilarious writing, his hammy speeches about THE VOID!, and the fact he's a tree, has elevated him to Breakout Character status, with fans embracing his cheese and ham and snarfing it down. He now has his own fan game: Pac-Void.
  • Gabranth is a footnote in the story of both games, but is well-loved for his unique playstyle that gives players a Lightning Bruiser of a knight who can dish out lots of pain on enemies. And while he's not as quotable as Exdeath, Gabranth has his share of memes too.
  • Among the 012 roster, Laguna got a lot of adoration even from people who didn't like VIII, as Dissidia perfectly translated his personality, and with the addition of a great voice actor who nails the character perfectly, Laguna's goofy charisma is more prominent and makes him come across as the lovable klutz VIII may not have presented well.
• Epileptic Trees: Exactly how Dissidia fits into the continuity of the main series is anyone's guess. The game's bonus storylines expand on Dissidia's universe while Dissidia 012 makes it clear that the heroes are all the same characters as the originals called from their worlds to fight, but there's still unanswered questions.
• Event-Obscuring Camera:
  • The indoor arenas suffer from camera issues the most, with the camera getting hung up on the walls pretty often.
  • The camera is particularly problematic in Dissidia 012 when fighting in the Phantom Train—the arena is a single train car, and while particularly roomy as trains go it's still a train car. The camera will swing through the ceiling and walls freely, and they'll turn somewhat transparent so you can see inside, but there's still a lot of hang-ups.
  • When air dashing toward an Ex Core that's behind you, if your camera was positioned just right, it'll get stuck above you, at about a 60 degree angle with you heading toward the bottom of the screen. And it will attempt to rotate each half of the screen in opposite directions, resulting in a fairly trippy looking effect until you reach the core, or one side wins.
• Evil Is Cool: Naturally having all villains from their home game team up here is a nice treat.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • The games cover the 12th and 13th cycle in full, but only briefly allude to the first eleven cycles and show a couple of disconnected events within them, and they're disconnected enough that reasonably those events could take place across multiple cycles. It's also ambiguous how long the characters have been fighting, with a couple of exceptions established to be new arrivals in the 12th (Cecil, Tifa, Tidus). Further, defeat purges one's memories of the current cycle, thus providing a convenient in-universe explanation for why no one clearly remembers the earlier cycles. All of this leaves plenty of room for one to write their own Dissidia fic covering events in earlier cycles, with plenty of freedom to have new characters involved and even have characters on different sides than in the games.
    • The Reports make mention of a warrior with "an unusually strong will," causing Cid to wonder if they have a connection to Shinryu, and at another time they mention three warriors not strong enough to survive purification that perish. While there are candidates for who these warriors could be among the canon roster, the implications are vague enough that they could be anyone.^note It's generally assumed Exdeath is the one connected to Shinryu, since they originate from the same game and have power over the Void, and he would fit the description of having a "strong will". The three lost warriors meanwhile, one of them could be Prishe, who vanished when Cosmos died, but the other two are unknowns — they can't be Shantotto or Gabranth, since the Official Quests show exactly how they escaped the cycles, and they also can't be the Warrior of Light, as he did survive his purification when Cosmos died and was revived.
  • The game adds on to the lore of the original Final Fantasy in many surprising ways, inviting a retelling of the original game with these new elements from the Dissidia series included.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The Warriors of Cosmos and Chaos are sometimes simply called Team Cosmos and Team Chaos. Director Mitsunori Takahashi has also used the terminology.
  • Warrior of Light, Onion Knight, and Cloud of Darkness are often just called "Wol", "OK", and "Cod". The first one later got official usage for another character. Emperor is sometimes shortened to "Empy", though not as frequently since his name/title isn't as long.
  • Some fans call Onion Knight Luneth, for the first main character of the Final Fantasy III remake. Onion Knight's alternate outfit even makes him look like Luneth. Fans who don't try to insist he's Luneth generally call him OK or Onion. And since his hair and armor looks like Onion Knight Ingus, some fans call him that instead of Luneth.
• Fanon: Somewhere along the way, the attack Golbez uses in his imperfect EX Burst became known as "Gravity Quake". The attack is never named in-game nor is there really any similar attack that the name could be taken from due to such similarities. The name is entirely fan made, yet endures.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: The Emperor. What is he even wearing? A... four pointed cape? With a translucent pink Showgirl Skirt? Gold... is that armor? With Combat Stilettos? And the... what is that thing on the center of the cape? And the hair, and the ... horns?
  • Subverted by his third outfit◊ in 012, which looks a lot more befitting for one of his status. The hair still needs some work, though.
• Fountain of Memes: Many of Exdeath's lines, mondegreens included, both from English and Japanese line) became memes.
  "VOID!"
  "BWAHAHAHA!"
  "Get the fruit!"
  "Naive weekly!"
  "TURTLE!"
  "Tasty arrow...is yummy!"
• Game-Breaker: Here.
• Gateway Series: For many casual fans of the Final Fantasy series, or those who weren't into the series at all but interested in the game, Dissidia was their introduction to the larger cast of the franchise, many of whom up until this game had never appeared outside of their home title. There are many anecdotes of players picking up the game just because it had Cloud and Squall in it, and coming away fans of Firion, Golbez, Bartz, etc., and interested in playing their original titles to see more of the characters and their world.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Jecht in America, where the fandom has practically deified him for his infamous "body of a bronzed god." In Japan, he's... just another character. Not unpopular, but not nearly as beloved.
  • Vaan in Japan is massively popular, and everywhere else he's one of the series' least popular characters.
