Final Fantasy Resonance review – HD-2D graphics at their best

Final Fantasy Resonance – old school battles (Square Enix) Square Enix return to turn-based combat and 2D graphics for the latest Final Fantasy game, with an enjoyably retro spin-off featuring multiple heroes from the past. The ironically named Final Fantasy, has spawned an almost unparalleled quantity of sequels and spin-offs since its first entry launched in 1987. You’d need to be a dedicated aficionado to remember all the numbered outings, CGI films, and offshoots that have appeared since, but unlike many long running series, Final Fantasy rarely reuses main characters and settings, even if there are familiar names and species that make up its background ecosystem. There you’ll find the rideable, birdlike chocobos; Moogles whose speech is peppered with the word ‘kupo!’; a person called Cid who flies and maintains airships; and more often than not some sort of intrigue involving magic crystals. Other than that, new Final Fantasy games tend to inhabit their own worlds that have little crossover with past instalments. Contrastingly, Final Fantasy Resonance, the latest non-numbered release, positively revels in its cameos and callbacks. This is a ‘retelling’ of free-to-play mobile game, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, which means it uses that game’s heroes, setting, and portions of its story, while changing the fundamental mechanics that drove it. So it now features free roaming open world exploration and its gacha underpinnings have been removed. It does retain some of its faux 16-bit pixel art presentation though, and to excellent effect. The story features a party of spiky haired heroes trying to save eight mystical crystals, whose continued existence prevents the world falling into chaos. A big bad is out to destroy them and in order to prevent that you engage in the time honoured tradition of exploration, side quests, and levelling up, fuelled by random monster encounters. This may be a reinvention of the mobile game that inspired it, but it’s also a doggedly traditional Japanese role-player. That extends to characters that speak with total, unironic sincerity at all times. In a world otherwise full of knowing cynicism, its ingenuousness is welcome, and somewhat touching, with brave knight Lasswell regularly moved to tears. It even has a sense of humour, albeit a very gentle one, and its themes of idealism and sticking to your principles are as warmly familiar as Disney films’ support for facing your fears and being yourself. Want GTA 6 news? Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for the latest GTA 6 news, reviews of new games you should play and exclusive analysis of the biggest stories of the week. Combat is turn-based, with the expected status effects and elemental weaknesses complemented by enemies’ stagger bars, which you whittle down to leave them briefly open to extra damage. Each party member can also equip a Vision; a hero drawn from across the whole canon of Final Fantasy games. Unlocked in crystalline Sanctums of Light, each comes with a three question pop quiz about the hero’s actions, and the closer your answers are to what they actually did in their game, the greater affinity they’ll have with your party. Each Vision’s character class governs the skills they bring to the party, and they level up alongside team members, gradually adding new perks and abilities to be deployed in combat. You can also summon godlike Espers, another long term feature of the series, also known as aeons or eidolons. They act autonomously once conjured, becoming a useful damage sink for tougher enemies, and deploying their own graphically intensive powers. Visions’ special moves are similarly screen filling and give an excuse to render some of their heroes in 4K, contrasting nicely with the blocky HD-2D styling of the rest of the game. It gives combat extra visual flare, although the ability to skip those deliberately excessive animations is also welcome, with most battles fairly workmanlike and straightforward, apart from the odd spike in difficulty. Those mostly occur during boss fights, and when you recruit new Espers, each of which you’ll have to beat into submission to prove your party’s worthiness. Those are times you need to think more carefully about elemental attacks, healing, and timing, using a bar at the top of the screen to see the order of play, and whether any enemies are charging a special attack. You can defend against those, but even better is to stop them in their tracks by hacking away at their stagger bar. Older fans will love it but it may not gain many new ones (Square Enix) Music and voice acting are both high quality and while side quests are text only, conversations in the main story are fully voiced, a higher resolution anime style portrait of characters accompanying their dialogue. It works well, and while we didn’t find ourselves getting too swept up in all the emoting, its characters all have discernible personalities and their own agendas within the over-arching mission. There’s a reason the popularity of Japanese role-players is so enduring, and that’s because their gameplay remains compelling, their sprawling maps and narratives happily sucking up entire weekends. They may have predictable elements, but that’s part of the fun, the familiarity of the format working with the fresh plot and characters, and in Resonance’s case, a whole load of fan service callbacks to Final Fantasy heroes past. Its combat lacks the immediacy of more recent Final Fantasies’ semi-real-time Active Time Battle system, and if you’re looking for innovation, you’d best look elsewhere, but if you’re in the mood for a polished and unapologetically old school role-playing game, this is exactly what you want. Final Fantasy Resonance review summary In Short: A pleasingly traditional Japanese role-player, with the best use of HD-2D yet, even if its turn-based combat and callbacks to previous Final Fantasy games are aimed very much at the series’ existing audience. Pros: Endearingly earnest from start to finish, with solid voice acting. HD-2D graphics look great and there’s a nice sense of progression as you level up characters and the former heroes that assist them. Cons: Combat works fine but it’s, purposefully, not doing anything new. Absence of skill trees feels like oversimplification and you’ll need some serious time on your hands to see the end of the story. Score: 7/10 Formats: Nintendo Switch 2 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PCPrice: £49.99Publisher: Square EnixDeveloper: Square Enix and LancarseRelease Date: 22nd October 2026Age Rating: 12 The graphics are a great mixture of new and old (Square Enix) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. Arrow MORE: BioWare shut down and new Mass Effect cancelled two months after EA sale Arrow MORE: Football Manager 27 will be free at launch as Sega try to win back fans Arrow MORE: New Pokémon store to open in London and it’s permanent this time GameCentral Get the latest GTA 6 news, reviews of new games you should play and exclusive analysis of the biggest stories of the week.