When comparing Dissidia Final Fantasy NT vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Dark Souls III for most people. In the question“What are the best games on PS4 with a female protagonist?” Dark Souls III is ranked 34th while Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is ranked 49th. The most important reason people chose Dark Souls III is:
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story. Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you. Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Characters are balanced
The Final Fantasy fighters are separated into different types of specialties: assassins, vanguards, and marksmen who all have strengths and weaknesses relative to one another, as well as specialists who fall into a category of their own. Characters like Cloud who wield huge, powerful swords as vanguards are effective at punishing lighter assassin-type fighters. Marksmen cast barrages of spells from afar, like Y'shtola with her black and white magic. They're great at against vanguards who move slowly, but weak against assassins like Lightning who are adept at quickly getting in close and interrupting their casts.
Meanwhile, specialists are more versatile in their move sets, but they require a lot of time before unlocking their full potential, without any major strengths or weaknesses. This rock, paper, scissors-type of gameplay balance helps to solidify everyone's identity as a fighter based on their weapons and personal style.
Pro You can summon giant guardian deities to help you pull off victories in cool ways
After filling the summon bar by hitting enemies, players can choose to summon these giant Final Fantasy guardian deities who stay on the battlefield and deal constant damage to the enemies, often able to help a losing team pull through to a victory. The water serpent Leviathan loops dangerous tides of water throughout the field to trap the other team, while the intimidating dragon Bahamut fires down powerful beams of energy that explode, severely wounding anyone caught nearby. Each summon also grants special passive effects to their team during battle: Alexander, the great protector, raises HP and defense, while the fiery demon Ifrit helps players quickly reduce their foe's stamina.
Pro Polished graphics and designs
Each of the Final Fantasy characters have flashy battle styles, and their gargantuan summon deities are slick, clean and full of detail. Particle effects and vibrant, colorful magic spells look impressive on the battlefield, and characters look great casting them. Older series characters look stunning with modern PlayStation 4 graphics, such as Kefka from Final Fantasy VI on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System with his menacing face paint and gaudy, circus-like outfit reminiscent of a court jester.
Pro Plenty of fan-service
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT features protagonists and antagonists from each mainline Final Fantasy game, like Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII and Noctis from Final Fantasy XV. During story cutscenes, characters from different games interact with one another, like Lightning from the Final Fantasy XIII games agreeing to team up with Squall from Final Fantasy VIII. In battle, they can summon the classic guardians like Bahamut and Ifrit. Victories in battle earn currency and unlocks, like as cosmetic upgrades to change the color of a character's clothes or their official alternate designs, such as Lightning's red and black outfit from the third game in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy.
Pro Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro Stunning environments
The world of Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, so you may often feel the need to stop and take in the beautiful sights. This can be the sheer size of structures, mountains, or caves. It can also be the decorations, inscriptions, or details in a room. There's always so much to look at, allowing you to truly immerse yourself in its world.
Pro Can give a great feeling of accomplishment
The Dark Souls series is known for its difficulty and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. It's filled with difficult enemies and tough boss battles, able to cause you grief on more than one occasion. However, every time you progress to the next safe spot or defeat a boss you'll often be filled with a mix of joy and relief. Beating this game will almost certainly feel like an achievement.
Pro Unpredictable boss battles
The boss battles in Dark Souls 3 consist of several phases, changing up how the bosses fight over the course of the battle. They will gain new abilities, become more aggressive, or reveal various nasty surprises. This creates an enjoyable experience that is different from most modern games where bosses are just glorified pincushions.
Pro A great variety of equipment for almost any playstyle
You'll be finding new pieces of equipment quite often, giving you many options to choose from. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to pick the equipment that best suits your playstyle.
For example, heavy armor will make you move slower, but you'll be better protected. Greatswords have a wide reach, but you swing them really slow. Conversely a dagger is very fast but it has a horrible reach.
Pro Solid controls
This game feels and plays really well. Your character responds to button inputs immediately and it almost never feels like you're losing control over it. The control scheme can also be customized, giving you the option of a more personalized experience.
Pro Great combat system
Dark Souls 3 is a very fast-paced game but it's not just about having quick reflexes. A lot of the combat comes down to exploiting your enemies. To do that, you have to learn their patterns and attack the moment they pause or perform a telegraphed attack. This creates a combat system, which rewards awareness and patience, and is satisfying to master, even if you don't have extraordinary reflexes.
Cons
Con Awful story mode progression
Story mode cutscenes can only be unlocked one by one after fighting dozens of arcade or multiplayer battles first, causing a terrible stop-and-go pace for watching the plot unfold. Sometimes the cutscenes are only 20-30 seconds long, and then you're forced back into more battles before you're allowed to progress to the next scene.
Con Soundtrack is subpar
Remixes of tracks from the original Final Fantasy games for Dissidia NT are considerably lacking, sounding like mere demos or unfinished pieces. Songs such as The Extreme, the final battle track from Final Fantasy VIII, feel empty and soulless, not at all like the larger-than-life theme with the eerie female chorus chanting in Latin and the energy of the piano backing the vocals. Almost every song in NT lacks what made the original tracks so great.
Con Gameplay speed slowed down from previous Dissidia titles
The flow of battle in Dissidia NT is noticeably slower than in the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita games, with dashes bogged down by stamina bars, and downed combatants given periods of invincibility while they recover. There's a frustrating pace to combat where you can't freely travel around the field without pausing to recover stamina, and successful barrages of attacks on enemies are interrupted by their free seconds of invincibility until they're able to be targeted again.
Con Battles are too chaotic
With six players on the field at one time, all of them performing flashy attacks, chaining huge casts of magic one after another, and zipping and dashing around the field, there's too much to keep track of at once. There are arcs of red and blue lines meant to denote who's targeting you and who you're targeting, respectively, but these can get lost amid the chaos of particle effects, smoke, and obstacles such as cliffs and walls. It can be difficult to quickly notice when you're targeted by two or three players at once if you're not already a safe distance away, leading to sudden, irritating defeats.
Con No dedicated servers for online matches
Multiplayer battles run on peer-to-peer connections instead of dedicated servers, meaning that one of the six players in the battle acts as the host for the match. The quality of everyone's connection depends on the host's internet. If host's connection is bad, they may not notice too many issues on their end. If you're the host, and you're running a wired connection from your router or modem to your PS4, then you have little to worry about. If someone else is the host and they have an awful connection, then be prepared for a lot of lag.
Con Poor support for mouse+keyboard control
The default DS3 key/button bindings actually prevent full use of certain weapons by requiring the shift key to be pressed and not-pressed simultaneously. Rebinding is possible, but limited by issues like the left mouse button overriding all others and certain bindings not actually working in game (e.g. Shift+MiddleClick).
Con It's hard
You should try avoiding the trap of great review scores since most of them fail to mention the difficulty. It's simply put - hard. A lot of the combat requires quick reflexes, good mechanics, and the mental fortitude to carry on after failing for hours. If you're new to the Souls-like genre or simply want to enjoy a relaxing evening playing a video game, you most likely won't enjoy Dark Souls III.
Con Poorly tuned dynamic visiblity
You may notice some texture pop in while sharply turning the camera. It can be somewhat distracting if you notice it, but most of the time you won't because it happens in the distance.
Con Occasional performance issues
There are portions of the game that will have noticeable framerate drops, which can negatively affect the gameplay. Most of the fault lies with the game engine, so getting better hardware won't help that much.