5 Reasons Why PS5 JRPG Final Fantasy Resonance Will Really Resonate with Fans

Final Fantasy Resonance is a fan’s dream.

I was lucky enough to play the franchise’s first HD-2D effort at an event in London yesterday, following the PS5 release’s showing at Gamescom in Cologne last week.

And while the outing – inspired by long-running gacha game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius – harboured few surprises during my hands-on, I’m fairly confident it’s going to be very good.

Here’s five reasons why I think you should be excited:

It’s for the fans

You don’t need to be a Final Fantasy fan to enjoy this latest game, but I do think you’ll get a lot more out of it if you are.

That’s because its Visions – equippable characters that can be assigned to your party members – are inspired by Final Fantasy protagonists of the past.

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In my demo, I was handed a pre-built team of Rain, Lasswell, Fina, and Lid (the latter has ambitions to become a Cid, of course.)

While each has their own abilities and movesets, they all had the following Visions equipped respectively: the Warrior of Light, Cloud, Terra, and Zidane.

Long-time Final Fantasy fans will of course know that the Warrior of Light is the canonical protagonist from the first game, inspired by its Japanese box art. Terra is from Final Fantasy 6 and Zidane is from Final Fantasy 9. If you don’t know who Cloud is, then you may still enjoy this game, but I’m not really sure it’s made for you!

Visions also come with their own movesets; Cloud, for example, leans into lightning.

There are many more in the game and I did browse through the menu to see some of the other options available, but I’m sworn to secrecy.

Needless to say there’s lots to look forward to in the final release.

It’s got good combat

While this is a four-person party game, once you start using your Visions you’ll quickly realise this is actually an eight-person party game. In fact, there are even summons which add yet more chaos to the combat.

Despite that, this is a fairly straightforward JRPG at its core.

The main mechanic revolves around the stagger system, which is triggered by finding each enemy’s elemental weakness.

Spam that weakness and you’ll stagger your foe, granting an extra action and increasing the damage they take.

Stagger all your adversaries in a single turn, however, and you’ll trigger a ‘Sweeping Stagger’.

This will allow you to call upon one of your Visions to deploy a special attack, which plays a beautifully animated cutscene.

These are the remnants of Brave Exvius, and stray from the HD-2D visual style to deliver a CG rendered cinematic.

The transitions can look a little strange as they’re initially overlaid on top of the pixel art, but they eventually take over and fill out the full screen. It’s all a bit crude, but fantastic fanservice all the same.

Interestingly, the main cast also have Limit Breaks, which stick to the HD-2D visual style and look equally great. I particularly enjoyed one in which Lid constructs a giant robo-Chocobo to attack her enemies.

While it’s quite easy to understand, there’s lots of depth too: Visions earn MR after battle which increases their Mastery Rank and allows you to unlock new abilities and buffs.

Meanwhile, they can be further personalised with Magicite, which appears to function similarly to the Materia system in Final Fantasy 7. (Although I really didn’t have enough time to properly explore the possibilities of this myself.)

Elsewhere, main party members can be upgraded with equippable gear and weapons, and follow a traditional levelling system which allows you to build out and further personalise their role in combat.

It’s not a walk in the park

While you won’t need to be an RPG genius to understand Resonance’s systems, it’s far from easy.

I was given about 10 minutes to explore the overworld – from the saddle of my Chocobo mount, of course – but spent the majority of my time in the Wind Shrine.

This dungeon consisted of floating platforms and unremarkable level design, but culminated in a boss fight against a giant sprite-based antagonist known as Aether.

For as good as Aether looks, though, I found him to be a stubborn so-and-so in battle.

I learned quickly that he was weak to ice, but every time I staggered him he seemed to send out a whirlwind attack which wiped out my team – not ideal.

I’m convinced there’s a way to counter this, but obviously in the throes of a demo I just had to rely on my Phoenix Downs to pick up any party members and get to work on those staggers.

I eventually managed to fell him, and was relieved to see looking around me after the demo that others were struggling to beat this big guy – it wasn’t another Stranger Than Heaven situation, I’m relieved to say.

This signalled to me that there’s going to be some proper challenge to Resonance, though, which is good.

While I imagine you’ll probably be able to grind to overcome any hurdles, I similarly expect constructing the right team synergies to exploit different weaknesses will work in your favour as well.

A bit of depth is good.

It looks lovely

I think the HD-2D novelty has long expired, so I’m not going to talk too much about the visuals here, even though they are undeniably purrdy.

The sprite work is sharp and distinctive, looking like it could have stepped straight out of the Super Nintendo or perhaps even SEGA Saturn.

It contrasts nicely with the crisp polygonal backdrops, making for a distinctive mix of presentation styles that Octopath Traveler fans will already be familiar with.

The one thing I do want to shout out are the character portraits during cutscenes, because Square Enix’s art team has really delivered with these. All of the silhouettes and designs look distinctively Final Fantasy in the best possible way.

I particularly like Lid’s design, with her bright crimson hair contrasting against her glowing yellow overalls. It’s peak Final Fantasy, and any passing fan of the franchise is going to be able to appreciate it.

I also enjoyed the breadth of enemies, ranging from werewolves to Medusas in my demo. I happened upon some classic enemies like the Magic Pot in my demo, and I expect there’ll be many, many more references in the final game.

It hasn’t got a hint of gacha

I know some people are concerned Resonance’s connection to Brave Exvius may mean it’s got hidden microtransactions and gacha elements.

But I can confidently say in just under an hour of play I didn’t see a sniff of that: this is a full-price, one-time purchase experience.

I imagine you will have to progress and complete quests to unlock certain Visions and content, but that’s different from pulling for SSRs which have been completely eliminated here.

I don’t really have much to add on this, I just wanted to alleviate fears: the free-to-play hooks have been removed and replaced with a more traditional progression structure.

Don’t worry!

In a busy year for games, I don’t know whether I’ll have time to give Resonance the attention it deserves – but I want to.

Sometimes all you need is a cosy JRPG with a dash of nostalgia, and I think Square Enix is delivering that in abundance.

If you grew up on Final Fantasy, or even just have a passing interest in it, you’ll find plenty to like here.

Based on what I played, this is another vibrantly presented, perfectly pitched HD-2D experience. I think it’s just about one of the most dependably good titles on the immediate release calendar.

But are you looking forward to Final Fantasy Resonance? Is this the type of throwback JRPG you can get behind? Build up the stagger bar in the comments section below.