REVIEW: ‘Final Fantasy Resonance’ Is A Fantastic Game For Fans

Final Fantasy Resonance is Square Enix’s brand-new remake and reimagining of its beloved 2015 mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. The game builds on the original’s solid foundation and enhances it in many ways for console and PC players. While the overall experience is mostly phenomenal, some gameplay executions leave much to be desired.

The game is set in the kingdom of Grandshelt and follows Rain and Lasswell, two knights the king calls in to investigate the Earth Shrine after learning of unusual activity in the area. Once they arrive, a mysterious warrior named Umbra, Veritas of the Dark, ambushes them and quickly shatters the Earth Crystal.

After learning that he and his group of mysterious armored warriors plan to destroy the other six crystals, Rain and Lasswell begin their quest to protect the remaining crystals. Along the way, they meet a cast of characters that define the game.

There is Fina, a mysterious amnesiac girl; Lid, an airship engineer who dreams of renown; Nichol, an analytical strategist; Jake, a rebel leader with grand goals; and Sakura, a young but powerful mage. Together, the group sets out to defeat Umbra and his team while tapping into the power of “Visions,” echoes of legendary Final Fantasy heroes from the past.

Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Resonance continues the studio’s approach to remakes and reimaginings.

The game’s narrative begins by introducing the core characters and their goals, but as players progress, they visit several cities and regions and slowly meet more characters. The overarching narrative grows in scale, and mysteries like Umbra’s true goal and Fina’s mysterious origins are revealed quickly and satisfyingly. As a result, the narrative stays engaging from start to finish, especially as more details come to light.

Final Fantasy fans will also appreciate how it pays respect to previous Final Fantasy games, especially lore-wise, by referencing many established Final Fantasy elements throughout. Additionally, the game’s characters are incredibly lovable and endearing in their own ways.

This is thanks to their personalities and the comical and interesting things that happen as a result. This is especially clear in the side conversations the characters can have with themselves during gameplay in dungeons and cities, which highlight their personalities well.

A core part of Brave Exvius is the Vision system, which returns in the best way in Final Fantasy Resonance. Unlike in the previous game where Final Fantasy characters and protagonists were attainable through a gacha system, Resonance forgoes that in favor of standard exploration and recruitment. Players find a sanctum marked on their map in several regions and take a quiz that walks them through the journey the protagonist they are about to recruit had in their games before getting the character.

Final Fantasy Resonance retains its classic style while updating almost everything it needs to. 

The questions and their cinematic sequence are great and will especially appeal to fans. However, it’s a shame the quizzes do little more than test players’ knowledge of the character. Failing the questions breeds no punishment, and getting them all grants no reward. However, walking into a sanctum and finding out what character you’re about to get is always fun.

Final Fantasy Resonance retains the classic Final Fantasy combat system without including the ATB system. Players fight several monsters and enemies with their party through turn-based combat using both their characters and their Visions’ magical skills and abilities.

Along the way, players find new weapons, armor, and accessories to strengthen them. Another way to increase combat strength is also through Visions that grow stronger with combat experience and Mastery Points the more they use them.

Other than that, players can find and recruit several summons called Espers like Siren and Ramuh, but will first have to defeat them before they can be summoned in battle. They’re all well designed and fun to fight, and getting them always feels rewarding. Using Espers and Visions, along with their ultimate Burst attacks, makes combat incredibly fun.

Final Fantasy Resonance’s random encounter system feels out of place with the game’s other updates.

That said, the game also has a random encounter system. Standard fare for the genre, this system lets players get surprise-attacked while exploring outside towns. It’s a system used in older pixel games, including the first seven Final Fantasy games, that existed because of hardware limitations and the inability to display enemies on screen. But it’s also a system Square Enix has finessed over time. 

However, playing through Final Fantasy Resonance with so many modern aspects makes the random encounter system feel incredibly tedious and almost archaic if you’re not swept up in the nostalgia. It forces players to fight enemies every few seconds while looking for items, trying to escape or explore dungeons, and while exploring more generally.

This can be incredibly frustrating, especially since players can’t toggle off enemy encounters like they can in Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games. While the minimap tries to mitigate this by indicating when a battle is about to start, it doesn’t make the resulting tedium any less frustrating. Still, if you’re coming to Resonance for a nostalgic experience rather than a more streamlined one, you may not see an issue here. 

On the smaller side of my critiques are quality-of-life improvements from the original that feel missing in this game. For example, you can’t zoom in on the world map when trying to find specific areas, and you only have two accessory slots per character, which is incredibly limiting given how many gear items players come across.

HD-2D visuals and 3D environments make Resonance’s art sing. 

Visually, Final Fantasy Resonance still features a unique but refreshing blend of pixelated HD-2D visuals and 3D environments. It also features several well-animated 3D renders and cutscenes, especially for Visions and their ultimate attacks, which combine 3D pre-rendered animations with explosive, vibrant 2D animations.

Additionally, the art direction sports many intricate backgrounds with great lighting and reflections. The game’s soundtrack is also immaculate, with several memorable and fitting background tracks, emotional tracks, and boss music. However, despite all this, Final Fantasy Resonance has its fair share of problems and annoyances. The most prominent of which is the random encounter system.

All that said, Final Fantasy Resonance is an incredible remake and reimagining of a beloved mobile game. While some parts can be frustrating, it’s not enough to diminish the overall stellar experience, and it’s easy to recommend to Final Fantasy and retro JRPG fans.

Final Fantasy Resonance will launch on October 22 for PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X/S.