Final Fantasy Resonance First Impressions — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:08] This time bringing you my first impressions for Final Fantasy Resonance, which launched just yesterday from the time of this video. Though it's not the first time I have spoken about it, as I did check out its publicly available

[00:20] demo a couple of months ago. Now, in the case of this game, worth a mention that I did in fact pay for it. Sometimes Square Enix will give me review keys on not happen here. So, I just went ahead and paid for it as I was always going to

[00:34] review this game one way or another. Not least of which because of how very interested I was in all the different things that it is doing. Namely, its combination of like some incredible pixel art cutscenes, how it mixes that

[00:47] with some themes and characters across the entire Final Fantasy series. And part of me is extremely curious to see if this game can bring all of those different things together into one cohesive narrative or is it just going

[00:59] to wind up feeling like something trying to appeal to everything Final Fantasy if you get my meaning. But the reason the game is like that at all is because from my understanding, Final Fantasy Resonance is based on a sort of gotcha

[01:13] game, much in the way that we saw with Octopath Traveler Zero, where they took full-fledged release, which is what we're getting with Final Fantasy Resonance here. And at least in the early hours, that's not something I

[01:25] mind. And I think long term, it's just going to come down to how I feel about how it handled all of those different things over the course of the game, like little more specific. So, on the technical side of things, I have had

[01:38] zero issues thus far. Still early, of course. But given that uh all of the Steam reviews don't mention anything about performance other than a single am not inclined to believe there are currently at least any widespread

[01:51] issues, which is always great to see and hopefully it stays that way. But let's talk a little bit about the story. So, as I mentioned just right away, the on look incredible, but we of course want that attached to an actual

[02:05] narrative. So, let's talk a little bit about that. Resonance here begins with a about that. Resonance here begins with a flashback of sorts to an event between a wararmongering nation as they tried to uh attack some crystals. They were

[02:18] ultimately thwarted at the time, it would seem, as the crystals themselves seem to be dispersed across universes, whatever. Before the game cuts to our main character, Rain, who is a knight of the kingdom of Grand Shel, who is

[02:32] quickly sent to investigate a disturbance at the shrine to the north of the kingdom, where it turns out those very same people who were causing issues in the earlier cutscene have come back to finish the job, it would seem, and

[02:45] thus they showed up to destroy a crystal that was housed at this shrine, followed by attacking the capital proper. And this sets us on the main story to stop these individuals from trying to destroy these crystals in a very uh Final

[02:57] Fantasyesque story. But where it gets really interesting is how it involves other characters across the series. So one of the main mechanics of this game is its visions or basically just other Final Fantasy characters from previous

[03:11] entries that you can acquire as visions. These visions are effectively an equipment that you can put on to your individual party members. And as the bond between all of them grows, they get more abilities. You can also upgrade

[03:24] to make them stronger, which then unlocks more abilities for them. And that in combination with your character sort of base class, if you will, is what combines to give them their available move set and abilities alongside a whole

[03:38] bunch of stat boosts, as you would probably expect. Now, so far, outside of a couple of combat things, this is pretty much entirely just combat. These narrative role in any sense. And I'll be curious to see if any of them do wind up

[03:53] early on it doesn't seem like it. It seems like they're mostly just going to join you and then be equipped on to characters for their stats and whatnot. system in and of itself, the rest of progression is, I would say, more

[04:07] going to be finding equipment, putting it on your characters. They'll be leveling up, getting passive stats and abilities as they go. And in typical Final Fantasy fashion, you will also be fighting and eventually unlocking

[04:19] summons to carry with you. Though, some of them, of course, do require you tracking them down, which is also true of the visions themselves. You do have not particularly difficult to find, at least thus far. So, it'll be fun to find

[04:32] out if there are any like hidden ones, I suppose. Now, gameplay and exploration suppose. Now, gameplay and exploration wise, it is uh very traditional JRPG stuff. However, I do think they have thus far had some really good side

[04:44] quests in there. But, broadly speaking, you have your individual locations that like towns and dungeons. And then when you are outside of those, you're on the world map proper. And while you are on foot here at the beginning, you do get

