World of Final Fantasy Review by: legacyme3 - 7/10
Some Worlds Better Off Unexplored? - World of Final FantasyThe other day, I launched my FFXV review, today, however, I bring you a different Final Fantasy story.
I'm of course referring to the "World of Final Fantasy", a side game, one where a lot of normal Final Fantasy conventions are thrown out the window. Arguably, this isn't even really a Final Fantasy game, in anything but name, and because of the cameos of a few characters, and the appearances of some monsters, most of which you won't even recognize anyway.
Let me begin by saying this much, World of Final Fantasy is not afraid to take a risk on a stale formula, and mix it up, nor is it afraid to give you a head-scratcher of a story, despite its childish looks. Buried beneath the poppy childish looking game is a rather dark story, and a potentially complex battle system, that is unfortunately, broken far too easily.
Graphics - 9
The game's high standard is arguably its graphical capacity. I mean just look at it, though it is such a simplistic art style, everything in the world feels so vibrant and colorful, and it's hard not to want to be in the world with Lann and Reynn, both of whom have typical Final Fantasy protagonist appearances in their "Jiant" form, and both of which have a cute chibi form (which may or may not ever see real use, depending on how you choose to play the game).
The battle screens look simple enough to understand, but aesthetically pleasing, as nothing stands out as particularly jarring. The shading effects on various details in the game is rather more advanced than I was honestly expecting, and the animations are fluid and look fantastic in action, even in mid battle, when you are skipping through turns.
While 9 might be more than the game really deserves (let's be honest, this game still looks rather childish), it accomplishes what the medium sets out to do, graphically, and more.
Sound - 6
World of Final Fantasy may as well be billed as a celebration of Final Fantasy's history, and the music is a pretty good reflection of this. Borrowing from some historic tracks, which will make you smile, World of Final Fantasy adds in its own original sound track as well, and somehow, it all just fits.
However, there's one major problem with the sound, one I legitimately cannot ignore, it would be treasonous to do so. The voice acting in this game is absolutely terrible, and is easily one of the worst in the series, when it comes to this category. A lot of this can be blamed on terrible character/story design, but the voice actors seem checked out, and disinterested in making things interesting. The only thing worse than a bad story is a bad story that the voice actor doesn't even try to make good.
The biggest offenders here are Lann and Tama. Lann is just so over the top stupid, that I have to assume it was a design choice to make him annoying. When he has his serious moments, he is bearable. Tama, however, is irredemable. Interrupting the story every "the five seconds and never shutting the up" is just far too much. It's like they took the worst part of Starfire from Teen Titans, decided to make a character with that awful trait, and sent it to die in a world that frankly deserves better. Tama can be pretty funny at times, but she annoyed me from the outset with her awful vocal tick.
Again, I might just be a bit unfair here, but I can't give a free pass to those two characters and their voice actors, who may have played terrible characters perfectly. There will be more knicks coming.
Addictiveness - 8
For those downsides I'll get to, however, the game doesn't really cease to be fun. It's a bit long-winded, and towards the end, I was just trying to finish the game, but the entire time, I enjoyed what I was doing. The main reason for this is the battle/capture system implemented in this game.
Think Final Fantasy meets Pokemon. That's basically the system. Each enemy has a "weakness". Exploit it (it can be anything from just beating it up, to casting reflect on yourself and hoping the enemy fires a spell at you) and it will light up, signaling it is possible to "capture" it. Capture it successfully, and you will get a new monster for your team. With so many monsters to collect, I was hooked, and I set out to capture every creature I could for most of the game, before I got tired of it.
The story, which I'll get more into in a bit, helps as well in this regard, as the entire time, Lann and Reynn's adventure doesn't feel pointless, like it's always going in some direction, even if I don't know what the direction is (to be fair, neither do they).
I can't say it has terrific replay value, which is why I won't rate it any higher than a 10, as once you beat the game, you've done all there really is to see. Not much reason to play the game a second time through, unless you really have nothing better to do.
Story - 7
The story has a lot of high highs, and a lot of low lows. And unfortunately, most people will only see the low lows. After the story kicks into high gear early, you expect a lot from this game. But as time goes on, you realize they blew most of their load in the prologue and in Chapter 1. For most of the game, you are doing simple "go here, grab this, come back, go there", and even worse, most of this happens in ridiculously linear dungeons, with no real excitement to be had.
It stays very ho-hum (to the point most players will get bored and leave the game), but the 2nd act of the game is actually incredibly fun, in my opinion, and is the true reason to play the game (they should have just had it be stuff like that from the beginning).
While Lann and Reynn are not terrific protagonists, they aren't the worst, and their adventure makes sense on some level, which is all you really need to get a passing grade here. The game is long, but the story itself is short. Grinding will likely take up a bit of your time if you want to have a better chance of beating the bosses (spoiler - very few of them are hard to beat in the first place).
Depth - 3
I really hate to give this game such a low score here, but I have to put my foot down. This game has basically nothing to do. You are given side-quests like helping the girl in the room with the extra battles, and some of these are even cute. But most of them aren't, and they get incredibly repetitive.
Most dungeons are super linear, so exploring doesn't really reward you usually.
There are hidden chests everywhere, but none of them really contain anything you will desperately want.
And worst of all, beyond winning repetitive coliseum battles, and catching all of the monsters (spoiler alert, just level the same 4 or so up as much as you want, it's easier and you can win this way), it's just a dull experience if you are going in expecting side-quests.
Going back to old towns proves pointless more often than not, and it's hard to tell when you make real progress, because nothing you do in the game seems to even matter.
Difficulty - 1
The RPG itself is not hard, the combat system is easy and intuitive, and the controls are responsive. Once you get the hang of the system, it's easy street.
If there's any difficulty, it's getting past Tama's grating voice to actually play the game.
I'm not even kidding.
GRADING FOR WORLD OF FINAL FANTASY
Graphics - 10% (10% of 9 is .9)
Sound - 10% (10% of 6 is .6)
Addictiveness - 35% (35% of 8 is 2.8)
Depth - 20% (20% of 3 is .6)
Story - 25% (25% of 7 is 1.75)
Difficulty - 0% (0% of 1 is 0)
Total - 6.55
Bonus Points - I'll add a couple points for this game taking a major risk and coming out on top, and for a mostly glitchless experience. We'll round the score up to a 7.
Overall - 7
World of Final Fantasy, for all of its flaws remains what you'd expect, a cute game, with cameos by your favorite characters from the FF series (though few of them really make any sort of impact). It even adds a few twists of its own in the storyline, to make it a tad darker.
While it is not a bad game, it is neither a great game, merely one I would consider to be average, a good tide-me-over game, while one waits for other releases to come out, but little else.
Graphics
9 Sound
6 Addictive
8 Depth
3 Story
7 Difficulty
1
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