This is a game that's heavy on the nostalgia, but with a some neat RPG twists.

GAME DETAILS

Developer: Tose
Publisher: Square Enix
Platform: PS4 (reviewed), Vita
Release Date: October 25, 2016
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Price: $60 / £34 (PS4), $40 / £27 (Vita)
Links: Amazon | Official website

There are times when World of Final Fantasy does nothing but annoy you. Its visuals are so saccharine you can practically feel your teeth decaying and your brain melting as you play; the voice acting is performed at a pitch only dogs can hear; and the fan service is so heavy handed that it frequently undermines the awkward story the tries to tell. And yet, for some reason, it's hard not to love the darn thing.
Admittedly, there's a certain element of nostalgia attached to World of Final Fantasy, the way in which it revives series tropes almost verbatim and combines them with a classic cast of characters (look, there's Squall! And Celes! And Cloud!). But it's been done with skill and elegance. Once you've plugged your ears and resorted to subtitles, the characters quickly grow on you, and the rampant pace with which the (admittedly shallow) plot progresses means you're never stuck for places to explore and events to uncover. This is Final Fantasy boiled down to its core components with a touch of Pokémon thrown in for good measure—and it works beautifully.

World of Final Fantasy revolves around capturing "Mirages," beasts that roam the wild in packs or as individuals. Taking on the role of twin siblings Lann and Reynn, you catch Mirages by weakening them in battles and trapping them in Prisms (which are definitely not Pokéballs, no siree), after which they become tame and can be used to fight alongside you. Used often enough in battle, the Mirages' skills and experience is accumulated so that the they can "Transfigure" into bigger, stronger editions of themselves.

Capturing Mirages is combined with the usual dungeon crawling, item harvesting, talking to NPCs, exploration of towns and villages on a pseudo open-world map, and a turn-based battle system (Active Time Battle) full of glorious menus that will be familiar to anyone that's played a pre-PlayStation 2 Final Fantasy game. As a result, playing World of Final Fantasy for anyone old enough to know who Terra or Tifa are is a pure nostalgia trip. There's nothing particularly new or exciting, but World of Final Fantasy does an excellent job of blending proven concepts into a cohesive whole.

Where Mirages differ from Pokémon comes from how you can combine them together to form different stacks. Mirages come in small, medium, and large variations that can be positioned to balance on top of one another to form a sort of totem pole that launches attacks. How you construct these stacks determines the skills and weaknesses of your battle team.

For instance, stack fire types upon one another and you have stronger flame-licked attacks to play with. Combine water types and any fire attacks thrown your way will be ineffective, and so on. Four different stacks can be constructed at any one time, but you can only take two into battle—one for each of the protagonist twins, Reynn and Lann—meaning there's room for experimentation as you go about your adventure.

Given how often you change scenery it's difficult and ill-judged to attempt to rely on the same stacks for extended periods of time. As the world changes the Mirages do, too, making constant redesign of partnerships the best way to move quickly and safely through areas with lots of enemies. The stacks you build to survive the ice region are not likely to serve you well for the dragons and other flying freaks that populate the mountainous regions that follow.

Many of the Mirages will look very familiar to those with a long history of playing Final Fantasy, with the majority of them taken straight from, or obviously based on, enemies that populate previous games in the series. This adds a conflict to your decisions regarding how to arrange your stacks: you want the best fighting teams possible, but you also want to save space for those Mirages that you have a pre-existing fondness for. A form of Chocobo is one of your earliest Mirages, for instance, and it's tempting to keep it in your party for the entire duration even though superior options appear before too long.

Thankfully, the level of challenge isn't especially high and, so long as you're careful in battle, you can get away with sending imperfect stacks into the fray. World of Final Fantasy's difficulty, along with the graphical style and soft narrative, highlights that this is a game aimed at a younger audience. But for us older, slightly more decrepit fans, the sentimentality alone is enough of a draw. Indeed, some of the included reference points are taken from games released long enough ago that younger players are unlikely to recognise them. I didn't try it, but World of Final Fantasy is probably a great game to play alongside children; while they're off creating stacks and exploring the world, you can sink softly into a comfy nostalgia coma.

https://youtu.be/SDeGbhhm5yg

Recognisable Mirages are flanked by regular appearances from famous lead characters plucked from the franchise's history. Individuals from Final Fantasy V, VII, VIII, X, and more show up relatively early and the barrage continues thereafter—sometimes to the point where it becomes difficult for the plot to breathe around them. Then there are familiar locations, summons, magic spells, and items that bring memories flooding back, too.

Still, the overall impact would be better if more time was taken to flesh out the story and rely less on deus ex machina to push the plot forwards. Reynn and Lann are able to transform at will between what they believe to be their "real," larger forms and their smaller chibi forms. This is explained away in the shallowest way possible and—although the transformation is useful in gameplay terms—a greater explanation would have helped the duo truly belong to the virtual world.

Then there are the returning get-out-jail-free-card procession of protagonists suffering amnesia as way to explain every little detail to the player. Plus, the existence of a character that is literally God means that the writing team need not worry about conjuring up intelligent ways to climb out of plot holes. Whatever happens, God can sort it out.

If you're okay with occasionally suspending your suspension of disbelief, though, World of Final Fantasy proves itself to be an enjoyable, if clichéd, romp. The further you get the more choices you have regarding your Mirages, and the more fun the game becomes. Stacking initially comes across as a cumbersome, awkward concept—and one that is beyond ridiculous on a visual level—but it quickly becomes the primary way of extracting depth above and beyond nostalgia.

It's easy to deride games that lack originality and favour existing ideas. But refining proven designs is just as important as creating them in the first place. This is where World of Final Fantasy shines, and if you're looking for a simple, accessible roleplaying game that stirs up memories past, then you could do much worse.

The Good

Mirage stacking is a fun mechanic
Charming and technically impressive visuals
Nostalgia factor is off the charts
The Bad

Shallow narrative
Can't tell your Cloud from your Terra? Tough luck!
The Ugly

Dialogue is so laughable it destroys your faith in script writing
Verdict

If you're a younger player, or a die-hard Final Fantasy fan that longs for the turn-based days of old, this is well worth picking up.