Final Fantasy Resonance feels like a long-lost SNES Final Fantasy game in the best way. Smartly, it takes the grand sense of adventure and purposeful structure of those 16-bit era JRPGs and introduces some welcome modernizations. It might not do anything wholly new, but when it’s all so slickly crafted, you can’t help but love it all the same.
The savviest thing Square Enix did with its first proper turn-based FF in years, ironically enough, was to look to none other than mobile gaming. Indeed, Resonance is an extensive remake of Brave Exvius, a now-discontinued FF Android and iOS title. Similar to how last year’s Octopath Traveler 0 adapted Champions of the Continent, Resonance takes Exvius‘ core story and world and dramatically expands it with significantly more narrative material, overhauled gameplay mechanics and other additional content.
What’s more, Resonance is the first-ever HD-2D Final Fantasy, meaning it benefits from the arrestingly beautiful blend of retro-inspired pixel art and sprites with 3D environments and modern rendering effects like dynamic lighting that was introduced with Octopath Traveler. Given that the 2018 JRPG was itself so inspired by Final Fantasy, it’s so wonderfully fitting for Final Fantasy to at long last be given the same treatment. And boy, is it something.
A fondly familiar fantasy
Beyond the aesthetic, Resonance feels like a proper SNES-era FF through and through. For one, the premise is an unabashed throwback to the FFs of old, focusing on a plucky band of warriors, mages, and mechanics who set out on a journey to stop a villainous cohort from destroying the Crystals that serve as the world’s life force. It’s a very basic FF plot, but that’s a feature, not a bug. It allows Resonance to play the hits, paying tribute to everything from legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu’s original iconic melodies to the Rebel Army from FFII, Golbez from FFIV, the Steampunk world of FFVI and, of course, people named Cid.
The narrative itself, meanwhile, is admittedly fairly standard. None of the cast has all that much depth, with main character Rain, in particular, being an archetypal “pure-hearted knight” who doesn’t ever really change. Meanwhile, big twists revealing the secret identities of certain villains can be seen a mile away. But in keeping with the loving homage to FF history, Resonance on the whole has an endearing playfulness and sense of humour that, when paired with exceptional voice acting, keeps it consistently enjoyable. In fact, it reminded me a lot of FFV, a very whimsical and humorous romp that was sandwiched between two decidedly darker SNES numbered entries. This lightheartedness is honestly refreshing, especially after Final Fantasy XVI went for a Game of Thrones-inspired dourness.
Resonance also harkens back to FF‘s roots with its fully turn-based combat system. Not Active Time Battle where metres slowly fill, not some action-menu hybrid like the FFVII Remake series — pure “nothing-happens-until-you-act” battles. It’s glorious, and it’s something that has sorely been missing from FF pretty much this entire millennium. In these four-character skirmishes, you select from your regular attacks, character-specific skills, magic abilities and other commands like you would in the FFs of old. You’ll use these moves to exploit enemy weaknesses and, eventually, fill a Stagger bar to make them significantly more susceptible to damage for a brief period.
But Resonance‘s unique gimmick, which is also lovingly rooted in nostalgia, is the Vision system. As you explore the world of Lapis, you’ll come across caves containing Visions, which are spirits of characters from all 16 FF mainline games, plus some folks who were created for Brave Exvius/Resonance. Each of these encounters are accompanied by short cutscenes featuring music and montages from their original game, which is a sweet bit of fan service. From there, they’ll join you as a sort of equippable gear that imbues your party members with special abilities and attributes.
It’s a brilliant mechanic, allowing you to combine predefined character archetypes with the unique strengths of fan-favourite heroes. On his own, Rain only has Fire-based sword moves, but with FFVII‘s Cloud, he gets powerful Lightning and Water attacks to bolster his offensive prowess. Conversely, Fina the mage is better served as a healer and buffer, so FFXIV‘s Y’shtola provides some welcome boosts on that front. But of course, you can mix-and-match for wilder combinations that play against type but might still help chip away at elemental weaknesses and more quickly Stagger enemies.
Turn orders, which you can see in the top left, are also essential to maximizing effectiveness. Upon Staggering every enemy, you’ll enter a period in which the party can launch a series of attacks that culminates in a special Resonance move of your choice from one of your Visions. These flashy pre-rendered cinematics unleash devastating assaults that can also sometimes have bonus effects like Regen, so it’s always immensely satisfying to successfully execute them after Staggering an enemy to deal extra damage.
Resonance‘s gameplay as a whole is so pleasant outside of combat, too, thanks to how tight it all feels. Dungeons never overstay their welcome due to little navigational gimmicks, multiple save points and the ability to return to the entrance before the boss. Fast travel is available throughout the entire world. You can change the party at any time. Altogether, it’s a splendid line-up improvements from some classic FF games where you could sometimes soft-lock yourself in a particularly tough dungeon.
But perhaps best of all are the sidequests. This collection of short stories actually fleshes out the characters in ways that the main quest often doesn’t, especially once the world opens up via airship. Take Rain’s Knight companion Lasswell, a similarly morally virtuous man and pretty standard “best friend” archetype. One sidequest has him dealing with a Robin Hood-type figure in his past, revealing shades of grey we hadn’t previously seen. Another sidequest, meanwhile, sees Nichol, the stoic strategist of a city of monks, having to grapple with his people’s prosperity has come at the cost of another tribue. In keeping with the FFV comparisons, though, my favourite sidequest chain by far is one I won’t dare say much about but can tease that it involves Gilgamesh, everyone’s lovably goofy multi-armed antihero from that very same 1992 SNES classic.
My only gripe with the otherwise ample quality side content is that some of it can drag. On the whole, Resonance is a fairly easy game on Normal difficulty, but some of these endgame challenges feel exponentially harder and even artificially padded due to enemies’ extremely large health bars coupled with a maddening tendency to heal themselves. (Also: not necessarily a flaw, per se, but the game features a mechanic that lets you see when your next random encounter will occur. It’s novel in concept, but because it always happens after a set period and there’s no way to prevent it, the strategic value here is pretty much non-existent.)
A crystalline comeback
Final Fantasy Resonance is a game that doesn’t reinvent the wheel at all, but that’s absolutely not a bad thing. If anything, it serves as the perfect celebration of Final Fantasy, right on time for the series’ 40th anniversary next year. With its excellent mix of stunning aesthetics, fanciful charm, satisfying combat system that makes classic FF characters an actual part of character progression and numerous quality-of-life features, Resonance is a thoroughly enjoyable ride that rarely lulls.
As I reflect on my time with Resonance, I’m reminded of one of the standout songs from FFV, “Home, Sweet Home.” It’s sweet, tender melody that, as the name suggests, brings to mind many nostalgic memories of childhood — of simpler, more comforting times. That’s Final Fantasy Resonance in a nutshell, and really, what’s more resonant than that?
Final Fantasy Resonance launches on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch and PC on Oct. 20.
Image credit: Square Enix
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