• Good Bad Bugs: The Link Glitch, also known as the Holy Glitch, which lets characters combo attacks in ways they shouldn't be able to and continue attacks that didn't hit as if they had.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Tidus telling Jecht in the first game that he was "an ungrateful, selfish old bastard" while fighting him gets somewhat disturbing when Dissidia 012 reveals that Jecht's final actions as a Warrior of Cosmos was sacrificing his life to save Tidus' after the latter was mortally wounded in taking an attack on the Emperor that was meant for Yuna.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The aftermath of both Tidus vs. Jecht battles.
  • Getting the Moogle with Terra. All together now: "Aaawwww..."
  • The credits. HOLY SHIT IT'S CORNELIA CASTLE. With exactly the same background still as the very, very first Final Fantasy credits sequence.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This Gamespot forum thread discusses hypothetical VAs for Final Fantasy IX. One fan suggested Bryce Papenbrook as Zidane. One year later, after this game was released, guess who's voicing Zidane?
  • Exdeath's third costume in Duodecim removes his helmet, revealing him to look like the main demon of his Neo Exdeath form. Yeah, one fan had the same idea about an entire YEAR before this game hit the shelves.
  • Zidane's "What is that guy made of?" Line toward Garland in the 13th cycle? Well, his new 012 alt◊ takes off his armor... May also count as a Harsher in Hindsight depending on your point of view.
  • Though it may be closer to Harsher in Hindsight, Firion's suspicion of Golbez and warning Cecil he can't be trusted takes an interesting spin in Dissidia 012 when we learn Kain was the one who offed him in the previous cycle. And Kain was doing so under Golbez's advice to boot, though Firion didn't know it.
  • Also, Dave Wittenberg voicing Kefka Palazzo, who is also a rival of Sephiroth in terms of fanbase, is especially (and hilariously) ironic when one remembers that he also voiced Yazoo, a remnant of Sephiroth, in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.
    • Speaking of Dave Wittenberg, Kefka's interactions with Terra will become especially ironic when he voices Captain Cryptic in the English version of Final Fantasy XIII-2, where one of his quiz questions involves a steamy love affair, with one of the answers being Terra Branford, who is an actress in that game.
  • Lightning's intro quote to Cloud in 012 is "I know what it feels like to be a tool". Considering Lightning and the XIII saga effectively replaced Cloud and VII as the main characters Square Enix pushes for the franchise, the word "tool" can be taken to have a very different context.
  • Dissidia, as a Crisis Crossover, can be looked at the Final Fantasy version of Super Smash Bros.... AND then Cloud shows up as a DLC character, with Sephiroth later joining him in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
    • In Addition, in both Duodecim and the later games, stages have "Omega Forms," and they have the exact opposite function in either game. In Smash, the Omega Form of a stage is a flat platform with no gimmicks that mimics the original stage in aesthetics, whereas in Dissidia, the Omega Form of a stage adds a prickly gimmick to deal with where there was none.
    • And then, in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the story mode for that game eventually goes from having the characters fighting an Eldritch Abomination to being an Order vs. Chaos fight starring an Angelic Abomination representing Order, and a Dark Is Evil Lovecraftian monster representing chaos, similar to the conflict between Cosmos and Chaos in Dissidia. The difference is that Cosmos is the Big Good, while Galeem and Dharkon, the aforementioned eldritch abominations, are both evil.
• Ho Yay: It's what happens when you have an 4:1 male-to-female ratio in a cast in a franchise famous for Ho Yay.
  • Cloud, Cecil, Firion, and Tidus spend a lot of time traveling together sharing their dreams, fighting alongside each other, confiding in each other, etc.
    • There is also another group which is Squall, Bartz, and Zidane. Like the example above, they travel together, fighting alongside each other, confiding in each other, etc.
  • What is the first memory of home Cecil recalls? Kain. Not his wife that adventured alongside him to save the world, Cecil remembers Kain, his childhood friend. It doesn't help that the game is implicit that the more important a memory is to a warrior, the sooner it returns — at no point during either of the cycles does Cecil mention being married, so as far as can be told he never remembers Rosa. But he sure remembers Kain...
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming:
  • Exdeath and the Cloud of Darkness are usually known as "Voidshipping" due to both having an obsession with the Void.
  • Firion and Lightning are known as "Roseshipping" for their shared rose motif and the conversations they share regarding Firion's wild rose.
  • 24710 is used for Firion, Cecil, Cloud, and Tidus. As they're traveling together, bonding and encouraging each other.
  • 589 has been used for Bartz, Squall, and Zidane all together. The name branches to cover anything from their canon friendship to One True Threesome relationships.
• I Knew It!: Though the rest of the series including the original Dissidia merely hinted or implied it, Dissidia 012 confirms 100% that all Final Fantasy worlds are connected through the Interdimensional Rift and are part of the same multiverse.
  • In the same way, Gilgamesh, Shinryu and possibly Omega (Weapon) are the same entities whenever they appear, just taking on different forms as they travel between worlds.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Squall's gameplay in Duodecim, having only one new Brave Attack that's not worth even keeping over other moves.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many players picked up Dissidia for no other reason than the coolness factor of being able to play as their favourite FF hero in a fighting game. Other people just wanted to be able to play as Kefka, Sephiroth, et al, and were disappointed at the lack of Story Modes for the villains.
• Killer App: For the PSP due to being the console's exclusive.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Squall and Terra (particularly the latter), either with one another or with the rest of the characters.
  • And in Japan, Firion matches them both, possibly because of his Hot-Blooded nature and lack of a sealed love interest in his original game. And following behind him there's Bartz, with curiously growing popularity.
  • More recently, pairing Cecil with anyone and everyone has become popular in the English-speaking fandom. The fact that he's the one canonically married hero doesn't seem to stop anyone.
