Final Fantasy Resonance: We Played the First Turn-Based FF in Decades

[00:00] A turn-based HD 2D Final Fantasy, huh? It's hard to believe it's real. As someone who grew up on old-school Final Fantasy games and JRPGs, it's hard to believe I was able to play Final Fantasy Resonance for about three hours at Square Enix

[00:16] as part of an IGN exclusive. From the struggles of finishing Final Fantasy IV and VI when I was just five years old, to the hundreds of hours I continued to happily invest in Final Fantasy XIV, and everything in between, the series continues to help shape me.

[00:29] So to see it kind of a horseshoe back around to its origins here in 2026 with turn-based combat and expressive pixel art for a full traditional style RPG, it's wild to see.

[00:41] I have a ton of details to break down, but I'll preface this by saying in a year packed with promising games, Final Fantasy Resonance is the one I'm looking forward to most. That stupid thing! You are such a genius!

[00:54] Take a look! To set things up a bit, Resonance is an adaptation of Brave Exvius, the Final Fantasy mobile game that shuttered in 2025, which had a 10-year run. Now you might be thinking, this is like how Octopath Traveler Zero was a revamp of the mobile game Octopath Traveler Champions of the Continent.

[01:12] However, Resonance is a lot different. This is not a port or even a remake of Brave Exvius, rather it serves as the narrative foundation with a whole new combat system and overworld. Its story has been tuned for a traditional RPG that's informed by Great Exius,

[01:26] with everything else built from the ground up. It's got airships, chocobos, the summons you know and love, and an HD2D art style that's more detailed than what we've seen before.

[01:41] Resonance follows the main protagonist, Rain, a good-natured knight from the kingdom of Grandshelves, who has a complicated relationship with his father, who is also the king. And early on, his group of friends joined the fight to protect the world's magic crystals

[01:54] from being destroyed by a big bad villain named Veritas of the Dark. This group includes characters like Laswell, a no-nonsense knight, and Ring's childhood best friend. Lid, who's an aspiring master engineer following the footsteps of every Cid before her.

[02:08] And Fina, an amnesiac who's a summoner tied to the crystals that preserve the world. It's got some real Final Fantasy setup going on here, and if you've played Brave Exodius, then this will all sound familiar. In the demo I played, I got to explore a bit of the overworld, which is split into multiple continents divided by water.

[02:24] I got to visit the town of Dwarfsforge where we greeted by a hearty rally from every dwarf there And I got to complete a full dungeon along with a big boss writer It does seem like a more light and colorful adventure off the bat

[02:38] and the more playful voice acting also supports this notion of a brighter kind of drama. It also reminds me of the recent Dragon Quest remakes in HD2D in terms of tone, and Resonance plays up its goofy side quite a bit, although like all things Final Fantasy, I'm sure it has a darker side right around the corner.

[02:53] The dungeon I completed had me tracking down Voron, a master engineer who Lid has an affinity for, since he's gone missing from Dwarves Forge. The dwarves say he's been kidnapped, and you already know he's being taken for his talents and being coerced to do some mysterious evil deeds.

[03:09] This leads you into the overworld and eventually the Mobler's Shipyard, a maze-like dungeon that has some light puzzles, story cutscenes, a timed escape sequence, and a sick boss fight against a mechanized drill while riding on a speeding freight train.

[03:21] Even though this is all early on in the story, I still got to see the depths of the combat system itself. Resonance does not use an ATB system, and instead opts for a straight turn order displayed at the top of the screen.

[03:35] Enemies have a stagger meter that builds with each hit, and they take on more stagger damage when you hit their elemental weakness. It's kind of like a turn-based twist on what we've seen in Final Fantasy XIII or VII Remake.

[03:48] Elemental affinities are a huge part of combat, so having the breadth of elements covered in your party composition is important. But you're not just swapping in the right party members to cover this. Instead, you have what are called visions.

[04:00] You can think of these as personas from the Persona series, or JoJo scams that each character can equip, all of which come with their own skill sets to bring additional powers to each party member. While many of the visions are original characters,

[04:12] one of the big appeals of Brave Exeus and ostensibly Resonance is that each mainline entry in Final Fantasy is represented by a star character who shows up as an equippable Vision.

[04:27] For example, Isshola from Final Fantasy XIV is a Vision who brings water and healing spells, while Cloud from Final Fantasy VII comes with a variety of thunder spells and hard-hitting physical attacks. They do not replace the movesets of party members who have them equipped,

[04:42] and instead add depth to what they're already capable of. So, in a battle, you should be aiming to stagger enemies, because party members who stagger an enemy are granted an extra turn and a bonus phase And if you stagger all the enemies you then call upon one of the four visions equipped in your party to do an all attack resonance attack

[05:05] to inflict a ton of damage or bring some much-needed support in tough situations. When you line up all the right spells and attacks along with staggering enemies and calling upon visions, battles can then snowball into a relentless series of big damage numbers flying off.

