Final Fantasy Type-0: Initial Impressions

By -

Type-0 just released on PS4!  As I'm writing this, I've played the first four hours or so of the game.  Just enough to get an impression.

I have a bunch of minor issues to nitpick, so let's get that out of the way, because I actually like the game.  Here we go.  It's obviously an upscaled port from a lesser game system.  The graphics could easily have come from a PS2, though they came from a PSP in this case.  There's a lot of loading between areas of the map.  I'm sure that made sense on a less powerful system, but it's annoying here.  At least it's really fast loading.  The voice acting is a little forced and I doubt the actors got to record their dialog together.  Tone and responses to statements don't always mesh well.  Just like in Final Fantasy XIII there are a lot of proper nouns early in the game which aren't clearly defined.  But, it's not as bad or unclear as Final Fantasy XIII, so it has that going for it.

That's is for the little things that bug me about this game.  Honestly, none of them bother me that much.  And all of them are because it's an up-ported version of a PSP game.  None of them are game breaking.  I just thought they were worth mentioning.

Overall, I really liked my first few hours with the game.  It's an action RPG with a focus on the action.  There's no turn based battles or carefully considered planning once you get into combat.  Abilities and attacks are assigned to the face buttons of the controller and you use them in real-time against the enemy.  It's really fun and I hope it holds up throughout the whole game.

One of the other really interesting things is the cast.  Instead of having one main character or a small central cast there are 14 characters that are controllable.  You can switch between them in and out of battle.  You're never truly defeated unless all of your characters fall in battle.

The 14 characters are members of class 0, the most elite group at a military academy.  The nation where this military academy is located has just been attacked, so the recruits are sent out on missions to win back territory and stabilize the region.  It's an interesting backdrop for the characters.  I really hope the focus is on character development throughout the game.  If it focuses too much on the warring nations it runs the risk of getting boring the same way Final Fantasy XII did.

I plan on trying Vita remote play with this game.  Since almost everything is controlled with the control sticks and face buttons it should actually be a great candidate for remote play controls.  I'll report back on that whenever I get around to it.

I really have high hopes for this game.  My initial impressions are good and I'm excited to play more of it!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest Board Gaming

By -
Image
Besides video games I also regularly play board games when I'm hanging out with people face to face.  My brother, my wife, and I end up playing a lot of 3 player board games, but sometimes we get other players involved too. I realized I haven't talked much about what I've been playing in the world of board games, so here goes: Ticket to Ride - We own 3 different base versions of Ticket to Ride, 2 expansion sets, and an extra map set.  We love this game.  This is the game that gets the most overall table time when I'm playing board games with friends.  It's super accessible but still holds fun for people who have been playing the game for a long time.  I recommend this as a great beginner board game for anyone. Masquerade - A hidden role game where roles are constantly switching hands.  You're limited in actions on your turn and can only take one action.  This means that a lot of the time you're not entirely sure what role you currently ...
Read more

S2E22 - E3 2017 - “Who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur?!”

By -
E3 Hype! E3 2017. Not comprehensive. Not VGNN.  Only talking about things we think are interesting enough to talk about.  You have video game news sites for the rest :) We’re talking about Press Conferences, if more news comes out throughout the rest of the week it won’t be here because we’re recording on Tuesday night! http://e3recap.com/ has been my friend Overall trends Esports being forced onto games that aren’t even out yet “Influencers” being put front and center BJ: torn on the current “influencer” boom. Feels like a bubble that’s totally disingenuous Shorter press conferences with less big game announcements Really hard to tell what is actually exclusive Microsoft “Console Launch Exclusive” Most of these press conferences would have been better pre-recorded as just a series of trailers instead of having a stage show, honestly. Updates on games we already knew existed.  This is what we get for so many years of announcing g...
Read more

What is Blaugust? 2023 Edition

By -
Image
I jumped right into the previous post without actually explaining Blaugust.  So... what is it?  Blaugust is an excuse to get people blogging... in August.  Hence, Blaugust! I'm not the best person to pitch it, but Blaugust is put on by a long time friend of mine, Belghast.  Here's what he had to say about Blaugust for the 2023 kickoff: Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focused on blogging and other serialized content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. For years blogging has been dwindling, and in part, Blaugust was my attempt and reversing that course by compiling a bunch of veteran bloggers in one place and making it super easy to ask questions and get answers. The idea is that this festival of blogging can help reignite dwindling fires for the next year and give folks a sense of kinship as a...
Read more