Hands-on with the Final Fantasy Resonance Demo

Final Fantasy Resonance is just around the corner and Square Enix recently released a demo where you can play through the entirety of the first chapter and I finally got the time to sit down and play it.

Grand Opening

The demo opens with a beautiful cutscene of an all-out war, followed by a brief segment where you play a woman called Archwitch and learn some battle mechanics such as: skills, Limit Bursts and summoning Espers.

I’m such a sucker for music, especially in the case of Final Fantasy, and this demo did not disappoint. Epic music right from the start with outstanding battle themes.

You eventually meet what I assume to be the villain of this game, Umbra, who is a part of a group called the Sworn Six.

Gorgeous character portraits are attached to the dialogue for the more important characters of this story.

After an intense battle between the Archwitch and Umbra, some time passes and you’re introduced to the protagonist of this story, Rain and his childhood friend, Lasswell, who are both Knights of the Kingdom of Grandshelt.

The Journey Begins

Following the King’s orders, Rain and Lasswell make their way to the Earth Shrine after some strange things have been happening there.

As you continue through the game, you learn that Umbra and the Sworn Six are here to destroy all the crystals within each shrine across the realm and you have to chase them down and stop them.

The demo does a good job (like it should) at keeping you intrigued on why this is all happening after so much time has passed, why a mysterious girl called Fina appears and eventually joins your party but has no memory of her past, but is clearly quite special and why exactly the Sworn Six want to destroy the crystals.

I personally clocked in over 7 hours on the demo alone, it really is a decently sized demo for you to really get your teeth into and suck you into its world and inhabitants, which is much appreciated.

Rain makes for a great protagonist, if not a bit cliché with his courageous and righteous attitude. Lasswell and Fina are kind of yin and yang, I enjoyed seeing her bubbly side which was a nice welcome to the team, while Lasswell is a bit more on the serious side, but you get to see in the demo that he’s a bit of a softie. I’m excited to spend more time with them and the others who will eventually join the team.

Visions of the Past

The gameplay plays a lot like Octopath Traveler, you traverse through an overworld with the option to explore various towns, cities and dungeons. The combat is turn-based and each member of the team has a specific role which provides useful in battle.

I’m afraid I’m quite easy to impress when you give me some flashy, powerful moves and the game provides just that. Striking enemies with Rain’s Flame Sword felt amazing and Limit Bursts provide an extremely powerful unique move for each team member with a cool cutscene.

My personal favourite part of the combat are the Visions. As you progress the story, you are introduced to Visions, and these contain the memories of heroes from other Final Fantasy games.

You can utilise Visions to help you fight and turn the tide in battle. Sanctums are scattered throughout the realm and when you enter them, you will obtain a Vision and the corresponding hero, when once equipped, you can use their skills.

This game has a stagger mechanic, which ultimately means, once you hit an enemy enough they become staggered, if you stagger all enemies on the field, this triggers a sweeping stagger which grants all allies an extra turn and the use of a powerful move called Resonance.

A Tacky Feeling

The Resonance move used by a Vision depends on which Vision hero you have equipped. For example, I was able to use the Resonance of the Warrior of Light, the hero from the original Final Fantasy game, which dealt major damage, but also provided some support benefits to the team member this Vision was equipped to.

Now, playing the demo disappointed me on two things; the first is the Resonance cutscene that plays, most of them turn into full on 3D cutscenes and don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty damn cool to see, but I couldn’t help but feel it was a bit tacky and when the game for a majority of the time is the charming HD-2D artstyle, going from that to human-like graphics feels a bit off. It may just be a thing to get use to, but I can’t help but feel I’d prefer it if they were all in the style of HD-2D.

The Espers being summoned have this same issue, it should feel really awesome, but feels a bit strange instead.

The second thing is the voice over for those same cutscenes, they are ONLY in Japanese. I’m hoping I’m wrong when the full game is released and get surprised by an English dub, but this close to the release I don’t think that will happen.

It’s probably my nostalgia and as an English dub enjoyer, I just really wanted to hear James Arnold Taylor as Tidus and Ben Starr as Clive Rosfield.

In Conclusion…

Overall I was extremely happy with the demo, getting to play the first chapter was a great way to introduce the characters, gameplay and understand the start of an interesting story.

As I expected, Square Enix have not disappointed with the music and I’m excited to hear more when I can play the full game. The combat felt incredibly fun, theVisions and Espers felt impactful and for any FF fan, how could you not love getting to see your favourite FF hero or summon help you in battle?

It also wouldn’t be a FF game if you couldn’t ride a Chocobo, which you can do early on to help you traverse faster!

I’m super pumped to get my hands on this eventually and experience the full thing, the devs have done an amazing job with the HD-2D style, the Octopath Traveler series has been a favourite of mine since its release and now I get to experience that with a Final Fantasy game.