[04:57] expect. And while you're doing that exploration, you can pick up a variety of content or simply learn about the world, like the location of espers and things to find as you move through it and choose to either grind out enemy

[05:10] encounters to level up or chase down the main story, etc. And you'll do all of that alongside your cast of characters, which because we're first impressions here, I have not unlocked all of them. But you've got your main two, Rain and

[05:23] Lasswell, followed on by a young woman named Fina, and then a mechanic named Lid, which I thought was funny cuz her name is just Lid. I will say though, Lid has access to Mechco, which is a mechanized Chocoo, which is an

[05:35] interesting concept in and of itself, if I'm being honest, I much preferred the heavily armored ones that we see in the Eile setting. But Mechcobo here is meant to be uh upgradeable in some form or fashion from what I understand, which is

[05:48] mess around with because if that applies to a singular character, I'm always just default. But there will of course be other party members and who knows, they may well have their own individual unique mechanics as well. Now though,

[06:03] let's talk a little bit about combat. So on the combat side of things, it is a turnbased affair as you would expect. It does use an initiative order. So every turn you'll have that timeline bar up in the upper left there that will show you

[06:17] the order of the turns that are about to take place. So you can act accordingly. But on your turns, your individual character can take actions based on their unlocked abilities, their vision abilities, or the usual run of items or

[06:30] a defensive action in order to anticipate what the enemy is doing ahead of their move. But as you deal damage to enemies, you will chip away at their stagger bar. When this is empty, an enemy is of course staggered, and that

[06:43] enemy is of course staggered, and that will then open up them to extra attacks. But the act of staggering an enemy gives the character that staggered them an extra attack at the end of the turn. However, if you stagger all of the

[06:56] enemies in battle, then you trigger a sweep, at which point your entire team gets an extra turn at the end of the turn, which is when you can set up and prepare for some extreme damage, especially if you combine it with things

[07:08] like limit breaks or a discerned weakness that the enemy actually has. Outside of those limit breaks, you'll also occasionally be able to uh summon in the espers that I mentioned, and they will join combat for a little while

[07:20] before disappearing as they perform their big ultimate move. And thus far, that's all pretty expected from any sort of Final Fantasy title. Which moves us towards the end of the video here, which is basically just a reiteration of the

[07:34] fact that everything this game seems to be trying to do is gathering up everything they think makes Final Fantasy Final Fantasy and putting it into this particular game. And while that's all very fun if you enjoy the

[07:46] series so far, when it comes to the actual review, I will simply have to see cohesive and like they're doing something with all of it, or if it's just mashed up purely to be Final Fantasy, I suppose, which I mean, even

[08:00] in that case, isn't necessarily a bad thing if it's done well. But part of me does hope all of this like pulling in characters from different uh games and whatnot is going to serve a narrative purpose beyond just being something fun

[08:13] to do. But make no mistake, it is fun to interact with that stuff. So far, as I mentioned, I absolutely love what they're doing with the pixel cutscenes, especially the opener one. I really enjoy the art style overall. And while

[08:26] it all does feel very traditional so far, that's again not necessarily a bad thing and I am enjoying it. So, for the review, I suppose to put it more simply, whether or not it feels like those things overstay their welcome or if it

[08:39] is solid all the way through. But when it comes to the actual review, I don't know exactly how long that's going to take me, as I'm not entirely sure how long this game is for starters, but also how much they pulled in from that mobile

[08:53] game. But my hope is to have it done before the release of Phantom Blade Zero and the Crimson Desert DLC towards the end of the month. but hard to gauge if I But one way or another, it will get done. And I'm excited to jump in and

[09:08] play this in full, which is pretty much all I've got for you guys today. So, I am going to turn it over to you. If you are checking this game out or playing it you think about it down in the comment section below, which of course means to

[09:22] like, comment, subscribe, all the YouTube jazz. But regardless of any of that, truly just thank you so much for watching. I really do appreciate it. May you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day.