With the location test starting later this week, Square Enix held a livestream presentation for their upcoming arcade title of Dissidia Final Fantasy. Below are some of the highlights from the presentation.

While most of the controls are similar to the PSP versions of the game, one of the new features in Dissidia Final Fantasy for arcade is that Team Ninja have added new attacks you can perform while dashing.

The new 3-on-3 battle system brings a new cooperative aspect to the Dissidia series. This concept came from the idea of how Final Fantasy games are about fighting in groups or parties.

“EX Skills” are abilities that will allow you to help out buddies with with different effects or for debuffing enemies. Characters will have their own unique EX Skills, for example, Cloud will have access to his “Limit Break”.

The new Summoning system is considered to be a “super special” that comes from the bond between allies, and it calls out a Summoned Beast as a fourth ally to the party.

Summoning can be done when the white glowing meter shown on the upper-left part of the screen fills up. Players can summon in their own, but it will take a while longer. Performing it it with another ally or two will speed up the summon cast.

Additionally, Summoned Beasts provide buffs to the entire party. For example, having Ifrit might increase attack for the party while Ramuh increases the speed. (Those might not be the exact effects those two Summoned Beasts may have, but were used as simple examples.)

Rather than the Chaos versus Cosmos as seen in the PSP Dissidia games, the story will revolve more around you, the player.

As far as updates go, there are plans to release updates for the game with new characters, stages, Summoned Beasts, Battle music, various custom parts, balance adjustments, and system additions. Their goal is to have the game go on for at least 10 years with regular updates to keep players coming back for more.

It was also reiterated that while Square Enix previously mentioned that there will be about 50 characters, that’s simply a goal they’re aiming for, and will start out with 14 characters. Square Enix hope to reach 50 characters or higher in the long run, but they say to not expect that right away.

Similar to the announcement of Ramza, they will announce new characters over time, and will feature various characters from Final Fantasy I to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

As a way for players to save data on arcades, players will be able to do so through the “Nesica” cards. Those who take part of the upcoming Location Tests will also get a special little something for when the game officially launches.

The above is a look at the character select screen, which shows some details on the characters. Once you select a character, their HP Attacks and EX Skills can be customized to your liking. You can also have more than one of the same character per team.

Dissidia Final Fantasy is in development for arcade.