With the recent announcement of Final Fantasy VII Revelation, I have been taking a walk down memory lane. Remember what it felt like the first time. I understand that people have a connection to the combat system, but to be mean for a second, that’s such a simplistic understanding of what made classic RPGs so memorable. There is the moment you arrive in a town, and everything is so new and mesmerizing, offering a unique moment you don’t realize will play back in your head again years later with such luster. The same goes for the bosses; one day you will say, “Oh no, this next dude is annoying; better stock up.” When death marching straight in even upon your loss, you take that away. Curse you, first form Seymour!
From the first moment of Final Fantasy Resonance, you get this juxtaposition with Revelation of these two paths the series can take; there’s no reason to think it can’t walk both. That the series can return to its roots and chart a new path, offering wildly different interpretations of what it means to be Final Fantasy. That, at its core, has always been what the series offered, after all, even among the ATB-era games that remain in such fond standing.
What’s weird here is how effortfully Resonance doesn’t feel like a rehashing of either the classic Final Fantasy titles or the HD-2D games that have come before it. There is a dynamism to the presentation not achievable in those years. From the opening moments, we see the onset of a war with a pixel-sprite 3D Bahamut blend flying through the sky, sparks of magic with brilliant particle effects, and stages presented with depth and gravitas. It cuts through the noise and puts you into the heart of it all.
This is before the introduction of our leads, Rain and Lasswell, and the beginning of the actual story, but we do get a sense of everything to expect. The turn-based combat is almost verbatim from the Octopath Traveler series, which I enjoy; I’m just not sure if I like it here. We have seen games like Star Ocean: Second Story get the treatment before, and that has a much crazier real-time system, so I feel like the classic ATB element could have been worked in, not that what is there is bad.
The reason for this, I assume, is because Final Fantasy Resonance has a stagger gauge that adds to the fact that the game is actually turn-based, rather than some hybrid. Explains why the option isn’t even available as well. When you stagger, the character who landed the staggering blow gets an extra turn, and if you stagger all the enemies, your full party does, with an added effect from the Visions collectable throughout your journey. This adds a sort of strategy to exploiting weaknesses and going at the stagger gauge in a less chaotic way to get the best effect. The stagger system is also more of an Octopath system rather than a Final Fantasy system.
The Visions add the biggest switch-up to the traditional combat concept. What they really do for you is add several moves on top of the character-specific moves, rounding them out for fights. The selling point of these has been that they are characters from other games in the series (maybe finally establishing that multiverse, wink wink), and in the demo you find a few, with Terra being one of my favorite characters, so she’s my go-to.
Visions level up with abilities you need to unlock, but they also have a few character-specific attacks to choose from. If you land a sweeping Stage of your opponents, you are treated to an absolutely gorgeous special screen where they cast some magic or go into a power attack, really showcasing just how good the game looks overall. There is also a special move your character gets as well that also looks pretty flashy and awesome, matching the cutscene moments. Getting treated to a collage from a classic game in the series as your party is told the history of the person you are gathering has become my everything, though.
This should have been expected, but yes, the classic world map has also returned, with the player getting to go through a few biomes for the first chapter, which takes place on a contained continent. Maybe, being a little nitpicky, it’s weird that each of the islands available to you is connected by very long wooden bridges which, scale-wise, feel like connecting Hawaii to San Francisco… With a wooden suspension bridge, but I digress. They are small areas but have all the charm you might expect while wandering around, with nooks that are as enjoyable to discover as they have ever been.
You will get side quests, and they feel, at least for me, in line with The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Case, which I loved when it was released earlier this year. The side quests were part of that too, which genuinely feels like a triumph when looking back at Final Fantasy XV and seeing how far they have come. They offer a look into the world around you, with characters offering up narrative and the player getting sent off to explore the land. The first one I took did require a lot of backtracking, going to the original dungeon, then back to the desert region, then somewhere else, but this offers vital leveling time, so I will not complain too much. By the time I reached some late-stage bosses, I was pretty ready to rumble.
Dungeons have that same dynamicness to them, and while on par with previous HD-2D games, there is genuinely something about them that feels more inviting. The choice of where static camera angles are, the layout, and just how you stumble upon hidden areas. I don’t know exactly how, but in my short 6 hours or so with the game, I already feel the unique flavors of every area coming through. All I can think about now is what I haven’t seen and just what feelings that might invoke.
That story introduction was crazy, but the narrative does cool down, telling a fully voiced narrative that pays homage to the ones that came before. You get three party members throughout most of the game, and each is fairly engaging. A crystal is shattered, so you set off to protect the others in a world that invokes every bit of the childlike wonder I have been sorely missing. Even better, this is the first time in a long time that the victory theme capped off a battle well fought, rather than a character singing it as a meta reference. And that is something to be excited about.
Final Fantasy Resonance is shaping up to be a true showcase of what Final Fantasy is still capable of but also a testament to the HD-2D games they have been developing for years and why they should not be discounted. If I have any complaints, they are mostly where overlap with Octopath Traveler is concerned, because this is the series that brought you to the ball in the first place; there are obvious elements you could have used over those of the more recent series. That said, I am more excited than I was a week ago, and I was pretty excited then, too. If you were thinking of skipping the demo, just jump in. It’s fairly long, there’s a lot to see, and the save carries over, so it’s not like this is wasted effort.
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