Did you guys know that the Final Fantasy XV demo comes with a pretty sweet game called Final Fantasy Type-0 HD? It’s true. Instead of just giving us the demo for one of the most anticipated games of this generation, Square-Enix were kind enough to package a remastered version of a PlayStation Portable game which was once exclusive to Japan. This is a win-win situation if ever there was one.
All kidding aside, since my review won’t be done for some time, I’ve decided to give you guys my impressions of the first hour of Type-0 (along with an accompanying video). I didn’t play much, but the brief time I spent with the game shows a lot of promise.
After an elaborate intro (this is a Final Fantasy after all), I was tossed into the game. Unlike most entries in the series, this one isn’t turn based which threw me off for a bit. However, the controls were straight forward so adapting to them wasn’t difficult.
Each character has a basic attack and a few magic attacks. Magic drains MP but this can be replenished by draining it from enemies after you’ve defeated them. Health is restored by putting your weapon away. Special disks on the ground replenish both health and magic. What I found to be useful is the dedicated dodge button. Being that this game is in real time, it’s great to have a quick means of avoiding enemy damage.
I mostly got away with just spamming the basic attack to defeat enemies as they didn’t provide too much of a challenge. The boss fights did however, and a healthy dose of basic and magic attacks with well timed dodges were necessary. You can lock on to foes which makes focusing your attacks much simpler. Switching between different foes is also fairly simple.
To make things a bit more strategic, there are times when an opportunity to deal higher damage is presented. If you’re locked on to an enemy and the lock-on circle turns orange, you can deal massive damage. If the circle turns red you can kill them in one hit. Toward the end of the first hour, I tried to use this as much as I could. As you can see in the video above, I took out a boss in one hit by using this strategy.
Since this is a port of a PSP game, I knew to give the graphics a lot of slack. There are a number of upgrades like certain particle and light effects, but the game still looks like something that came out on Sony’s first handheld. With that said however, the game isn’t ugly and if you consider this was on the PSP, it’s actually pretty good looking. I only played the first part which was a destroyed battlefield so I’m curious to see how more natural environments look.
Being that this is an RPG, one hour obviously isn’t enough to fully understand its intricacies. So far though, I liked what I experienced. I’m intrigued by the story and want to get a better handle on the combat system which feels like an interesting change of pace from the usual Final Fantasy games. While I did buy this game for the Final Fantasy XV demo, I’m glad I now have this as part of my collection.
My review for Final Fantasy Type-0 HD will be posted before the month is over so look forward to it.
