Final Fantasy Type-0 is like no other Final Fantasy ever. It thrives in its originality while floating through the franchise's mythos and established lore. It's definitely not perfect, but it's a fantastic Final Fantasy game.
The first thing that I want to get out of the way is how good the combat is.
You'll spend most of your time fighting waves and more waves of enemies in this game. And I'm happy to report that the combat system in this game is astounding! Easy to pick up, hard to master, fluid battle system, fast paced, seamless grinding, good boss fights, unique characters that actually make a difference when building a party and going to battle, challenging and most importantly: fun and addictive!
It's impressive how the combat alone glued me tight. I could recommend this game based on just that.
Then we have the story. And this is where it gets complicated to talk about. But it's not bad at all. You see, I got quite attached to the characters and their motivations. The war and Orience's bleak setting kept me interested. This is the darkest and most serious Final Fantasy I've ever played and it works.
Most of it is due to the cast of remarkable characters. They all get their time to shine (some more than others, unfortunately), spending time in Akademeia helps to form a bond with their daily lives and the endings are very well done. The original/canon ending actually brought tears to my eyes.
The problem is that this beautiful story isn't well told at all!
The writing is convoluted and things happen way too fast. Too much of the lore and backstory of Orience and its past occurences are written in a tome. So instead showing it to you, they make you chase it. And what makes it worse is that those things are essential to grasping everything going on. And A LOT goes on.
Not only that, but too much of the content is locked behind new playthroughs. It'd be fine if they just added optional stuff to NG+, but there are new story cutscenes and important missions that you just don't get the first time around.
In addition to not properly telling the story, the game also fails in a few other aspects. Party AI should be better, sometimes it gets too tough even on standard difficulty, casting powerful magic and using items is huge hassle, RTS missions break too much of the game's pacing, there are too many characters to level up and there's A LOT of content gating.
Also, I just can't stress enough how weak the soundtrack is. This is unacceptable for a FF game!
Having said all that, I'm just very happy that I've finished this game. This is a very good Final Fantasy game, with its own successful original take, an entertaining cast of characters and a brilliant battle system.
For a PSP remaster, this is impressive. Play this one.
The first thing that I want to get out of the way is how good the combat is.
You'll spend most of your time fighting waves and more waves of enemies in this game. And I'm happy to report that the combat system in this game is astounding! Easy to pick up, hard to master, fluid battle system, fast paced, seamless grinding, good boss fights, unique characters that actually make a difference when building a party and going to battle, challenging and most importantly: fun and addictive!
It's impressive how the combat alone glued me tight. I could recommend this game based on just that.
Then we have the story. And this is where it gets complicated to talk about. But it's not bad at all. You see, I got quite attached to the characters and their motivations. The war and Orience's bleak setting kept me interested. This is the darkest and most serious Final Fantasy I've ever played and it works.
Most of it is due to the cast of remarkable characters. They all get their time to shine (some more than others, unfortunately), spending time in Akademeia helps to form a bond with their daily lives and the endings are very well done. The original/canon ending actually brought tears to my eyes.
The problem is that this beautiful story isn't well told at all!
The writing is convoluted and things happen way too fast. Too much of the lore and backstory of Orience and its past occurences are written in a tome. So instead showing it to you, they make you chase it. And what makes it worse is that those things are essential to grasping everything going on. And A LOT goes on.
Not only that, but too much of the content is locked behind new playthroughs. It'd be fine if they just added optional stuff to NG+, but there are new story cutscenes and important missions that you just don't get the first time around.
In addition to not properly telling the story, the game also fails in a few other aspects. Party AI should be better, sometimes it gets too tough even on standard difficulty, casting powerful magic and using items is huge hassle, RTS missions break too much of the game's pacing, there are too many characters to level up and there's A LOT of content gating.
Also, I just can't stress enough how weak the soundtrack is. This is unacceptable for a FF game!
Having said all that, I'm just very happy that I've finished this game. This is a very good Final Fantasy game, with its own successful original take, an entertaining cast of characters and a brilliant battle system.
For a PSP remaster, this is impressive. Play this one.