There aren’t a lot of role-playing games that catch my fancy outside of the usual suspects. There are role-playing games out there that have the essence of old school on them, but they are generally drowned out with heavy action. By going that gameplay route they usually avoid fully achieving what I’ve been hankering for since leaving the likes of Phantasy Star (the Online version doesn’t exist, so don’t start that with me). I don’t honestly mind action-oriented RPGs, as I will forever be in love with the likes of Bethesda’s Skyrim, but going back to a turn-based built adventure is always a treat.
That’s where World of Final Fantasy steps in.
The ground work of the title is built on traditional turn-based RPG-ing (not a verb), so you will run into unseen forces during your adventure, which will launch into a turn-based battle. That’s good stuff, especially if you like a little bit of grind with your RGP-ing (still not a verb). Once the battle begins, you’ll have a meter on the left, where you’ll find pictures of your group. When the pictures reach the top of the meter, you’re given the opportunity to jump into action. It’s pretty easy to pick up on when you’re playing World of Final Fantasy, so people not familiar with turn-based RPG-ing (sigh, ya know) will immediately pick this up without a hitch. While we’ll talk visuals later on in the review, the visuals certainly give a hint that the audience Square Enix and Tose is of the younger variety, which will have no problem figuring out the mechanics of the game.
While the developers could have stopped there with an established genre and pushed out a game that would be ‘so Square Enix’ (in a good way), they chose to add a couple more layers of intrigue to the mix.
The first layer is the inclusion of ‘capturing the creature’ option, which is much like what you would find in Nintendo’s Pokemon. Your characters, once they’ve damaged creatures (called Mirages) enough, break out devices called prisms that they can throw at the mirages to capture them (much like a Pokeball). The catching process is hit or miss depending on life left in the mirage and depending on some random algorithm (as far as I can tell). It can be frustrating at times to capture a mirage, as I have spent a more than a few minutes on occasion trying to catch some mirage, but most of the time the power pay-off from doing so is worth its weight in gold.
Now, once captured, the mirage comes in three different sizes (so far). There can be small, medium and large mirages. The power of the mirage isn’t dictated by its size, as that doesn’t matter (snicker), rather the mirage’s power is measured by specific attributes that come with it and a total power once it is stacked with Jiants (you) and other mirages. As you progress through the game and gain a multitude of mirages, you can pick and choose which ones to create a stack with for battles. The large ones are on the bottom, medium in the middle and small on the top. Stacks are only three characters high and can be toppled over if damaged enough. Once that happens, the mirages and character are isolated during the battle until you can stack them back up (tough situation in the heat of battle).
As you do a bit of grinding it out in the game, you can upgrade the mirages you possess through XP gathered by fallen enemies. You can also unlock particular abilities using the mirage leveling grid that each mirage comes with in the game. Each mirage carries its own set of attributes and the grid branches out so well that you don’t have to follow particular patterns, though completing a grid fully through the use of the mirage’s SP they gain as they progress along the adventure will breed other benefits.
If that wasn’t enough to make the game intriguing and fun, the gameplay also features empty spaces in a mirage’s grid that will allow you to use seeds gathered along the way in the game. The seeds come in different categories. Some are used for battle, some defense, while others can be as simple as a cure seed that adds the ability to cure characters. It’s a neat system and certainly encourages the gamer to keep pushing forward. Grinding out the game and battling enemies over and over again, walking around waiting for a battle to happen, can turn these things up as well. If you have enough patience to keep fighting over and over again, then you’ll certainly reap the rewards to help build on your mirage.
Speaking of patience, the gameplay of World of Final Fantasy counts on your patience to keep it interesting, which can be a curse. One issue that I have run into during my stint with the game is having the patience through grinding to find a particular mirage and having enough patience to continually want to keep going due to the grind of the action process.
Starting with my first issue, finding a mirage, sometimes you will run into puzzles that will require you to have a certain mirage at hand to move beyond whatever obstacle is thrown in your way. For example, there is a part in the game where you have to put Lann in a canon and fire him off to another section of the board. If you don’t have a fire-based mirage in your stack of mirages, you won’t be able to do this. This part of a mission isn’t some small side quest that you can choose to do later, rather it’s a part of a mission that requires you to find a fire-based mirage to progress in the story. That said, it didn’t take long to find and capture the necessary mirage, but the fact I had to do that meant some extra time grinding and searching. Depending on your patience, this may not be the worst or best thing in terms of gameplay.
Another example of this issue is when you’re trying to get through a certain section, but a giant pillar blocks your way. To get the pillar to disappear, you have to stack 2-3 mirages, which doesn’t sound bad, but wait for it. The pillar gives you stipulations to get beyond it. Early on it can be having a weight of five pounds or more and having a specific concentration of water element in the mirage. The weight portion of that equation is fine, but a specific elemental requirement met can be tricky. For example, one pillar I rant into wanted a 50 or better water rating. I had to stack two mirages to achieve it, but the mirages had to be positive in the water category. There were a few mirages that were negative in that category, which went against what I wanted. I had to go capture an additional mirage to make it past this part of the game. It didn’t take long, but I can imagine in certain situations this would be an irritation.
