[timestamp] is a running journal and reflection on the games I play, news I’ve read, and commentary on hot topics and conversations I have come across. These will be free to read online and printed in a limited monthly edition for $15/mo Patreon supporters!

Game played: Final Fantasy Resonance Demo (PS5)

This morning, Sony's State of Play aired, announcing a bunch of games and giving us updates on others. I’ll be buying that LEGO PlayStation, of course. I enjoyed seeing Until Dawn 2, getting a release date for Final Fantasy VII Revelation, and the surprise demo drop of Final Fantasy Resonance. This was already a game I was going to buy, but being able to get my hands on it early and even save my progress over to the full game? Let’s go!

Final Fantasy Resonance is an original RPG in the style of Square’s HD-2D line of games (see Octopath Traveler, Triangle Strategy, DRAGON QUEST I & II HD-2D Remake). One early detail I noticed when booting up the game was that this wasn’t a Team Asano game. Instead, Lancarse developed it. Not that it has to be a Team Asano game to be good, but they’ve perfected the HD-2D style in their recent games. Like Octopath Traveler 0, Resonance reconstructs parts of a previous mobile game, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and rebakes it into a single-player console RPG. Gone are the touch controls and gacha elements, and instead are traditional mechanics and combat systems.

After starting it up, you are dropped into an unknown battle with an unfamiliar character, as she wipes the floor with some early tutorial battles. Some magitek-armored soldiers also appear, hinting at a cross-universal story. After a climactic boss battle, this main character falls and is cast into a crystal, the long-familiar plot device of classic Final Fantasy titles. From here, the game either advances forward in time or moved ot another realm, and we are introduced to the game’s main heroes, Rain and Lasswell. You are set on a quest to check on the Earth Crystal as an airship captain and son of a legendary soldier, with a real familiar plot and character arc progression. Tragedy strikes, unknown and overpowered villains appear and hold back from killing you to roll early credits, daddy issues are uncovered, and a world needs saving by a hard-headed, optimistic kid. You have played this game, but it is still fun.

I chose to play on the “Expert” difficulty setting, which isn’t normally my thing, but with RPGs, I can get bored quickly if I just march through battles and am left solely with the plot. I wanted enemies to hit hard, so I’d have to prepare and choose my attacks wisely. So far, it’s been a good challenge, but I am only just running around the first dungeon. I did grind up a couple of levels before I turned it off and made my way towards the big baddie at the end of this room.

I do have one slight complaint, and that the game isn’t as “HD-2D”-y of a game as I was hoping for. I wanted those bloom effects, depth-of-field vignettes, and boxy pixels on everything. There have been plenty of raw 3D assets passed over with some compression or a poor-man’s pixelation filter. It doesn’t look bad, but it isn’t wowing me. I was hoping for that Square budget to blow out the biggest and baddest pixel art we’ve seen in decades. It doesn’t impact the gameplay, but it does make the game feel out of time, and not in a good way.

I had to go to work, but you better believe I am excited to see the battle system fully open up, and see these visions of nostalgic characters help me job-system up my party my way. More to come soon, for sure!