  • And, much like Terra in the original game, Lightning's inclusion in Duodecim has helped bolster her shipping popularity.
• Like You Would Really Do It: So, both Dissidia and Duodecim star some of the most iconic characters in the franchise — and in a few cases, their entire genre. When it was revealed that Duodecim was a prequel despite introducing new characters, many fans applied Fridge Logic and feared the worst. Others, though, cited the characters' iconic status, Square's general Lighter and Softer tendencies compared to other video game companies, and the games' status as Fanservice to the nth degree, to reassure people that there was no way Square would really do it. Guess what? They did it. Or not, considering Kain, Vaan, and Lightning are alive and well in Dissisia NT, as are Tifa and Yuna if you include DLC characters.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Bartz, Laguna, and the Cloud of Darkness are considered the worst characters in the game on tier lists — Bartz because of his slow start-up attacks, lack of good ranged options, and terrible HP attacks; Laguna because his Bravery attacks are more about zoning the opponent than reliably hitting, they need favorable terrain to be able to do that properly, and his EX Mode bonus is not very effective; and the Cloud of Darkness because of her terrible Bravery game, easy-to-avoid long-range attacks, and once again a near-useless EX Mode.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Cosmos is the Manikin copy of Cid of The Lufaine's wife turned Goddess of Harmony. Originally created to help control Chaos, she was apart of the group that made a pact with Shinryu when they arrived in World B and gained the ability to summon warriors from various worlds and wage war with Chaos for the sake of turning him into the ultimate weapon for Cid's revenge. A dozen cycles later, Cosmos realizes she helped create an everlasting nightmare and works behind the scenes to end it, creating crystals secretly infused with her power for her warriors to obtain. Reminded of her plan when brought back in the thirteenth cycle and still as resolved as ever even knowing her impending death, Cosmos acts as a guiding force to her remaining warriors so they are each able to obtain their crystals while being able to take advantage of the forces of Chaos' knowledge of their true nature in order to speed up the process, and when the time comes, Cosmos calmly faces her demise at the hands of Chaos knowing her champions will be able to survive without her thanks to the crystals and be able to take advantage of the upended balance her passing has caused in order to strike down the warriors of Chaos and the god himself once and for all. Seeing a repentful Cid off on his new journey with forgiveness when revived, Cosmos is content to return to the Void with World B, knowing her chosen are safe and returned to the worlds they belong to.
  • Golbez is Cecil's brother and was a loyal warrior of Chaos, but when Cecil is summoned in the 12th cycle, he begins acting as a Double Agent for Cosmos. As the 13th cycle begins, Golbez tells her about her plan to create the Crystals she began in the 12th cycle, and he then spends the cycle manipulating the heroes in order to help them along with acquiring the Crystals. He also willingly plays the part of Cecil's Arch-Enemy and challenges his beliefs to make him assert himself and prove himself strong enough to earn his own Crystal. He does all of this while being affable and calm towards friend and foe alike, doing anything he must to help Cosmos end the cycles of war and free Cecil from sharing his fate.
• Memetic Mutation: Dissidia has perhaps inspired more memes than the rest of the series combined. To recap some of the most famous ones:
  • You can thank Keith Ferguson for letting Gabranth's accent slip and giving us "Hatred is wot droives me!"
  "Buy my sword! No, this paint!"
  • In 012, we have Laguna's EX Burst declaration "The greatest attack ever!" Thought not as famous, Lightning's "Thun-DAGA!" and Prishe's "Gimme a bite of spicy hot tacos!" have also become popular.
  • Leading up to 012's release, the Emperor's new HP attack was known as "Melancholy Prison" from translations, then English footage revealed its name in the English version was "Dreary Cell". Fans decided this name was lame compared to the fan translation and the attack was mockingly re-dubbed "Sad Box".
  • The very first English footage of Kefka was a battle between him and Squall. And what was the first line in English people heard the famous Monster Clown say? "I see a poser!" It's since died down, but at the time, the line was quite popular and videos and posters for it can still be found.
  • Chaos's introductory quote in the second battle, "Hope does not exist!" has been used out of context to refer to the character of the same name.
  • "Yuna's feet confirmed". The first footage of Yuna in 012 was shown in a trailer not yet posted online or available to the larger public, and consisted of the moment in the opening FMV where she's shown walking across water barefoot. While in-context it is obvious who it is from the iconic scene and the bottom of her outfit that is visible, it led to the dubious yet accurate claim that people could confirm Yuna was in the game because they saw her feet, spawning jokes that only her feet were in the game. Accordingly, when she was fully revealed some fans made cracks to the effect "the rest of her is in, too."
  • Kuja's nobleman outfit and Vaan's pirate gear have gone memetic. Though not as widespread, Terra's blue dress, Squall's jacket-less outfit, and Zidane's Black Cloak are also popular. Cloud's Kingdom Hearts cape, Tifa's cowgirl outfit, and Bartz's Dancer outfit were memetic to begin with and were included for that very reason.
    • In a more overall fashion, the two games have codified the appearances of a lot of characters that were previously subject to inconsistent depictions or were underexposed to the larger fanbase. These days, if you see fanart or cosplay of Garland, Firion, Terra, Kefka, etc, odds are it's based on their Dissidia appearance.
• Memetic Badass
  • Golbez and his mighty Pimp Hand, that he uses to backhand opponents across the arena.
  • Jecht has earned the Fan Nickname "Captain Jecht" thanks to Triumphant Grasp, which is basically the Falcon Punch.
  • Kain and Gilgamesh were Memetic Badasses before Dissidia 012, and it has only helped further their reputations as such.
• Memetic Molester: Kuja, thanks to the rather unfortunate translation that he's "having his way with Zidane and Bartz."
