For the last two decades, RPG fans have been playing the latest Final Fantasy game in stunning 3D graphics, with Square Enix always trying to push the technological limitations with each entry. Fast forward to the modern day gaming landscape, the last half of a decade we’ve slowly seen the resurgence of love for the HD-2D art style when it comes to our role playing escapades. Many of those thanks, respectfully, can go to Square Enix for being a powerhouse for the stylistic genre that combines two dimensional pixel graphics with three dimensional physics.
Usually, the company saves this approach for original, experimental titles like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy, or rereleases/ remakes for older titles like Live A Live and the Dragon Quest series. But I never expected to see the day when a “main line” game would return to pixelated glory from the past with Final Fantasy Resonance. Originally known as Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a mobile gacha game from 2015, Square Enix managed to flip its entire gameplay system, added several new mechanics, and preserve the same story and characters to make this happen.
A Visually Stunning World
My demo started off in an open field in front of a dungeon ready for some sight seeing. But before doing so, I explored the surrounding areas. While wandering around, I got a feel for the random enemy encounters and battle system. You travel with a party of four and each character has their specific role. Our leading man, Rain, is the heavy damage dealer of both physical and magic based attacks. Laswell is the elemental spell caster of the group. Lid is the brawler with mostly all physical attacks. Lastly, Fina is a medic and our main healer.
I was starting to get into longer battles, which allowed me to test out more of the various physical attacks and magic abilities. These new core mechanics flip the original games to give you Staggers, Visions, Limit Bursts, Resonances and more. Enemies will have a Stagger gauge and the goal is to empty it, with extra stagger being rewarded by using an enemies weakness as well as an extra turn for whichever member dealt said damage. Some party members had attacks that affected all enemies and with the right timing that would cause a Sweeping Stagger.
“Bonus Phases gave me a lot of options”
Both staggering acts gave me extra turns that lead to Bonus Phases and took place near the end of most of my battles. This is a full frontal attack from every party member and usually where I give my opponents a piece of my mind using a lot of fireand ice. Bonus Phases gave me a lot of options when it came to diversifying my attacks and depending on if the enemy had more HP, it could turn into a lengthy battle. I used this time during practice battles to figure out the strengths of each party member. Rain had a move that protected every party member. Laswell had a spell that filled either his own MP or added to his Limit Gauge. Lid died the most in my run and was put on items duty when battles were too much and her attacks just weren’t enough to fight back.
Play Your Way
I didn’t expect Fina to save the day multiple times by healing, reviving and standing her ground. For a medic, she was usually part of my last members standing crew after taking a heavy blow, along with Laswell. When it comes to healing, a mechanic that wasn’t limited to only Fina, it gave me the option to either only heal one party member or every party member. I personally have no gripes with this as it was a very useful tool that made it so I didn’t have to spend a turn healing, when I could be attacking, or use several items to heal the whole group.
My personal favorite party member was Laswell because he packed a punch when it came to ice damage, especially against the final boss of the demo. Not only that, he almost rarely died, was stacked with MP, and had a lot of useful abilities I was able to cast on other party members. His design is also wickedly cool looking, dark and mysterious. He is everything I think of when I hear the words “Final Fantasy”, and I can’t wait to see more of him in the full game.
“Visions can have a completely different moveset”
So we have our classic turn-based actions that make this feel like an older Final Fantasy title. But my time playing where things start to feel like a huge nod to the series’ history are the implementation of Visions. We weren’t able to change our loadout, but you can essentially equip your favorite Final Fantasy character from the series that’s with you during battle. Doing so allows you to use their abilities as well, and can boost stats and they can even level up like a playable character too. Visions can have a completely different moveset, both physically and elementally, compared to the character you assign them too. You can mix and match between characters and Visions to have a bit of everything for every turn.
One really helpful instance where these came in handy was during the demo boss. I found myself in a bind because I was quickly running out of Laswell’s MP trying to Stagger them. But shifting through each Vision, I found out Terra was equipped to Lid, who had ice magic. Which means I was able to double up on elemental damage while I frantically figured out a game plan how not to die. The inclusion of them means that Square Enix loves paying respect to the older entries and it’s really nice seeing characters from both current and previous games in their updated pixel-art sprites.
I See the Vision
Every Vision had their own Limit Break, which plays a 3D animated cutscene of them performing their Limit Break randomly aiming because the enemy is a pixel, so they’re basically aiming at nothing. I would have liked to have seen these in HD-2D style, but we know these animations are ready to use whenever SE needs them and they might actually be easier to include. Their regular in-game attacks are pixelated and are just breathtaking to look at.
If there’s one thing I can’t understate, it’s the visuals. Everything is a mix of a 2D art style and couldn’t look better against its 3D levels and backgrounds. While progressing through the story, a character’s official artwork will appear on the left side of the screen, next to subtitles. Facial expressions will change depending on the tone of the voice acting and scenario, so I was fooled into thinking that’s how the whole game plays out. That is, until I got to the end of the demo and one of the final cutscenes was done all in pixel-art, animated via pixel-art, with voice acting playing over everything. As impressed as I was to see they actually pulled it off, I was equally happy to see we’ll be seeing more of this story unfold in this style.
“I was given about one hour’s worth of time to play through”
The definition of Resonance means a long lasting, lingering effect. It can also mean when two large forces match each other’s energy. To me this perfectly describes one of the final moves I got to experience in this demo, and the most unbelievably cool looking attacks in the game are the Resonances themselves. These are attacks a party member can perform based off of whatever Vision’s are equipped amongst the entire group. Rain can perform a Resonance attack, but he doesn’t have to use his equipped Vision in order to do it. Each Vision also offers different status effects and buffs after a movielike clip plays out with whatever character caused the Sweeping Stagger. I can use Rain’s equipped Cloud Vision during Fina’s Resonance attack and still reap all of the Cloud benefits while doing so, and did just that many times.
I was given about one hour’s worth of time to play through this section of the game and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. This game makes it so that you have to plan and strategize before selecting your next attack. There were plenty of close calls near the end that would have ended terribly for me if I didn’t think beforehand. I’m not saying the game is punishing, but it does play like a classic turn-based JRPG with a colossal amount of bells and whistles thanks to modern day gaming and advancements within the series as a whole.
Just What We Need
Final Fantasy Resonance does a phenomenal job implementing new ideas and characters from more recent titles into a strategic formula that still feels like a retro RPG. For so many fans, its turn-based gameplay is what makes the series what it is and going back to this system is something they’ve been waiting on for a long time. Square Enix giving us a better, rebuilt version of a mobile game from ten years ago wasn’t something I’d expect from them, but it’s something I’m glad exists now. Protect the great Crystals and save the world of Lapis again, this time reborn from the ground up.
Final Fantasy Resonance launches October 22, 2026 for PC, PS5, Switch, Switch 2 and Xbox Series X|S.