As for my latter issue, the action meter, if you stare at the action meter too long, then the game might seem a bit slow. This sounds like a whiny reviewer wishing things were faster, but I have my reasons. The thing about the meter is that it progresses quicker, if you have the right stack of mirages. The more powerful your characters are, the faster your characters will be on the meter. This ultimately means that you will be able to attack or defend (or help a teammate out with curing/restoration of energy) quicker, which gives you an advantage. Still, at times I felt like I was staring down that meter and wondering to myself if this is what it felt like back in the day during turn-based RPG battles in Phantasy Star II. The answer? No. It was never this slow. I understand why Tose and Square Enix did this, especially when it comes to a younger demographic of new RPG-ers starting with World of Final Fantasy, but it doesn’t make the wait time any easier on us old gamers. I need some Blast Processing in my PS4 to help this out. Tom Kalinske, where ya at?
Those two issues aside, the gameplay is darn good once everything gets rolling in it. The creativity of the characters will certainly help distract you from the at times monotonous gameplay. You will be hard-pressed to find a gaggle of enemies more creatively put together in a recent RPG not called Final Fantasy. The good folks at Tose and Square Enix did a superb job of creating some goofy looking enemies that come with a bevy of different powers to put your people through the ropes. For example, a shark with a small engine around it (a round engine that runs on air) that will spin into a violent attack is neat. A giant one-eyed monster with wings that looks like the evil twin of Mike Wazowski is super creative…and terrifying. The list will go on and on as you progress through the game, so enjoy what they cook up for you. Again, it does help keep the battles interesting.
In addition to enemies, I was also impressed with the difficulty arc in the game and how it doesn’t really baby the gamer when it comes to fighting. It expects some good decision-making during fights and tries to provide the right action tools to see the gamer succeed, as well as progress up through the difficulty arc. World of Final Fantasy feels like at traditional RPG would feel like back in the late 80s and 90s — brutal and unforgiving at times, yet transparent in how to get through certain situations. It should feel like this, though, and it helps you want to get better or at least find a way to get better. This type of difficulty also gives you the need to strategize during battle, which adds another good gameplay layer to the entire experience.
Knowing when to use potions, which character to use for support or defense is imperative when it comes to successfully enjoying WFF. There were a few bosses in the game that game me some trouble because of my lack of planning. For example, early in the game there is a giant wolf with smaller wolf cubs that come at you. The strategy going into the battle was to take out the cubs, then refocus on the giant wolf. I did this the first time around, had the wolf on the ropes and then the wolf howled and called in new cubs to help out. Being depleted and unprepared with potions (to replenish energy) set me back in the fight and I lost. The next time I went up against the wolf, I had plenty of potions and a plan B behind those. The plan B was to use one of my characters to cure/heal the other player, if it came down to it. I also made sure to keep my stacked characters from falling apart, which can happen if your stack gets hit too many times, thus leaving the individual characters alone until they were re-stacked. To keep them stacked there is an item you can obtain to keep the wobbling down. Regardless of wobbling or potions, going into a battle and preparing for any type of situation was essential, which makes the strategy part of battles a gem in World of Final Fantasy.
Overall, World of Final Fantasy has some great gameplay design that honors the traditional turn-based role-playing game structure pretty well. The additional Pokemon elements of capturing and cultivating the mirages creates motivation to keep the ball rolling, even if you’re grinding out the gameplay a bit. The gameplay certainly isn’t perfect, as the younger audience Tose and Square Enix are trying to reach rears its head once in awhile through the gameplay’s flow and simplicity, but it’s darn diverse and deep enough to keep the excitement going from beginning to end.
If that wasn’t enough for you, the presentation of the game is out of this world gorgeous! The backgrounds, foregrounds and mids are stunning. The lighting capabilities of the PlayStation 4’s hardware shine with the environments, which magnify the majestic and mystic feel of the surroundings from level to level. For example, early on in the game you’ll run into a magical forest area that sparkles with green moss and sprawling tree branches. All of it is built on a soft follow-focus that makes the environment seem very Final Fantasy. The colors are so rich, the textures are incredibly detailed, which shows off such creative artistry that I haven’t visually experienced on the PS4 to date. The surroundings, while linear, are still enchanting and draw the viewer into the adorable world built for them, which brings the story closer to the audience. There’s a lot of visuals here to love and each one is a new experience that you’ll be anxious to have as you progress from chapter to chapter in the game.
On top of this, the voice over work done by the actors and the music that accompanies it all is an audible delight. Kudos to the added element of fun.
Speaking of which, do I recommend this title? Lord, yes. If you like traditional turn-based RPGs or you’re trying to find a starter game for a young RPG-er (not a term), then World of Final Fantasy is a great place to start. One of my kids already inquired when I will be done with it, so that they could play, if you need proof (she is 9). Regardless of its small faults, the game is a joy to play.
Anyway, onto the summary.