• Mis-blamed: The vocal performances of many characters in the first game was the subject of criticism, Kuja, Ultimecia, Zidane and Terra being the common targets, especially Kuja. But, in a discussion on YouTube, voice of Kuja JD Cullum revealed that that the voice direction he got was subpar, being instructed to imitate the Japanese voice and sound "breathy and feminine". If this is how all the VAs were "directed", it's not surprising that some of them were hit or miss.
• Motive Decay/Villain Decay: Sephiroth's desire to become a god was greatly toned down in the first game, and pretty much removed entirely from Dissidia 012. Thus he mostly spends his time fighting Cloud and Tifa, or trying to fight them, so he can recover his lost memories, and in-between brawls ponders the nature of the cycles of war and why his memories were taken. Almost edges into Designated Villain because he doesn't care about who actually wins the war, his only priority is to regain his memories. The Official Quests subvert this by explaining he does still seek to become a God, and his desire to fight Cloud and Tifa is actually important to his plan to do so, but the main storylines only vaguely hint at it in such a manner that the hints can be missed easily without knowing their proper context.
• Narm:
  • A good portion of the storyline revolves around Firion's wild rose, the people who come across it, and his dream to see a world full of blooming roses. Yes, it's a metaphor for a world of freedom and peace. Doesn't help the fact that Cloud and Terra are staring off into space discussing flowers like it's Serious Business.
  • This one line is... interesting:
  Tidus: [thinking] Suddenly, I felt the urge to yell. [suddenly starts running past Firion]: "GRAAAAAAAAAHHH!"
  Firion: [no reaction at all]
  • Exdeath's Mirror Match quote simply doesn't make any sense! He says "Even nothingness is powerless before the Void!" To put it another way, he's basically saying "I am powerless before my own power." What.
    • Well... given what happened to him at the end of his game, Exdeath may very well understand that nothing can stop the immense power he wields. Not even himself. Even Golbez knows this.
  Golbez: "Your 'Void' intimidates even you."
  • The Narrator, when he starts trying to release a Hurricane of Puns or waxes melodramatic.
    • "The boy is known by the legendary title of... Onion Knight."
    • "Destiny's burden weighs heavy on Cloud's giant sword."
  • The cutscenes can start to get silly after a while because of how simplistic and stiff the character models are. Most cutscenes in the first game consist of the characters (often just two of them) standing in place talking and only occasionally walking around. Further, the characters very often recycle the same movement animations several times^note Terra raising a hand to her chest, the Emperor raising his staff, Ultimecia crossing her arms, etc, occasionally several times in the same scene, and they all make liberal use of Head Bobbing when they talk when their heads are otherwise still. This creates an almost creepy effect where it's quite obvious you're just watching character models taking turns going through animation sequences. Dissidia 012's new cutscenes are much more dynamic and natural, with multiple characters moving at once and showing a wider array of physicality, but this serves to heighten the awkwardness of the original game's scenes when you play the redone 013 story and the animation quality takes a dive.
  • A rare lampshaded case is the description for the Iifa Tree: "One whole Iifa tree. It's amazingly heavy... obviously."
  • Garland's victory pose is to hurl his sword up into the air and then pose with his arm over his chest. Except, his sword never comes down, implying it either got stuck in the ceiling or landed somewhere off-screen. Making it even funnier is that Garland holds his arm up for a moment or two before cross it over his chest, making it look like he was waiting for his sword to drop back into his hand, realized it wasn't happening, and improvised a different pose.
• Nightmare Fuel: Exdeath's face.◊. Also from Duodecim... take a look at◊ Feral Chaos.
  • Not to mention that in Duodecim, a Feral Chaos-related scary moment comes from A SIMPLE MOOGLE. To elaborate — if you ever say you've "mastered Dissidia" at the beginning of the game... well, see for yourself. And then Moogle mocks the hell out of you, à la (as even a YouTube commenter put it best) "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?". (shudders)
    • It is somehow even worse when you guess who that moogle actually is. He is probably Cid of the Lufaine, the one who ultimately set the whole thing in motion. Is he maybe toying with you?
    • Just wait until you see Feral Chaos' EX Burst. Holy crap.
  • After Kefka accidentally captured Bartz instead of Zidane due to Bartz reaching the fake crystal trap first, Kefka, when noticing that Zidane ("the monkey") is still around, says "Well, whatever... This should still be interesting, at least." Right when he says this, Kefka gives off a rather creepy expression where his face has his eyes in an almost ecstatic expression and grinning.
  • Everything about the Manikins, especially in Duodecim which makes them one of the most nightmarish set of Mooks ever. Dead eyes and vacant expressions? Horrifically distorted versions of the voices of their originals? Being able to permanently kill their foes just because they don't know to stop fighting? Potentially infinite numbers? They've got it all.
• Older Than They Think: The reveal of Kefka's Dissidia design got some flak early on for resembling The Joker, especially since the game had the coincidence of being made around the same time trailers for The Dark Knight were coming out. But as his Amano art that the design is based on shows, the white make-up and lipstick to emphasize his smile have been around since the beginning, they just didn't come across well on Super NES graphics.
  • Similarly, people who complain about Firion, Cecil, and Bartz being turned into Pretty Boys by Nomura should really look up Yoshitaka Amano's drawings of them from the time their games were released.
• Pandering to the Base: Actually intentional of the devs' parts. The added roster is 012 are all fan favorites from the various Final Fantasy games, though in the case of Yuna, Vaan, and Lightning, it's fan favorites in their home land.
• Player Punch:
  • Part of the manual hints Square has decided it's canon that Celes was unable to save Cid in Final Fantasy VI. And they do it to set up a joke.
