It was then re-released in Japan, based on the North American version, as Dissidia Final Fantasy: Universal Tuning, on November 1, 2009.

Dissidia originated from Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura's desire to create a spin-off for the franchise but then changed to the Final Fantasy series.

Besides designing the characters, Nomura worked with the Square staff with the desire to make it appealing to Western players.

A character's offensive (and, to a lesser extent, defensive) power is shown in numerical form called BRV or "Bravery Points".

[8] As the war seems to be nearing its end, the ten warriors of Cosmos band together to strike back at Chaos's minions and restore balance.

Following the "Destiny Odysseys" is the "Shade Impulse", where all ten warriors have their crystals but arrive too late to save Cosmos, who is killed by Chaos.

The heroes begin to fade away but are saved by the power of the crystals, allowing them to use what time they have left to strike back against the villains and defeat Chaos.

[13] The game features two other storylines with "Distant Glory", where Shanttoto and Gabranth are introduced to the player in two different areas where they are trapped and have to find a way out.

[18] The game was made in commemoration of the franchise's 20th anniversary and despite being handled by young employees, Nomura noticed there was no pressure, having assisted them in the designing various areas from the gameplay.

For villains, they decided to include warriors who had a strong rivalry with the heroes rather than automatically choosing the games' final bosses.

This resulted in the inclusion of non-final bosses such as Final Fantasy IV's Golbez, IX's Kuja and X's Jecht who were connected with their games' leads (Cecil Harvey, Zidane Tribal and Tidus, respectively).

Shantotto from XI was used based on her popularity, while Gabranth was used to represent XII in Balthier's place as the latter had already been featured in Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions and Square wanted his inclusion to surprise gamers.

[23] Square Enix filed for United States trademark registration of "Dissidia" in April 2007; the mark's relation to Final Fantasy was omitted.

The Dissidia Final Fantasy Original Soundtrack by Takeharu Ishimoto was released on December 24, 2008,[25] and is available in both regular and special editions, similar to the game itself.

[31] Studio BentStuff published the Dissidia Final Fantasy Ultimania α as the initial reference guide for the game.

Square Enix released a line of Trading Arts figures in early 2009 with Series 1 containing Cloud Strife, Squall Leonhart, Zidane Tribal, Tidus, and the Warrior of Light.

The game's battle system was described as fast-paced and exhilarating, with simple controls capable of producing battles like those found in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, though it was noted that the action can become difficult to follow when things got hectic and that some of the more technical aspects of the game can be hard to grasp.

The story received mixed reactions, as GameSpot said that it would only interest fans of the franchise, while 1UP.com enjoyed its references to previous games.

[50] Game Informer was critical, claiming that the story and gameplay were too similar to past Final Fantasy titles and would turn off new players.

[54] Following the game's positive reception by gamers in Japan that surpassed Nomura's expectations, he already had in mind several new ideas for a sequel and wished to feature Kain in it.

[19] Yoshinori Kitase stated that the fight between Cloud and Sephiroth from the film Advent Children was popular enough to make Japanese gamers do a remake of it for the crossover Dissidia Final Fantasy and expected Western fans to also emulate it.

Unlike the previous Dissidia titles, this game features 3v3 combat, as well as adding new playable characters such as Y'shtola and Ramza Beoulve.

[60] A freemium mobile spin-off titled Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia was released in February 2017 for Japan, and January 2018 for international territories respectively.