Square Enix has shared more information of what to expect from Final Fantasy Resonance.
Announced during the summer of video game showcases earlier this month, Final Fantasy Resonance is the first Final Fantasy title to make use if the HD-2D art style, and a return to pixel art for the fabled RPG series. It’s also based on the first arc/season of the now-defunct mobile game, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, but Square Enix insists that Final Fantasy Resonance “extensively rebuilds and reimagines its content, delivering an experience far richer in quality and scope than a straightforward port or remake.”
Final Fantasy Resonance will see its protagonist Rain and his party making use of what’s called Visions. Equipping Visions, crystalised essences of various characters, can boost power, stats and even lock certain abilities.
Think of it like an item-based job/class system, but the item is the soul of another person. You can also permanently learn an ability associated with a Vision, which will incur some cost. So Visions can be swapped in and out and be equipped by any party member, just so they can learn one specific ability (like the ridiculously useful Dualcast) or to truly make use of their stat boosts. With no restrictions to equipping Visions, Final Fantasy Resonance should make the act of buildcrafting and making your ideal party setup very flexible.
Equipped Visions appear in battle, shadowing the person that equips them.
Visions include original characters as well as Legacy Final Fantasy heroes. Each of them has a back story, but you can revisit the story of the mainliners before unlocking their visions. The one for Cloud, of Final Fantasy VII fame, has a description that for those who only played the Final Fantasy VII Remake series and waiting for the presumably concluding entry Revelation, would consider a spoiler.
The reveal trailer for Final Fantasy Resonance has revealed a few more, but here’s the confirmed legacy Final Fantasy heroes available as Visions in Final Fantasy Resonance
- Warrior Of Light (Final Fantasy): earth, lighting, light elementals. Ally protection abilities
- Terra (Final Fantasy VI): fire, water and ice magic.
- Cloud (Final Fantasy VII): light, water attacks, crit damage specialty.
- Shantotto (Final Fantasy XI): lighting, water, dark magic
- Y’shtola (Final Fantasy XIV): fire and ice magic, healing
The combat in Final Fantasy Resonance will have some form of staggering mechanic. When a sweeping stagger is triggered, the party can unleash a special ability, the titular Resonance, at the end of the bonus phase. This can range from powerful area-of-effect attacks to massive buffs, all delivered through a cinematic sequence. If the Vision is a mainliner FF hero, these special sequences gets a CG 3D graphics instead.
Summons are confirmed in final Fantasy Resonance. Calling upon the power of espers costs a lot of MP, but the next three turns, they will fight alongside the party. Summons also get the CG 3D treatment for their special attacks, similar to legacy FF characters.
Two espers have been confirmed so far:
- Siren: water and wind elementals. Lunatic Voice deals wind damage to all enemies and chance of Sleep or Silence status
- Ramuh: lighting. Judgement Bolts deals lighting damage
Travel via airship, with full control, is confirmed to be in Final Fantasy Resonance.
There will side quests in Final Fantasy Resonance, with new scenarios involving Rain and the cast that wasn’t in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius.
The soundtrack of Final Fantasy Resonance makes use of all the music from Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. In addition, 33 new tracks composed and arranged by Elements Garden, led by Noriyasu Agematsu (the same team behind Brave Exvius’ soundtrack), will also feature in Final Fantasy Resonance’s soundtrack.
With Final Fantasy Brave Exvius now delisted and ended service, it’s cool to see Square Enix repurpose all that content into a new experience for console and PC players.
Final Fantasy Resonance will be out on October 22 for the PS5, PC (Microsoft Store), Xbox Series X|S, Switch and Switch 2. In Asia, the Steam version launches a day later, on October 23.