A Brief Look At World of Final Fantasy

A brief look, a quick gander. This game is quite interesting as it turns out, combining characters/places from the entire Final Fantasy series and adding a dreamlike aesthetic to all of it.

First of all, the soundtrack. The music in this game has an ethereal quality to it that's hard to describe. It's deeply nostalgic without really tapping into nostalgia the majority of the time. What I mean is that while some of the tracks are remakes of tunes from various FF games, some of the tracks are brand new and still evoke nostalgia somehow. Here's the Ice Region theme, which is as good of a "snow tune" as I've heard in a while.

The game takes you to a lot of strange and different worlds.

The Desert Caravan is possibly the most atmospheric place in the game, and the one that jumps out at me the most when I think of locations I spent time in.

Here's Reynn, the unusually-sexy main character. She's "unusually" sexy because...almost no one else in the game is.

Case in point: Most of the Final Fantasy characters in this game look more like POP figures. Reynn's brother Lann, the male lead, looks like a goofball. So basically the game is devoid of sex appeal outside of the one main character in the tiny skirt and short sleeves tromping to and fro. And one other character, more on that in a bit.

She also has a massive melon for a head. I like Reynn from a character standpoint and she functioned as the main character for me for this game, as I ignored Lann to the best of my ability.

Here's a Midgar reactor rendered in three dimensions. This game is actually as good as it gets for Final Fantasy VII area remodels, at least until Remake comes out.

Behold! The Black Mage Army of FFIX.

Here's the Desert theme, one of the most relaxing tunes in the game. It gets replaced later on, but while it lasts, it makes the desert a real soothing place to be.

The references are strong in this game, even if most of the characters are POP figures. Areas like Figaro Castle usually look somewhat game-accurate.

It's weird how you have the main characters looking normal while most of the rest are POPs.

Aside from the gigantic head, Reynn is Fine AF. She's got the 'bod, much like Mog.

A zoom-out of Figaro Castle. I'm not saying too much about the game itself because this is merely a quick gander. It's worth playing, though, or at least checking out, if you're a fan of Final Fantasy.

In the world of Final Fantasy V, we see Bartz giving weapons and funding to Boko and his chocobo posse. Weapons and funds which Boko says he needs to start a orphanage. Boko is a great humanitarian!

"Brrap!" says Boko while firing an AK into the air, before leaving to go build the orphanage. Bartz takes off for the WOFF world at this point, safe in the knowledge that the FFV world is all set.

One of the more memorable (and unfortunately tedious) places that this game sends you to: The Big Bridge, from FFV. This rendition of it consists of excessively-long ramps that take you up to a sky-fortress. It does not look like the actual location from FFV. Here's the thing, though. It might not be designed to mimic the actual location, but rather the player's memory of it.

Of course, it wouldn't be the Big Bridge without...

...a boss fight with CHIBI GILGAMESH, the Baby Yoda of Final Fantasy.

After defeating Gilgamesh, Bartz gets word that he must return to his own world to battle the monster he created, Boko Haram. Who knew Boko was going to start a violent chocobo army?

There's Cloud and Celes. This mashup of Final Fantasies is SO COOL that I can overlook the fact that most of them probably only exist to sell POP figures.

Going for a swim. One problem with this game? The characters TALK TOO MUCH.

Reynn using bad language. RATED M CONFIRMED?

Another beef I have with this game is the two-character system. It needed a third character to give the battles some more depth. Letting you bring in a guest character from the FF series to be the third party member could have been great, but instead those characters are generally relegated to being summons.

Notice how every modern FF needs to have a character that resembles Cloud Strife? This game does, as do FF Type-0 and FFXV. I'd think it was all coincidence, except for the sleight-of-hand they pulled with Crisis Core making it look like Cloud was the MC on the box art. It makes sense that Square would want their most famous and successful character to "appear" everywhere, even in things he has nothing to do with.

Speaking of the third character we didn't get...if programming in FF guest characters for the third slot was too much of an undertaking, they could have just had Hauyn here be the third character. The party would go from being 50% gorgeous to 67% gorgeous, and she's already playable outside of battles.

Here's Reynn being Cute AF. Why is Lann here? Reynn and Hauyn should just kill him and take his powers.

Lest you think I'm reaching about the game's sex appeal...it's totally on purpose. The designers prove this when they have camera pans over Reynn's 'bod in the rain. They knew what they were doing!

What I'd like: If this game had a revision or sequel with a four-character party, with Hauyn as the third character and the fourth as an optional rotator. All of the FF characters could bounce between POP and normal size and be playable, the same way the three main characters are. They'd probably have only negligible differences between them but it'd still be refreshing. A four-character party would allow for a lot more strategy, too, and more complex boss fights.

Damn, Reynn's mom is hot too.

The final boss of the base game is the badassedly-named Exnine Bahamut, seen here being the spitting image of Chaos from the original Final Fantasy.

Of course, there's a lot of postgame here, including an entire epilogue chapter with a new final boss once you meet the criteria for it.

Brandelis is an all-powerful fiend. We have a secret weapon, though, besides Reynn's distracting sex appeal:

...a Bahamut summon of our own. Here he is unleashing hell on the actual for-real final boss, which is as Final Fantasy-esque a final boss as I've ever seen.

Final boss video. This is the very last beefed-up version of the final boss, and you unlock it by defeating all of the postgame bosses.

Here we see the final boss disintegrat-WOULD IT KILL REYNN TO PUT ON SOME PANTS?

Reynn dishes out a flying kick. On second thought, never mind on the pants.

That's about it for this game's main quest. It's a pretty simple, easy-to-play game as far as that main quest goes. The postgame has some challenges, and getting 100% is pretty time-consuming, but I went ahead and did everything.

Labyrinth of Dragons - Another original track with a lot of atmosphere.

The Fire Emblem character outfit designers escaped from their pen and made a few monsters for this game, judging from the tights.

There's a Persona 3 esque dimensional pocket-room where an eerie lady gives you quests and sends you through doors to fight optional bosses. And on that note...

TIME FOR SOME BOSS VIDEOS.

XG, the last of all of the postgame bosses. Yep, this is Xenogears from Xenogears. Music added by me, because unfortunately this game only uses the normal boss theme for the fight.

Immortal Dark Dragon - Another big uberboss. Note the usefulness of the Bahamut summon for these boss fights.

Lich - Probably the most difficult fight in the game. Garland and the Four Fiends all appear as postgame uberbosses, and Lich is the worst of the lot because of his use of death spells. That's right, this guy is worse than any of the higher-tier uberbosses, of which there are many. Had to break out the strategy for this fight.

The weird thing is that the video game console in the room of our heroes is a black PS1. Yaroze?

It also has the secret nonexistent "Duke" giant-version of the PS1 controller, from the looks of things.

Here's my final party. It's a solid one for the endgame. Other good L-types for the Iris spot are Omega, Master Tonberry, and Tamamohime.

100% trophy. I don't get these very often but it was worth the trouble.

The ending features a bizarre montage of dancing POP figures, which means that the devil's hands have been busy.

Well, this game was surprisingly awesome.

MORE VIDEOS!

The endgame "field theme" that plays in most outdoor areas just before the finale. So much atmosphere here. There's something about the visuals in this game, especially this particular area. They have a magic to them that, again, evokes nostalgia in some roundabout way. Like these places look the way you remember them, vivid and colorful, not the way they'd actually look if you went back to them. If that makes sense.

The same tune, in a field. Every once in a while you find a game where it's nice to just stand around chilling to the tunes.

Annnd the same track in the desert. I just like this track, and the desert. Cool game.