World of Final Fantasy Review is Totally Cute

If you have ever played a Final Fantasy game, you are likely aware of how the universe or “World of Final Fantasy” has usually very different characters and story lines, but many similar overall Final Fantasy themes. There are similar spells, bad guys, gil,  and game mechanics. Grinding is common activity to level up your characters so they can take on the next big boss. Chocobos will likely be poking around somewhere. World of Final Fantasy is a new game made for a cute intro into the world, but also made for fans. The game contains a lot of these familiar favorite fan elements, but with a heavy “collect them all” focus. Let’s get into the World Of Final Fantasy Review.

Who Created World Of Final Fantasy?

World of Final Fantasy is produced and overseen by Square Enix, with development support provided by Tose. Shinji Hashimoto and Hiroki Chiba (long time Final Fantasy creators) are responsible for the initial design. They noticed that the Final Fantasy franchises had shifted to an older audience than years past. Younger people generally were not playing the series. World of Final Fantasy was born out of this concept and is focused at a slightly younger audience than the typical main Final Fantasy series.

“I’m trying to make this more into a lighthearted, fun type of game. But at the same time, Final Fantasy games are known for their very heavy stories, so I’m trying to keep that in there to keep that Final Fantasy feel in the game.” Chiba said earlier this year at E3.

Final Fantasy For a New Audience

You can see the lighter version of the game in all parts of World Of Final Fantasy.

First, the graphics are amazingly cute. Yasuhisa Izumisawa who had worked on Crystal Chronicles sub-series came in and created the cute character design. The creators of the game wanted to have a stark contrast between the realistic and serious version in the main series. We have large “typical” giant versions of the main characters and tiny small cute versions of the main characters. Tetsuya Nomura who worked on designing characters for several of the previous Final Fantasy and Kingdom Heart games was brought in to create the “large” version to keep long time fans happy. Cute is actually a very common thing that comes to mind as I continue to play through the game. The younger brother – Lann –  has constant playful, younger dialog, and overall acts quite silly. Witty remarks come from the older smarter sister – Reynn.

Second, The tutorial section of the game is quite through, yet still mixing quite well with the story line. There is an extremely detailed getting started guide but I didn’t feel bored while playing, especially once the fast forward feature ( RB ) was introduced. The tutorial goes on for quite awhile – with new game play mechanics still being introduced as late as chapter 5 for example. This can give you an idea of how much information is being given. I haven’t completed the game but over all the story thus far is interesting without much dark end of the world themes typical in Final Fantasy as of yet.

What is World Of Final Fantasy?

World of Final Fantasy is a role playing game, where you play as two siblings, Lann and Reynn. The game consists of you traveling around and fighting battles against various monsters that are called Mirages. The Mirages are then able to be used in battle against other Mirages. You level up your Mirages by playing them and giving them new abilities and Powers. The types of Mirages that you use will change how your characters act in battle giving you a new and unique abilities or weaknesses. Although this sounds rather complicated, it really isn’t. If you’ve ever played a Pokemon or previous Final Fantasy game of course the comparisons are going to be felt here. World of Final Fantasy has been designed for a younger audience to learn how to play an RPG . That is not to say that the game doesn’t hold up well for season players. There is a tons of OMG Old school Final Fantasy characters and moments through out for long time fans.

 Graphics, Music and Gameplay for World Of Final Fantasy Review

Graphics

Although the game is ‘more cute’ than normal I still felt the graphics were pretty stunning like all Final Fantasy games. Video sequenced cut scene make you feel involved in the story and it’s a beautiful world to play around in. I liked the cute elements to the game and collecting the various “cutsey” version of the monsters I have killed countless times in other Final Fantasy games.

Music

The game’s soundtrack was primarily composed and arranged by Masashi Hamauzu. Hamauzu a long time fan of and composer for many of the Final Fantasy games was able to create a lighter, happier soundtrack for World of Final Fantasy. With poppy upbeat sounds and threatening bad boss battles I felt right at home in the Final Fantasy world. The music was spot on as always.

Gameplay

World of Final Fantasy is available on Playstation 4 as well as Playstation Vita. There is a save to the server feature in the game. This allows players to take the game between the two platforms and pick up right where they left off. Great for portable grinding while you stand in line. The point of the game is to collect and level up various Mirages that you collect. That basically means that most of the game is spent collecting and grinding ie you are in various battles with various creatures. If you don’t like that feature in other Final Fantasy or Pokemon type games, then this might not be the right game for you as there is A LOT of it in World of Final Fantasy. The game does include a small amount of puzzle making elements. One such puzzle I came across was figuring out the correct Mirages to stack on top of a ‘magical rock’ to pass to the next section. You had find a certain weight of the Mirages and only include only ones that are resistant to cold and then stack those on the rock.  If you don’t have the right mix of Mirages then you need to grind more in the area you are currently in to complete the puzzle.

Battle System

The battle system returns to ATB format – Active Time Battle, a staple of older Final Fantasy games (from IV to IX). You have basic commands and a deeper menu system that allow you to do more advanced commands. You can “live play” so that characters will keep attacking,  even while you are picking various menu items or you can slow it down so it will wait till your actions have been selected. You are also able to fast forward using RB on PS4 to speed up the combat. You can autoplay the combat by tapping the touch pad. You will likely use this a lot as you fight various Mirages and after awhile the actions can be a little bit repetitive, especially when starting out. Later levels of the game you will need to carefully think about which Mirages to take with you, use and how to take down the large foes.

Overall Thoughts for World Of Final Fantasy

Overall I really enjoyed the game. If you have a younger kid at home, or someone who has never played a role playing game or Final Fantasy before this would be a good introduction for them. I feel that World of Final Fantasy will bring a whole new audience into the Final Fantasy World….Perhaps that is why they chose the name of World of Final Fantasy.