{"id":15754,"date":"2016-11-11T00:01:06","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T00:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=15754"},"modified":"2016-11-06T15:27:05","modified_gmt":"2016-11-06T15:27:05","slug":"world-of-final-fantasy-ps4-vita","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/11\/world-of-final-fantasy-ps4-vita\/","title":{"rendered":"World of Final Fantasy (PS4, Vita)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FF_BOX\"<\/a>When I was a kid (well I guess it was more like high school), I was really into role-playing video games.\u00a0 I started playing them on the 8-bit Nintendo with titles like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, but I didn\u2019t really get into them until the 16-bit era.\u00a0 And then I was hooked.\u00a0 Games like Final Fantasy 4, Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Super Mario RPG, Lufia 2, and many others took up most of my gaming time back then.\u00a0 But when the 32-bit days came along, I kind of got out of the loop.\u00a0 College and other commitments kept me from playing RPGs for long hours like I used to, but also the newer RPGs kind of grew up, but my tastes in games didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Sure I would find a few here and there that would interest me, like Final Fantasy 9, Tales of Legendia, and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, but it\u2019s definitely not like how it used to be.\u00a0 That\u2019s why World of Final Fantasy makes me so happy.\u00a0 It\u2019s like Square-Enix went back and made a Final Fantasy game just for me! (Vita version reviewed here)<\/p>\n

In the game you play as twins Reyne and Lann (they look like Kingdom Hearts rejects), who are a boy and girl who wake up in a strange timeless town and have lost their memories.\u00a0 But everyone else seems to remember who they are.\u00a0 Turns out they\u2019re supposed to be powerful Mirage Keepers, and can lead an army of monsters to do their bidding.\u00a0 But they don\u2019t remember any of that and don\u2019t have any monsters, so they set out on an adventure to visit familiar fantasy worlds and battle and capture recognizable Final Fantasy critters.<\/p>\n

And when I say familiar worlds, I mean it!\u00a0 You\u2019ll visit people and places from other Final Fantasy games, like Cornelia and Princess Sarah from the first Final Fantasy game, battle Faris the pirate from FF5, ride Magitek Armor from 6, and much more!\u00a0 Half the fun of the game is seeing who you\u2019ll run into next!\u00a0 Nearly all the characters you meet are short and squatty, with big heads, just like how they looked in the old FF titles!\u00a0 Your twin characters can shrink down to their size, too, which comes to play in battles.<\/p>\n

And speaking of battles, they\u2019re random turn-based fare like a standard RPG.\u00a0 The twins can fight themselves, but they\u2019ll fill out their party with help from familiar Final Fantasy monsters like Moogles, Chocobos, Bombs, Behemoths, Goblins, Cactrots, Summons, and many more!\u00a0 But to have them on your team, you\u2019ll have to capture them first.\u00a0 If this sounds like Final Fantasy Pok\u00e9mon, well, it kind of is.\u00a0 But one cool thing about most FF spinoffs is that if they are based on another game genre, Square-Enix will do something with that game to make it stand out on its own.\u00a0 Good examples of this include the fighting game Dissidia Final Fantasy and the music game Theatrhythem Final Fantasy.\u00a0 World of Final Fantasy does this as well, in the form of how you capture and battle these monsters.<\/p>\n

In most monster battle games, you must lower the hit points of the monster you want to catch.\u00a0 That happens with some of the monsters here, but not always.\u00a0 Other monsters you must cast certain spells on them, give them certain items, or have them be the last monster standing.\u00a0 You can even cast a spell on monsters to see what you need to do to catch them (it\u2019s called Libra, so don\u2019t forget that).\u00a0 Luckily you get unlimited tries to catch the monster you want, and since you only need one, you usually won\u2019t need to capture another one like it.\u00a0 Once you have a monster in your party, battle with it to level it up and edit its moves on a skill tree.\u00a0 Once you have enough experience and skills, you can even evolve your monsters into more powerful ones, usually.\u00a0 You can also summon other familiar characters when you are in a pinch.<\/p>\n

The other way this game separates itself from Pok\u00e9mon is HOW you battle.\u00a0 You can have your monsters fight separately, giving you more turns, or you can stack them on top of your head.\u00a0 It\u2019s a little silly, but when you stack them on your head, you combine your hit points, power, and spells all into one, but you also stack your weaknesses, too, so be careful.\u00a0 Also, enemies can knock your stack off balance, and if you fall, you\u2019ll be dizzy for a moment.\u00a0 Even so, you\u2019ll want to be stacked most of the time.\u00a0 You have to think about how to stack your monsters, though. Larger monsters go on the bottom, while smaller ones go on top.\u00a0 You can even shrink yourself down so you can ride on larger monsters.\u00a0 Enemies can stack themselves up, too, so you have to watch out!<\/p>\n

The game does have a few problems here and there.\u00a0 They still require the use of save points to record your progress.\u00a0 I\u2019m all for RPGs using classic gameplay elements, but not being able to save anywhere is one retro aspect that just needs to go away.\u00a0 This is especially troublesome in longer dungeons, which doesn\u2019t work on the handheld Vita as well (luckily you can cross-save data on the PS4).\u00a0 Some of the dungeons aren\u2019t designed as well as others either.\u00a0 I wish there was a way to switch out monsters during battles, as you don\u2019t always know what you need to do to catch them.\u00a0 The learning curve is slightly steep and they don\u2019t hold your hand through the game, which is good but it also makes things tough sometimes, which is misleading since the game is so cute.\u00a0 And some may find the game a little TOO cutesy, but I don\u2019t.\u00a0 If you enjoy classic Final Fantasy games, monster battle titles, or just think today\u2019s games take themselves too seriously, then you should check this one out!<\/p>\n

\"FF_SCREEN\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

World of Final Fantasy is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Alcohol Reference, Fantasy Violence, Mild Violence, and Mild Suggestive Themes.\u00a0 While you do fight monsters with attacks and spells, they just disappear when defeated.\u00a0 According to the story, you don\u2019t even kill any of the monsters.\u00a0 They just warp back to their home world when defeated.\u00a0 Most of the other descriptors are in the text only.\u00a0 While most of the text also has spoken voice, reading skill is still needed for the menus and such.\u00a0 I\u2019d say this game is best for older kids who have mastered Pok\u00e9mon already and want something new and more challenging.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a great Final Fantasy game for the whole family, too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid (well I guess it was more like high school), I was really into role-playing video games.\u00a0 I started playing them on the 8-bit Nintendo with titles like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, but I didn\u2019t really get into them until the 16-bit era.\u00a0 And then I was hooked.\u00a0 Games like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15754"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15756,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15754\/revisions\/15756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}