Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy

• The game is about creating and exploiting openings for attack. Dodging is good, but blocking is nearly always better. Successful blocks stagger the enemy and allow you to cancel into an attack. Most HP attacks and some brave attacks will guard crush.

• Every attack has a tell. Usually a sound or quote. Not to mention all HP attacks darken the background.

• You can cancel a successful block into another block.

• For every level you have above your enemy, you gain a base brave bonus. This also goes for enemies and tends to be the source of a lot of difficult battles. Especially since they'll also have much better stats than you!

• EX Counter is now EX Revenge. If you trigger EX mode while taking damage, it blows your entire meter and puts the enemy in slow motion for a set period or until you land an HP attack. This means you can't EX Burst until you fill up the meter again.

• You'll come across a LOT of breakable accessories during story mode. Don't be shy about using them!

• Any HP attack with a lot of hangtime will do terrible, terrible things to the AI. Lightning's Razor Gale. Zidane's Tidal Flame. Cloud of Darkness is still infamous for 0-Form Cannon. Being homing HP attacks, the AI puts a high priority on dodging them while you move in and tag them with something else.

• Dashing with R+Triangle automatically deflects most projectiles.

• Work on spending your PP on bonus day boosts. What you may really want at first are AP bonuses so you can master abilities several times faster. Mastered abilities cost less to equip and may unlock new ones.

• Related to the above, mastering certain brave attacks will unlock the ability to combo that brave attack into an HP attack. These are all incredibly useful as it's usually easier to land a brave attack than an HP attack.

• Chase mode seems to have gotten faster and I found the AI much more difficult to trick. So much that I never follow up on chase attacks and allow them to time out when the enemy starts them.