Dissidia 012 : Final Fantasy Legacy Edition

The crossover fighting game that gave us Cloud vs. Sephiroth, Squall vs. Ultimecia, and about a hundred other dream matchups we'd been arguing about since childhood... and this is the version most collectors outside Europe never even saw.

The Dissidia 012 Duodecim Final Fantasy Legacy Edition for Sony PSP was a European and Australian exclusive that wrapped Square Enix's ambitious fighting RPG sequel in a white slipcase with exclusive cover artwork, six deluxe character lithograph art prints, and downloadable costumes for Tifa and Squall that weren't available any other way. This is the regional variant that makes Final Fantasy purists twitch when they spot it in the wild.

To be honest, there ain't much in terms of the collector edition. But underneath the collector's packaging sits one of the PSP's finest hours. Dissidia 012 took the original's Bravery-to-HP combat system and refined it with an assist mechanic, a proper world map, party battles, and nine new playable characters including Kain, Tifa, Laguna, Yuna, Lightning, and Vaan. It's both a prequel and a complete remake of the first Dissidia, meaning you're getting two games' worth of story content on a single UMD. This was the era when Square still packed a full experience onto the disc, no day-one patches, no season passes.

That being said, everything is a bit basic in terms of collectors, especially when compared to the original Dissidia Collector's edition. Those six lithograph prints are the real hook for collectors. Tetsuya Nomura's character designs for Kain, Tifa, Laguna, Yuna, Vaan, and Lightning rendered as physical art prints, bundled exclusively with this edition. They're the kind of thing you frame and mount, not leave in a drawer. The white packaging stands out immediately on any shelf dominated by standard black PSP cases, which makes it the piece other collectors notice first when they scan your collection.

The PSP library is quietly becoming one of the most collectible in gaming. And as a collector you might want Dissidia 012 for the gameplay (It contains the original campaing) but the first one for the collector goods.