I got the chance to finally try final Fantasy Type-0 at an Square Enix event before NYC Comic Con and it was worth the 3 year wait. Originally released for the PlayStation Portable in 2011 for Japan only, this title will finally see an release to the western market (in this case, the United States) in March 2015 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
The game takes place
on the planet Orience, which is torn apart by a long-standing war. Its story involves 14 characters, each with distinct personalities, powers and weapons, recounting their trials at a time of war. You can only control 3 characters at a time on screen similar to Final Fantasy XII. Also, just like FF XII, you can decide who can be the party leader. The combat in Final Fantasy Type-0 is party-based. Instead of navigating through menus, actions are mapped to the face buttons for quick access and this feature to me is the fastest way of changing menus in any Final Fantasy video game to date. The 3 characters for this demo that I have used are Ace, Seven and Rem Tokimiya. Ace’s primary weapon are cards, Rem’s primary weapon are daggers, and Seven’s primary weapon is a whip. Each of the characters can also use magic and items to deal damage or heal themselves as well.
Enemies contain an essence called phantoma, which powers your spells, and killing them releases it. Standing in place and holding down the square button for a second will collect the nearby phantoma.
The game is straightforward with the way to get from one area to the next along with the random encounters that happen but just like in FFXII, all of the battles happen on the same screen instead of an closed area. This gives you freedom to move and use your actions wisely. I played until the boss battle and it was very tough to take it down even when I used the Ifrit summon.
The controls take some time to get used too since the game-play is entirely new from the start but there is an tutorial. Also the camera angles can get a lot crazy sometimes especially when the battles begin. The HD visuals in this game is very outstanding and this game runs at 60FPS so it is very fast from when you see it for yourselves.
I was also told that this will be the darkest Final Fantasy video game to be ever released so I have more interest in this game now.
Expect this game to release in March 2015 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox one. This game will also come with an demo for the upcoming Final Fantasy XV.
