Preview: World of Final Fantasy

As well as Dragon Quest Builders, I was able to sample World of Final Fantasy on PlayStation Vita while I was at Square Enix’s offices this week. The game is a few weeks away but most JRPG fans seem to have their eyes on the behemoth that is Final Fantasy XV. After my time with the more traditional, chibi-ful entry in the franchise, my choice between the titles has become a lot more complicated.

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World of Final Fantasy was revealed at last year’s PlayStation E3 press conference but due to the announcement of Final Fantasy VII Remake straight afterwards, most people didn’t give it much thought. However, since then, as the game has been shown off more and more, it is starting to become more appealing.

Obviously, the first thing to draw the eye is the overly cute art style, including the chibi Final Fantasy characters and monsters. While this may put some people off immediately, this is the same argument Final Fantasy IX faced on its release and it still holds the place of my favourite title in the series. Some see the visuals as an indication of the game’s difficulty or target audience but after spending time with it, I now know just how deep World of Final Fantasy is.

My demo started part of the way into the game. I’m not sure how many hours had been played at that stage but I already had a number of monsters captured (or ‘imprismed’) to use in combat. In case you have not seen any combat from the game, your party is always made up of the main characters, Lann and Reynn. As they travel through Grymoire, the world of World of Final Fantasy (phew), you encounter enemies you can imprism and use to create stacks, where they literally stack on top (or beneath) you.

Depending on the stacks you create, you will gain stat boosts or new skills to use in combat or in the world. For instance, if you imprism a Behemoth, you can teach it to become a mount for you in the overworld, allowing you to ride it from place to place. As you have two forms, normal and Lilikin (chibi basically), you can create two distinct stacks for each character – meaning you have four different possible stacks to use in combat. In this case, one can be strong physically, another can use powerful magic, another can add status buffs etc.

In order to imprism monsters, you will need to fulfil certain criteria. While some may have the normal ‘reduce HP’ to become susceptible to imprism-ing, others may ask you to ensure they are the last monster on the field before they can be captured. You can use the Libra ability to learn about your foe and what triggers them into that state.

When fighting other enemies, they may have formed their own stacks too. As you fight them, you can choose attacks that not only knock off health but also destabilise the stack. If they sway enough, the stack will fall and you can pick off the monsters more easily as they don’t have a combined strength. However, you are also susceptible to being toppled so you have to be careful in combat at all times.

To give you a sense of just how deep the game is, I have spent this entire preview talking about the combat and have still not covered everything. World of Final Fantasy not only looks stunning on PlayStation 4 and Vita, it also has the depth to keep you invested in the game. Combat is engaging and the various champions you can summon (who are characters from other games in the franchise) as well as the locations in the game offer a lot to fans of Final Fantasy.

Oh look, my wallet is weeping again…

Tags: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, square enix, World of Final Fantasy