  • The inclusion of Aerith allowed Square to show off a particularly nasty sense of humor... and they sure as hell didn't miss the chance to pull such a cruel joke.^note Yes, Sephiroth is programmed to use Hell's Gate on Aerith whenever she's summoned. Make of that what you will.
  • In Dissidia 012's bonus storyline "Confessions of the Creator", you can occasionally find some of the other player characters on the world map wandering aimlessly. Talking to them will reveal they've all crossed the Despair Event Horizon big time, and will recount their own personal tale of sorrow, failure, and regret. And then occasionally after speaking to them, they'll disappear... Dead All Along?
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Exdeath was one of the most unpopular Final Fantasy villains before this game. Now he's an Ensemble Dark Horse Fountain of Memes.
  • Likewise for Vaan due to his flashy and impressive fighting style, and his weapons, looking exactly the same as they did in Final Fantasy XII, not to mention he has a lot of them to his disposal.
  • Many weren't pleased with Prishe's addition, with common complaints being she should have been left out in favor of a villain for Final Fantasy XI, or otherwise replaced with someone from another game like VI or IX. And, since she was from XI, she was seen as a little-known and obscure character, and wasn't that liked among the fanbase for her home game anyway. However, once gameplay footage began to come out and she demonstrated fighting skills on-par with Jecht and Tifa, people have begun to warm up to her more. Her hilarious dialogue helped too.
  • The same can be said for Shantotto (also from XI, interestingly) in some ways. Her brief characterization in the original game played up her evil side and she came off fairly disagreeable. Then Duodecim arrives, and her lines were rewritten to include more humor and better Rhymes on a Dime, and redemption was achieved.
  • Squall. In the early 2000's, he was ridiculed as being the Poster-child of Wangst. In this game he was, surprisingly enough, seen as one of the highlights of the main heroes. The story mode condenses his character arc, leaving out some of Squall's more harsher lines from the original release. This could also be due to him being Comically Serious to Zidane and Bartz.
  • To a lesser extent than the above, Tidus. Some of the major reasons for hating on Tidus in his game were his obnoxious voice acting, obnoxious daddy issues, and obnoxious insistence that FFX is "his story" when the truth is a touch more complicated. In Dissidia, he drops the "this is my story" mantra except for one line where it actually makes sense. His "daddy issues" are handled simply but elegantly and he's much tougher about facing Jecht (contrast crying at him in FFX with healing him with a potion so he can fight Jecht full-strength in Dissidia). His voice acting has improved and is much less squeaky, he's a good comic foil for the upstanding Cecil and somewhat ditzy Firion, and his dodge-attacks and super-speed EX mode are really, really fun. Only gets better in Duodecim, because he's suddenly shirtless and evil.
  • Not many fans were fond of Penelo in XII, commonly citing her lack of Character Development and plot influence. Her amusing comments on the cast in these two games considerably warmed people up to her.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The suction effect that wind-based attacks have. Fine in the first game, but the range and strength of the suction were massively increased in the sequel. If you're anywhere near one, you have to concentrate solely on running away.
  • Chases in Dissidia were disliked for the attacks being slow and easy to avoid, so they just halted the momentum of the match for several seconds. The developers seemed to decide that the solution to this for Dissidia 012 was to speed up Chase attacks to nearly unplayable levels — Bravery attacks come out extremely quickly and are very difficult to dodge, and if you dodge instantly to avoid a Bravery attack but your opponent actually did an HP attack, you get hit. Surving chase attacks unscathed requires either pause-scumming to see which attack the opponent is using, or just guessing what kind of attack they're going to use and hoping you guessed right.
  • Bonus Lines, especially in the 013 story. The intent behind them is sound — players who imported their original Dissidia save data to Dissidia 012 will have a bunch of Level 100 characters, so the developers use Bonus Lines to incentivize players to lower their levels so avoid a KP penalty for going over the line, and thus the gateway can still be a challenge for new and returning players alike. The problem is that they didn't take into account players who start at Level 1 and their characters levelled up faster than normal due to calendar bonuses, exp-boosting items, or level grinding outside of storylines. This turns a mechanic meant to provide a challenge to Level 100 characters into an Anti-Grinding mechanic that punishes new players for growing faster than the developers expected them to. And besides, nothing is stopping players from ignoring bonus lines entirely, breezing through the storylines with high-level characters, and then grinding for KP on their own time.
  • Cosmos Judgment is a a Comeback Mechanic that benefits whoever is losing the fight — when your opponent is at critical health they'll get a full EX Gauge, when you have enough Bravery to land a One-Hit KO they'll get their summon restored, and in Dissidia 012 it will activate to prevent a character's Assist gauge from depleting when the other character enters EX Mode. The first two mean that when you're on the cusp of winning the opponent gets a second wind to try and wreck you, and the third means all the work put into building up EX Gauge amounted to nothing since the opponent didn't lose their Assist Gauge and will EX Break you with it once they have an opening. This is especially awful in the Duel Colosseum and Labyrinth modes, where you'll encounter the same kinds of enemies as in story mode where they begin with critical HP and an equipment build to take advantage of it — in such fights, expect Cosmos Judgment to trigger right at the start of the fight to fill their EX Gauge and give them a second use of their summon later.
