Release the second game NOW.



The stacking and destacking is a really nice touch. Back when I first heard about this I thought it was dumb but when playing it, it honestly works. So many different teams you can build.

I like how the classic Final Fantasy monsters evolve like pokemon. I just have to give this game extra points for including Bismarck bc people forget about my boy!! The previous FF character cameo's are really neat to see and the music for this game could not be better. Cute story too!

Man, this really feels like missed potential.

As a huge FF nerd who's played all of the mainline games except 11, any type of collab game that celebrates all the games in the franchise gets me excited. There's so much potential for the crossover of characters. Dissidia Opera Omnia did an incredible job with this, having scenes that you could only dream of. A scene between Jecht and Laguna, fathers of two of the most well-known protagonists? Or hell, a scene with every dragoon in the series? This is what crossovers are meant for!

Now, I won't lambast WoFF for not doing these things... Because it can't. My problem is that the selection of FF characters is pretty scarce. You have only a handful of protagonists and some other party members from the main games. This isn't too much of an issue because the story isn't centered around them like it is in the Dissidia games, but it honestly feels like they could've gone further with their inclusion here.

I'm curious about how this game was pitched, because the end result is pretty weird. This is FF meets Pokémon in terms of gameplay, with a whacky story that seems like it was aimed more towards children or fans of very cute and childish things. The voice acting alone was very cringe-inducing at times. Bahamut sounds like a Digimon lol It was nice that a lot of the original voice actors for the FF protagonists came back for this at least. I'd be lying though if I said that none of its attempts at humor ever got a laugh out of me. The story was just serviceable for what it was.

I think the gameplay is just shy of being great. The Pokémon aspect of catching monsters from the FF universe is nothing new, but it's the stacking system that makes it shine. It really makes you think about the monsters you bring in to battle in a way that's different from most other clones of the Pikachu genre. Where it falls short though is that the combat pacing is very slow (even if you turn up ATB speed to max) and most of the time you'll be sitting there watching the icons move before the next turn. What's more is that it's pretty hard to justify trying new monsters later on in the game since your stats hugely depend on your overall team strength. With no good ways to farm most of the time, it's too tedious to try and build up a new team rather than stick to ones you've had for a while. It felt good to do Interventions and Coliseum battles. When you know the type of enemy you're gonna fight, you can actually plan around it, making it fun to strategize before a fight.

One other thing that bothered me is that some of the level design and objectives for certain missions were just annoying to deal with. No, I don't want to travel on straight path for hours while having to deal with random encounters (looking at you, Big Bridge). No, I don't want to have to fight the same boss over and over again just because it has a ton of health (It's a nice nod to the Ultima Weapon in FF7, but it simply isn't fun to play.

I honestly can't even say I really cared for the story by the time it was over. It felt very rushed while also hitting beats that have been done a million times before. A part of me almost feels like the FF characters didn't even need to be a part of it. Their element in the gameplay could've made sense as a sort of summoning since the entire game is kinda focused on the Mirages, but alas... I will probably forget this game soon enough.