“Return to the pixel‑art world of FINAL FANTASY, evolved from its classic roots. Travel with companions bound by fate and call on Visions to aid you in battle to uncover the truth behind a force that threatens to bring everything to ruin..” – Steam Description

Final Fantasy Resonance is an HD-2D adaptation of a mobile gacha game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius that delivers a great single-player experience. I personally never played Brave Exvius myself, so this review does not hold the old game in comparison and the only nostalgia induced was their intended callback moments to the rest of the franchise. The blend of rendered backgrounds and pixel sprites gave the game almost an old school feel while you played it. Then you are hit with full CG moments with the summons and visions. Resonance feels like a love letter to the fans but readable by all.

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Enjoyable For All Types Of Players

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Whether you are new to JRPG’s or a diehard Final Fantasy fan, there is something to enjoy with Resonance. The game is packed full of callbacks to other Final Fantasy games but are delivered so subtly that you won’t feel left out if you missed it, such as the dwarves. The game runs a little lower on playthrough length than most JRPG’s giving it a streamlined Final Fantasy experience feel. The game shares a lot of themes and moments with other Final Fantasy games, but without most of the fluff. There are only a couple side quests that pop up per chapter. With fast travel and how small each area is, the side quests don’t feel like a chore to complete and most of them give useful rewards. The map and each visitable area feels very condensed. The areas feel like they belong and are a part of something larger, but only have 2-3 scenes to explore. Even with this condensed feeling in map size the game’s difficulty scales well with  its own natural progression. With only doing side quests when they were presented, I never felt I needed to stop and grind to progress past a certain point. Each new area you entered never felt like a “come back in 5 levels” encounter but none of the bosses were just pushovers. The majority of fights in the game are figuring out the enemies weakness and setting up when to stagger them for high damage output, but the freedom you get with building your character makes how you approach that interesting.

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Build Diversity

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Your character builds seem simple and straightforward at first. Then you notice you have micro-stats you can grind out from each vision. Visions are crystallized memories you can equip to gain new abilities, similar to swapping jobs in previous titles, and how the game gives the players the ability to fight along side iconic characters across the franchise. The visions have two forms of upgrades to them. You have their awakening level which gives them more moves and passives that only affects the person they are equipped to. Then they have mastery levels which are specific to each playable character. Mastery levels gives you a mix of permanent stats and cross-trainable abilities, up to level 9. These cross-trainable abilities can be equipped to characters once you have reached the desired mastery level utilizing Ability Points.

These shared abilities and permanent stats not only give you the ability to mix and match the strengths of different visions, but every 4th and 9th level of mastery gives you 8 more Ability Points. Giving more points to grab more moves off more visions. Incentivizing you to grind out all the visions if you wanted the most freedom with your build. To reward the player even more for maxing out a vision, you have the option of equip the entire soul at a discounted cost to AP. This can make equipping the entire soul cheaper than grabbing 3 key abilities off them. This constant grind of mastering a vision and moving on to a new one keeps the monotony of combat a bit more interesting. Majority of the fights you encounter can be broken down into finding their weakness, figuring out what their big move is, and lining up a sweeping stagger for big damage. Unless you are utilizing the base kit of each character to do these things, the tools available to you should be changing every so often. This creates an interesting balancing act of trying to ensure you have all the tools you need to tackle an area or boss, while not fighting with maxed out visions too often.

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A Tale As Old As Time

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A very well orchestrated story following the original basis the franchise started with, saving the crystals. This simple idea is expanded upon with compelling characters that have believable motivators for their actions. Even the bad guys are well written and start to become even relatable as the story progresses and more of your questions become answered. A lot of moments are predictable between their foreshadowing and the parallels with other Final Fantasy titles. This does not lower the enjoyment of the game, if anything it gives a slight nod to the story telling element from past titles and moves on. As mentioned before, the game was an enjoyable streamlined Final Fantasy experience to me. That being said it is not without its own twists and narrative explanations. They just seemed to remove a lot of the fluff that usually keeps you in areas longer when compared to most JRPGs. Each character has their own side-quest moment that shines a sense of growth or closure for their character (and gives them some permanent stats, which is nice).

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Eye Candy & Extras

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Even with the game having a lower playtime than your average JRPG, the game is a visual treat for Final Fantasy fans and comes with some optional content for those who want more after beating the game. With full CG renders when you summon any Esper (Titan, Shiva, Ifrit, Etc) and when you use a Resonance attack at the end of a sweeping stagger with the other Final Fantasy characters, you get some quick hype moments that breaks the visual monotony of the game. Making a build around your favorite Final Fantasy characters and them getting a moment in HD was such a vibe. The game is a solid turn-based game as is, but those moments definitely enhanced the experience for me. Whether it was trying to guess the game you were getting a character from before the game capture moments were revealed or wondering what the CG Resonance attack looked like, the visions added an enjoyable layer of discovery that wasn’t just a treasure chest at a dead end on the map.

The game has some bonus endgame content and does not punish your for wanting to beat the game prior to doing it. After you beat the game you are able to make a completion save file that puts you back before the point of no return in the final dungeon, but with the current stats you had beating the game. Beating the game also unlocks one of the optional endgame bosses. Some of the optional content is probably intended to be played after you beat the main story because a few of the recommended levels are higher than I was when I beat the game. Most if not all of the side content are just challenge fights meant to give players a new challenge if they wanted more after beating the game. These fights tend to have a few extra layers to the fight past ‘find weakness and stagger’.

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• Graphics– Phenomenal delivery on an HD-2D game. The blend of rendered environments with pixel sprites blends perfectly with a nice splash of fully rendered moments for summons and certain visions.
• Gameplay– A great pacing for a turn-based game, I never felt the need to “grind” to progress the story. Playing around a stagger bar that helps you manipulate turn economy with a cashout option for staggering all enemies at the same time was very enjoyable. Not a whole lotta fluff in the game but enough side content for those who want a little more to experience.
• Sound– Great soundtrack enhancing the already cinematic experience. I found myself vibing to the battle music many times. Sound Effects in battle are also very gratifying.
• Controls– Overall the game is easy to navigate and parse the information on screen. My main complaints are there was no way to inspect the buffs/debuffs on the enemy or party. Also, when swapping equipment it wouldn’t show the numerical stat change on your stats screen, just color coded to show an increase or decrease. Mind you the numerical change in stats existed in the shop when hovering a weapon or armor to buy, just not in the screen with all your equipment.
• Story– A great adventure story with questions you want answered shifting every couple hours. A bit predictable at times with a few events feeling borderline rushed, but has well written characters with believable motivators and reactions to events. Overall easy to digest, understand, and enjoy.