  • Grinding for equipment can be a drag in Dissidia 012. All equipment pieces require one or two trade accessories as well as a weaker piece of equipment, but while such things could be farmed in the Duel Colosseum in Dissidia, Dissidia 012 makes it a lot harder. Most trade accessories can only be acquired in "Confessions of the Creator", meaning the last storyline you unlock, and only from a handful of chests in a handful of gateways, and it's random which one you get. And some of them are only found in multi-floor gateways, and you have to fully clear those to keep anything you find in them, making farming extremely time-consuming and impractical. The other main way to get trade accessories is buying them from Moogle Shops, and they cost absurd amounts of KP, which means more gateway grinding. If you want a trade accessory not offered by a Moogle Shop and don't want to farm gateways, the only way to get it is by trading for it in the normal Shop for Elixir-type items, but the only way to get them is to purchase them from Moglin's Moogle Shop — but he only sells you one a week, and the top-tier trade accessories need three Elixir items to purchase.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Though the story mode of 012 still isn't very difficult, enemies are at higher levels and have better equipment and accessories than in the first game. For a direct comparison, Destiny Odyssey I Part 5 in Dissidia had four enemies under level 10, one at 14, one at 15, and the boss was level 18; Dissidia 012's equivalent level has four enemies at level 20, and the boss is level 26. The Dissidia storylines were very generous with Potions, so you often had the choice to grab a full heal and a full charge of your EX Gauge if you were having trouble and didn't care about your score, and there was always one for you to take before challenging the boss; Dissidia 012 is rather stingy with Potions all-around, so if you're struggling through a gateway and are left with low HP before the boss, you're out of luck unless you have a Cure skill. Additionally, equipment is much more expensive and money is scarcer, so you're going to have to sell off some stuff or rely on calendar bonuses to boost your fight winnings if you want to afford to keep your characters properly equipped.
• Tear Jerker: The original Dissidia tugged on some heartstrings, but Duodecim just pulls out absolutely all the stops.
  • The entirety of the Epilogue: An Undocumented Battle chapter in the "Treachery Of The Gods" scenario. Your party of newcomers is well aware that they're marching to their death, and their dialogue reflects this, each talking about regrets, trying to comfort and reassure the others, and putting on an obvious brave face.
  • The ending of the 012 scenario. Just — all of it. Absolutely every last detail.
  • In the revised 013 scenario (i.e., that remastery of the original Dissidia in Duodecim), pretty much any time one of the characters does something that might hint they remember the 012 characters in some way will pull some heartstrings — like Cloud apparently recognizing manikins of Tifa and calling it a "sick joke."
  • In "Confessions of the Creator", you can find Yuna, Prishe, Lightning, and Terra on the world map, each of them having crossed the Despair Event Horizon and lamenting their failures. However, Terra's, her being The Woobie of the four, is downright depressing — she says she can't remember anything each time she awakens, her head is in constant pain, and she wishes she could go back to being a mindless puppet so she wouldn't have to deal with the reality anymore.
• That One Attack: Chaos is infamous for his Divine Punishment, an attack that requires very precise timing to avoid and can stun you if you don't realize he's using it quick enough and run into one of the flame pillars it conjures. Further, Chaos is invincible until he uses the final part of the attack, he uses it more than any other HP attack, and Divine Punishment does a decent bit of Bravery damage and Wall Rushes to boot. While it isn't too difficult to avoid once you get the hang of it (one way to do so is to simply stop moving as the flame pillars only spawn around your character while timing your dodge at the last second), Chaos's constant spamming of it and the fact it's significantly harder to deal with than his other HP attacks means it's the attack you will come to hate from your fights with him. Being able to avoid it often determines whether or not a player can beat him.
• That One Boss:
  • Possessed Terra in Onion Knight's story and Vaan's story. They spend the attack perpetually in EX Mode and you have no Assist to knock them out of it, and they continuously spam Tornado — this isn't an exaggeration, it's the only attack they have equipped. Due to its damage priority (Melee High), neither Vaan or Onion Knight have an attack that can hit through it, just cancel it out at best. This means constantly keeping away from the boss, which will continuously attack with an HP attack that has strong absorption and deals a nasty bit of Bravery damage if it connects, and waiting for an opening as they recover to hit them safely.
  • Jecht, just in general. You can be assured he'll always have Jecht Block equipped and nine times out of ten he'll use it to bat away any attack you throw at him, and if it didn't stagger him to block it he'll nail you with a counterattack while you're reeling. The first two times you face Jecht in story mode in the 013 cycle your characters are Firion and Tidus, who don't have good ranged options, but even in the final chapter where you could try Terra or Onion Knight, their ranged magic just means they won't get staggered from Jecht Block, but the attack will still be deflected. Any other time you have the misfortune to be up against Jecht, or one of his higher-level Manikins in Confessions of the Creator, prepare for a world of pain and frustration.
  • Tidus, the Warrior of Light, and Firion have to face the Emperor in Pandaemonium, the stage designed to best benefit his Trapmaster fighting style. Prepare to be blindsided by a lot of bouncing projectiles hitting you from behind while you're busy avoiding Flares and mines in close corridors. The terrain also means limited stretches of wide-open ground, which these three characters do not like since it leaves little room for them to reliably hit back.
  • Ultimecia in Firion's story. Because of the Bonus Line on the Gateway, you're incentivized to enter with Firion at Level 8 or your KP earnings are reduced. Ultimecia is Level 20, so even if your Firion is just naturally at Level 8 and levels up from fighting in the Gateway, he'll still be at a severe level disadvantage so she'll get a boost to her base Bravery. Ultimecia rivals Kuja as one of the most float-y characters in the game and will spend her time flying around launching long-range magic attacks, and you fight her in the World of Darkness, a large wide-open area with only destructible pillars as platforms to try and fight on her level vertically. And again, your character is Firion — the fighter who relies on slow, close-to-mid range ground attacks because in the air he only has a handful of supportive magic attacks. Have fun.
