Final Fantasy Resonance Landed at 86 on Metacritic by Doing the Old Thing on Purpose
Square Enix's HD-2D RPG, out Oct 22 at $49.99, sits at 86 from 51 critics. Game Informer gave it a 9. Eurogamer gave it a 3 out of 5 and called the story forgettable. The argument is whether a mobile plot can feel like a classic.
Square Enix spent years walking Final Fantasy away from menus and toward a sword you swing in real time. Resonance walks back into the menu and looks pleased about it.
The game came out October 22 on Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC, at $49.99. By the next morning Metacritic had it at 86 from 51 critic reviews, Generally Favorable. Nintendo Life gave the Switch 2 version an 8 and called it a strong return to an older style, with a story that runs a little dry. Game Informer went to 9 and said it builds on the history instead of looting it. IGN landed on 8. GamesRadar gave four stars and said the HD-2D look, pixel characters in a 3D world, has rarely looked better. GameSpot’s 7 complained that too many fights are the same loop: build the stagger bar, heal, spend the expensive skill, repeat. Eurogamer’s 3 out of 5 is the cold one. Forgettable story, pacing that overstays, a game trying so hard to sit with the classics that it stumbles.
The source is a dead mobile game. Resonance rebuilds Final Fantasy Brave Exvius as a turn-based RPG with airships, crystals, espers and moogles. A demo through chapter one carries saves into the full game. Several reviews are careful to say the plot started on a phone and the rest of the package did not. That is the whole argument in one line. If you wanted 1997 back, the 86 says you mostly got it. If you wanted a story you will retell, Eurogamer is standing in the lobby shaking its head.
A score that high, this close to Modern Warfare 4 and a month from GTA 6, is a strange kind of luck. The big shooters will own the weekend’s download charts. Resonance is the one people will still be arguing about when the shooters’ season pass shows up.