A Pokemon themed Final Fantasy? Sign me up.
World of Final Fantasy is the latest in the long-running series, it’s more of a spin-off to be fair and has cameos of classic Final Fantasy characters including Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth, Squall, Lightning and others from games old and more recent. It’s got it’s own characters too and story, even if it perhaps told through somewhat irritating characters.
The game is linear in it’s design, leaving little to explore but also gives you the chance to capture monsters and others to use in battle, much like Pokemon in it’s capturing technique…injure the foe, then attempt to capture. The visual style is more cutesy than your standard FF game with big heads and small bodies as a potential look. Combat is classic turn-based and while it won’t change the world, it’s nice to see a return to form for the series’ combat.
In terms of the game, it feels more like a celebration of Final Fantasy for fans than your standard in-depth FF game. While the combat has the classic turn-based concept, it also has a bit more depth to it with whether you design to stack your monsters to make a tower or not, which can be helpful in combat. Monsters also have abilities outside of combat like finding hidden items or advancing through barriers stopping you from continuing.
Square-Enix have taken a lot of inspiration from Pokemon for World of Final Fantasy, which is no bad thing…I never thought of combining the two before, but it works and it works well. I just wish the story didn’t have such cheesy and cringey moments. Visually, it’s a superb game that although has a basic look…is charming and never falters with performance, plus the animations and character models are incredibly cute. Voice-acting is cheesy, but not the worst in a JRPG I’ve come across, while the music on the other hand is superb.
The Verdict
World of Final Fantasy feels like a thank you to fans with it’s amount of cameos, return to turn-based combat. It also feels like it’s taken a lot of inspiration from Pokemon, which all combines into one truly great game only held back by it’s story.