[05:19] Calling upon visions is accompanied by these bespoke CGI cuts, kind of like the animations that play when using summons in older Final Fantasies, but I find them kind of awkward. Not because I don't think they look cool, but it creates this weird uncanny valley

[05:32] between sudden CGI cinematics playing and the amazing pixel art of the actual game. It feels out of place, but it's one of those things where you watch it the first few times and ultimately skip every time afterwards. However, the actual pixel art for Visions is fantastic. Seeing their

[05:47] ethereal presence backing up each party member looks pretty sick, but also their in-engine animations to bring them to life in a new way that you didn't get in their original games. In addition to Ishtola and Cloud, I saw the Warrior of Light from Final Fantasy I,

[06:00] Terra from Final Fantasy VI, and Shantoto from Final Fantasy XI, and I can't wait to see the rest of the series' stars manifest as visions in Reson. Another interesting twist to combat is that Fina is a true summoner,

[06:15] the only one who can call upon Espers to come into battle, making her a truly unique party member. While I was only able to use Siren from the start, the song shirts who can heal and support like no other, I also got to recruit the lightning god Ramu.

[06:27] In Resonance, you unlock new espers by finding them in optional dungeons and fighting them in a tough boss battle, like you see here, meaning fighting Ramu. They're tucked away in corners in the overworld, and it's one of the ways it taps into that old-school exploration.

[06:40] You'll want to do this not just because they look cool in combat, but because they deepen Fina's capabilities and can turn the tide when called into battle. The same goes for the Visions from Final Fantasy's Legacy. You'll find these shrines in the overworld and are treated to this dreamlike montage of scenes

[06:55] from the very Final Fantasy that Vision is from. You're then asked to answer a series of questions related to the story of that character and their game before unlocking them as this kind of ode to the series. I'm not entirely sure how the answers affect things,

[07:08] but it's a neat little quiz that contextualizes your answers to test your memory of the series. But beware of spoilers if you haven't played them, since they summarize the story and show scenes from those games. So, a lot of this game revolves around visions and strategically equipping them for battle.

[07:23] Each one levels up individually the more you use them and have progression tracks to unlock additional spells attacks and passive buffs While every vision can be attached to any party member there some clear advantages to finding a good pairing that can complement a character core abilities

[07:38] A lot of these mechanics sound familiar, but if there's one entry to point to as inspiration, it's Final Fantasy V. In an interview I did with producer Keisuke Nakashima and director Hiroto Furuya, which you can read on IGN.com,

[07:50] they frequently pointed to Final Fantasy V as one of their personal favorites, and how much they loved its job system. These games share a level of flexibility that I really enjoy in RPGs, and I hope this leads to a deeper experience

[08:02] that evolves beyond simply accounting for elemental affinity. Now, as I said at the top, I'm looking forward to Final Fantasy Resonance more than anything else this year so far.

[08:15] Not because I'm convinced that it lives up to the legacy, but because it's a fascinating move that many of us have been looking for. A turn-based Final Fantasy with slick HDQD stylings. It's even got music with classic Final Fantasy late motifs,

[08:28] and the whole brave X-Views soundtrack, along with 33 new songs as well. Octopath Traveler has more or less taken up the mantle as the modern classic RPG, and if you know me, you know that I won't shut up about how much I adore Octopath 2 and Octopath 0.

[08:43] The Final Fantasy game comes with certain expectations, however, and not that I'm expecting it to hit me emotionally like Octopath or the mainline Final Fantasy games, But this idea of adapting stories from mobile games to a traditional format is so smart in preserving these stories and bringing them to an audience that wouldn't have experienced them otherwise.

[09:00] I mean, I'm devastated at the thought that I could have missed out on the story of Octopath Zero, and maybe Year Reincarnation is due for the same treatment. But hey, for now, Final Fantasy Resonance seems to be doing something that the series has needed for a while.

[09:17] It's got the sauce from the three hours I played, and I can't wait to play more when it launches on October 22nd this year for PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch 1 and 2.

[09:30] Infinity Cry! For more on Final Fantasy Resonance, please check out my interview with the director and producer on IGN.com. And while you're at it, check out my reviews I've done over the years on the big-name RPGs.

[09:44] And for everything else in the world of games, stick with IGN. This is the power. Hand it with me. Call me back.