  • The Level 95 Feral Chaos at the midway point of Confessions of the Creator. He's supposed to be a Final Boss Preview for the Level 130 Feral Chaos at the end of the storyline, but in practice is much more of a headache. You can't access the northern areas of the world map until you beat him, so you can't farm the Lufenian equipment or reliably farm the trade items needed for Level 90 and Level 100 equipment, so your equipment is mostly limited to Level 60 stuff; Feral Chaos has Level 90 equipment, of course, so he flat has better stats than you. He also has an accessory that boosts his Attack and Defense and an accessory that depletes your EX and Assist a bit when he lands an HP attack, and a Booster that triggers after 60 seconds to give him a 90x boost. The resulting 450% boost to his stats means any attack he unleashes will certainly break you and put him at 9,999 Brave, your Brave attacks will barely scratch him, and of course now he instantly depletes your EX and Assist when he lands an HP attack. Also while the Level 130 Feral Chaos uses Vicious and Destroy for his basic Bravery attacks, the Level 95 one uses Brute Force, an air attack that executes just as fast as those other two attacks but cannot be blocked and deals just as much damage. All of this boils down to a boss that you only get sixty seconds to fight before he essentially activates God Mode, at which point you can try to chip away a bit more of his HP before he inevitably deals a One-Hit KO to your current character. Fortunately this fight is 5v1, but it's still a challenge.
• That One Level:
  • Pandaemonium features very small corridors with narrow walls, which can play havoc with attacks that explode over large areas since they can hit through the walls. The small areas also make moving and avoiding attacks difficult, and play havoc with the camera when it can't properly track your character due to the tight quarters. The Omega version is even worse — the two sides of the stage alternatively begin to glow and spikes jut out from most flat ground on them, damaging characters, knocking them into the air, and interrupting attacks.
  • Planet's Core is a large vertical arena with few platforms, all of which are small, so ground combat is virtually non-existent. Its Omega version, after a period of time, has no platforms at all — the only solid ground aside from the central area are floating pillars, except they can be destroyed by attacks and dashes, and since EX Cores will spawn on top of them it is assured they'll get ruined when someone dashes for the core. This leaves the massive area with no solid footholds, but lots of grind bars in the form of tendrils of the Lifestream, which AI opponents love to ride on endlessly for no reason, turning them into a "Get Back Here!" Boss.
  • Ultimecia's Castle is a small, vertical arena where the entire ceiling except for a couple alcoves is a huge banish trap, which can be disruptive to many attacks that knock the opponent back or up, since they'll probably get knocked into the banish trap and get warped away out of danger. While it has more solid ground than Planet's Core, most of it is at the bottom of the stage, midway up in alcoves where gears will get in your way, or the balcony on top of the stage. The rest of the stage is destructible platforms suspended between two long spiral grind bars up and down the stage, which ones again AI opponents will ride on forever. Finally, in its Omega form the stage's gears rapidly spin (damaging and knocking around fighters) and the Brave pool is randomized so fast it's impossible to predict, so a Brave Break could mean you only get a few hundred Brave, or get thousands and thousands of Brave, turning any fight into a Luck-Based Mission depending on how much Brave the Random Number God feels like giving a character for a Break.
  • Sky Fortress Bahamut Omega. The gimmick is that the ship is flying through a large field of Mist at high speed, so fighters in the air will continuously be pushed towards the back of the stage, and if they get too high they get hit with a blast of wind that knocks them back further and damages their Bravery. And at the back of the stage where everyone is being pushed is a large vertical banish trap that warps you back to the center. This means that aerial combat is virtually impossible and attacks that knock opponents into the air are unreliable, since the wind can blow them out of the attack's range, or blow a character into range of an attack unexpectedly, and anyone who goes into the air will suffer a heavy Bravery drain.
• Theme Pairing:
  • The Cloud of Darkness and Exdeath are frequently paired together due to their shared obsession with the Void.
  • Firion and Lightning get paired up due to a shared rose motif. In Duodecium, Firion tries and fails repeatedly to ask Lightning to return the Wild Rose to him when she found it. It comes off as if he's trying to ask her on a date but can't bring himself to, which convinces Cecil to give Firion some romantic advice.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot
  • One of the criticisms of the game is that while the idea of a Crisis Crossover of the Final Fantasy franchise is fantastic, its execution was lacking in terms of story. Due to Laser-Guided Amnesia and Adaptation Distillation, characters are Flanderized down to their most basic personality traits, and their storylines and characters arcs mostly retread themes and ideas their original titles already did. Further, while it's cool to see the various characters interact, their Flanderization means their conversations don't really offer any new or interesting insights on the characters, because they don't have a lot to talk about except The Quest (for the heroes) or The Plan (for the villains). Dissidia 012 improved on this with new hero-villain pairings that allowed for different dynamics on both sides, and just having lots more cutscenes to allow the characters to talk more and express themselves, but on the other hand the new storyline focused on the six new characters and the original cast were Demoted to Extra until the redone 013 story. It took until Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia for fans to get the type of inter-game interactions between characters that the original Dissidia didn't fully capitalize on.
    • For that matter, most of the villains are canonically dead in their games of origins. The heroes being forced to fight them again, alone and in a foreign world, could allow for lots of interesting story opportunities, especially in cases like Kuja and Jecht. But, again, all of the characters have Laser-Guided Amnesia — most of the heroes don't remember their respective villains and most of the villains don't remember their hero, and the ones that do remember don't really bring it up.
