World of Final Fantasy Review
Two siblings Reynn and Lann find themselves in a deserted world where everything seems out of place but a "God" claims they've been around for a long time. Now they must travel around the world of Grymoire to find out more about themselves while saving it from the clutches of evil.
World of Final Fantasy's gameplay is kind of similar to Pokemon - they probably played around with the idea from FFXIII 2 anyway. Fortunately, it plays a lot better. Of course, instead of being called Pokemon, they're "Mirages" and to catch them you have to weaken them first but, Toseco takes it a step further because you need to use a certain kind of attack to weaken them further.
Other than that, they also have moves that help you in dungeons such as sizzle for burning away bushes just like in Pokemon. They can also walk along side you to help find items in dungeons or solve bigger puzzles like putting enough heavy Mirages to press a button. Most of the puzzles are easy such as pushing a few switches or finding an item that will let the big stone bouncers let you pass.
The next thing that separates WoFF from Pokemon is the stacking system where you can only stack anything smaller than the bottom Mirage on top. This gives a similar Materia kind of system that lets you customise what skills you can use.
It can be overwhelming with so many Mirages to manage and unlock skills. Even though most of them are the same, cycling through them and finding the skills you want can be quite cumbersome. A search feature would have been useful.
Fights are equally as easy as Pokemon. We're back to random encounters which in my opinion are a waste of time when you don't need to level grind any more. Fortunately the dungeons are mostly small and save points act as HP/AP replenishing so there's little down time.
In fact, it's probably even easier. Boss fights don't last very long - less than 5 minutes with little level grinding so don't expect much of a challenge.
Controls are interesting as SE seems to be aiming at the more casual gamer. Instead of multi-step menus, you just hold the analogue sticks in a certain direction and use one of the buttons as a shortcut which helps speed fights up.
On the other hand, the battles are extremely slow! Even at the maximum setting it's very slow. You can hold the R1 button to speed fights up but it would have been nice to make this speed persistent throughout the game.
Game is really easy - so easy the boss fights last less than 5 minutes. There isn't much dungeon exploring either because they are pretty much just as small.
As the title suggests, WoFF lets you explore the different worlds of the Final Fantasy franchise from the very first game. So if you've been playing through the series you'll probably end up with a lot of nostalgia as you meet all a lot of the characters again. They even become Champion Medals you can unlock and summon performing their signature moves from their game, performing a powerful attack and giving you certain buffs.
Game is insanely cute filled with characters in their "chibi" big headed, chubby body forms. It will probably be a deal breaker for some, like it or hate it thing. While character models look simple the environments certainly look well done even though it's not pushing the boundaries like FFXV does. Although not developed in-house, it certainly matches up to SE's usual high standards.
It's great seeing all the Final Fantasy characters in one game - well, the popular ones anyway. Yes, they did it in the fighter Dissidia game but it's a lot more fun and amusing in WoFF. There's plenty of homage to the franchise - particularly Final Fantasy VII.
On the other hand, there's some inconsistency in the cutscenes - sometimes presented in real time 3D while others it's in 2D Anime form. Kind of feels like they didn't have the time to animate so they outsourced the cutscenes to use as fillers.
Game itself is English voices only despite having a Japanese voice option - you'll have to have bought the "Day One Edition" to access the 670MB DLC. Otherwise you'll end up listening to silence.
The downside about using JP voices is the script has been localised so much, they're very different from what the original scripts say most of the time. Anyone used to watching Anime subbed will catch onto this and if you understand Japanese you'd probably ignore the text altogether.
That aside, the English voices actually aren't that bad. However, it feels like they put too much effort into localising the script with words like "dude" or "yowzers". Then there's the horrible shoehorned "the" that Tama uses. I know they're trying to recreate the "desu/na no desu" the Japanese add in to make Tama sound cuter but the "the" added into the English version just doesn't work. A cute voice in English would have been enough really.
Fortunately I was playing in JP voices so can't really imagine what the English sounds like...
And despite the cuteness the jokes can be very horrible in the main story dialogue (you can blame that on the localisation again)... On the bright side, the side quest parodies are funny as the story takes place in another dimension. The dumb brother and smart sister also makes some fun banter along the way as you explore dungeons though so that makes things up.
As far as music is concerned, you'd recognise Masashi Hamauzu's style instantly who also composed for Final Fantasy XIII titles and Sigma Harmonics.
World of Final Fantasy is basically SE's version of Pokemon with a few changes. As long as you don't mind some of the horrible jokes and easy battles then you'll enjoy playing through all the parody scenarios with the all star Final Fantasy cast. It's a short, easy sail through.
Good
- Insanely cute.
- Hilarious parody side battles.
- Don't need to run back to NPC to complete side quests.
- Quick travel everywhere.
- All the Final Fantasy worlds in one game...! Well, the popular ones anyway.
Bad
- English script can feel over localised with words like "dude" or "yowzers".
- English script tries too hard to be funny at times.
- Shoehorned "the" with Tama really doesn't work.
- Random encounters (come on, in this day and age?)
- Battles are very slow so you have to hold the speed-up button.
- Managing all those Mirages can be overwhelming.
- Inconsistent quality cutscenes.
Dariun