World of Final Fantasy first impressions

World of Final Fantasy, a game for the Vita that hadn’t been on my radar for very long.  I did play some Final Fantasy games in the past, but it’s not like I’m a connoisseur. A gaming friend mentioned looking forward to its release though, so I decided to investigate. As I said, I’ve played Final Fantasy games in the past and they were good. But with all the good RPG out there at the moment it didn’t occur to me that this one might actually be different. But with a free demo to give it a try it couldn’t hurt, right?

A big plus for me is that it’s an RPG with turn based battles. It is set in the world of Grymoire, a land populated by classic FF characters and monsters from across the series. Meanwhile, it’s not connected with any of the other games in the series. Playing the demo, you see a lot of cameo, I suspect for well know characters for the fans. They all look totally adorable in their Chibi-form.

Great colorful visuals

The visuals look stunning, colorful and cute, enough to draw me in. But what’s really got me interested is that the game has features similar of Pokémon and Digimon. This includes evolving monsters called Mirages here! It’s not like in Pokémon however, that you can always try to capture a Mirage. It has to be ready for capture, and based on the demo I’m not entirely sure when that happens.

Interesting stacking action

Once you’ve captured a Mirage, it can be a part of your stack: your characters can fight stacked, adding their power to the mirages they are using. It’s a matter of strategy to fight stacked or loose from each other though. Plus, once stacked, you can be toppled too, as shown by the glider that shows your balance. On top of that, you can choose between a classic button set-up or a new way to man the buttons. Sounds difficult, but it plays smoothly and intuitively.

Annoying AP meter

You have your normal attacks and special abilities, but you can also call on Tidus once in a while. He sure makes a show of appearing to save the day! There’s a couple of things I thought annoying however. Like the way the battles are random, and you don’t see the monsters coming. What I’d really like to change however is the way the AP meter has to fill up before you get your turn. At times I was really willing the meter to fill, to keep the flow into the battle.

Overall a good look at the stunning looking game, as the demo showed in the trailer as well. I think it’s a wonderful RPG to look forward too, available on the Vita and PS4. Will you be buying this one?