  • Several scenes hint at an Evil Versus Oblivion schism in the Warriors of Chaos, with the schemers Emperor, Golbez, and Ultimecia on one side (with Jecht as the Emperor's pawn), the Cloud of Darkness, Exdeath, and Kefka on the other, and Garland, Sephiroth, and Kuja are either choosing a side or trying to make their own plays for power. However, because there is No Campaign for the Wicked, this divide never really comes into play or influences the story as it relates to the heroes, it's just that some of the villains don't get along with each other. Come the end of the 13th cycle storyline, the villains have all gone off on their own anyway as they each scheme to turn the situation to their advantage or just want to watch it unfold, and then the heroes find them and kill them.
  • In Dissidia 012, Cloud is on the side of the Warriors of Chaos, fighting alongside Sephiroth, while Tifa is a Warrior of Cosmos. Sounds like a ripe opportunity to tell a unique story unlike anything done in their original series, right? It's relegated to a Report and resolved in about three cutscenes — Sephiroth attacks Tifa to goad Cloud into fighting him and Cloud decides to pull a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Final Fantasy VIII heavily implies that Laguna is Squall's father, but it's ambiguous if either of them knows (but it's hinted Laguna might). In this game they get one cutscene together, and Squall is Laguna's Assist in one gateway and thus has all of two lines of dialogue to say. Even with amnesia making it impossible for them to know their connection, at least seeing the two traveling and fighting together would be nice. For that matter, Laguna never gets any sort of interaction with Ultimecia, the villain of his home game.
  • Vaan was added to the roster of 012 when Gabranth was already in the game, allowing a potential to explore their antagonistic relationship. But because Gabranth was ejected from the cycles long before Vaan came along, they're never even in the world during the same cycle, nevermind being able to meet. Subverted by an Official Quest where Vaan does come across the gateway to Gabranth's realm and meets with him, but once again the amnesia plot point kicks in — the two don't even realize they're from the same world or have any idea who the other is (though that at least is true to text on Gabranth's part).
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Kuja is infamous for this, and after him, Zidane surprised some for having such a masculine voice coming out of his mouth. And to lesser extents, both Warrior of Light and even Squall have been subjected to this.
• Villain Decay:
  • In his original game, Kuja was an effeminate and dramatic but highly skilled mage, and not only played Zidane and his friends as Unwitting Pawns several times, but destroyed Terra with Ultima and almost destroyed Gaia as well. In Dissidia, he's instead rather like an arrogant and lonely child, throwing fits whenever things don't go according to plan, expressing jealously and loneliness towards Zidane and his friends, and being mocked by the other villains for apparently being the newest member of their team. However, this parallels Kuja's personality after his Villainous Breakdown in the original game, where he has a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum when Garland revealed to him that he was not only mortal, but due to Zidane being the true Angel of Death, Kuja's life will also end very, very soon. This is justified when it's revealed that Kefka altered his memories.
  • Sephiroth suffered some decay in his home universe as well, focus shifting from his desire to become a god to his rivalry with Cloud. Dissidia 012, however, decays even that, revealing the only reason Sephiroth wants to fight Cloud and Tifa is to get his memories back since they are from the same world as him. Had, say, Vincent or Yuffie been summoned, Sephiroth probably would have fought them just as eagerly. As a result, he's more of a Punch Clock Anti-Villain, only serving Chaos and acting as a villain to regain his memories, but otherwise not doing anything really villainous.
  • Arguably, all the villains suffer from this to some degree, many of them being Chessmasters or Manipulative Bastards in their original games. The Emperor and Kefka, however, are in prime form as such, especially in Dissidia 012.
  • The Manikins, which were created for Dissidia, surprisingly invert this trope. In Dissidia, they're just Mooks that don't play much role in the story, but in Dissidia 012, they're a major focus of the plot because the portal opened up will let an endless number of them come through, and if they kill you, you stay dead. So in an inverse of Conservation of Ninjutsu, they're presented as more of a threat than the villains in the game.
• Woolseyism: Quite a few, mostly to reference the ones from the older games. For example, one of the ingame manuals feature the FFVI versions of Biggs and Wedge.
  Biggs: You wanted to talk to Vicks?
  • A pretty hilarious one comes from Yuffie, as she explains the game's Battlegen system:
  Yuffie: That's the way things go, you know. Without luck, you're... Uh, okay, let's move on!
  • Another example is the name of Ultimecia's finishing move in her EX Burst. The Japanese name was "End of Memories" to contrast the name of Squall's finishing move, "End of Heart". Squall kept the English translation of the move "Lion Heart", while Ultimecia's was changed to "Sorceress Heart" — an entirely different name than the original Japanese, but it kept the parallel between her move and Squall's.
    • In the same manner, Basch's Quickenings in Final Fantasy XII were "Shockwave of Black and Darkness", "Unmistakable End" and "100 Demon Scorching Sun of Crushing Evil", which became Fulminating Darkness, Ruin Impendent, and Flame Purge in the English release. Gabranth's Quickenings were called "Impact of Shadow and Abyss", "Demise Without Fear" and "100 Demon Autumn Frost of Crushing Evil" in the Japanese version of Dissidia, and they were localized as Fulminating Oblivion, Ruin Unflinching, and Frost Purge, to properly parallel the name of Basch's Quickenings in both versions.
  • Also Kefka telling Zidane, in regards to Bartz' location: "I'm afraid the mouse is... SMACK!! (closeup) (Zooms back) ...dab in the middle of enemy territory!" Originally, the translation was more like "I'm afraid the mouse is in the... PAWS!! ...of the enemy!"
  • In a smaller example, the Japanese version had "Battle Start", "Finish!", "Win", and "Lose" for the start of the fight, the end of the fight, the victory scene, and defeat scene, respectively. They were changed to "Commencing Battle", "The final blow!", "Victory", and "Defeated" in the English version.
  • Desperado Chaos is changed to Feral Chaos in the localized version, likely because Feral is much more menacing.

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