Final Fantasy Resonance (Switch 2) review: modern-retro at its finest

A proper, meaty turn-based JRPG that brilliantly welds the charming ethos of early Final Fantasy games to modern (yet retro-referencing) visuals and production values.

Square Enix has been on a mission for some time now to breathe new life into its much-revered back catalogue of seminal Japanese RPGs (JRPGs), most notably with its epic three-part modern reimagining of Final Fantasy VII, and its development of what it calls HD-2D graphics technology, applied so far to various Dragon Quest games, as well as the Octopath Traveler franchise.

Over the decades (the first instalment was released as far back as 1987), Final Fantasy has become a labyrinthine franchise with fifteen main iterations and a head-spinning number of spin-offs. In that context, Final Fantasy Resonance looks like an anomaly; nominally, it is based on Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a retro-style 2015 instalment that, unprecedentedly, was released for iOS and Android.

But as soon as I started playing Resonance, it felt like more than another mere cul-de-sac among Final Fantasy’s ever-expanding streets. Much of its significance comes from being the first time Square Enix has applied its HD-2D technology (underpinned by Unreal Engine 5) to Final Fantasy, opening up all manner of possibilities for revisiting a mouth-watering back catalogue.

An evolution of HD-2D

By now, at least for fans of retro-JRPGs, the visual language HD-2D brings should be pretty familiar: characters in HD-2D games remain 2D and pixelated, but now traverse 3D backgrounds, invariably rendered in bold, lush colour palettes. That basic blueprint applies to Final Fantasy Resonance, but the game also goes noticeably further than existing HD-2D games visually.

For example, it plays much more with perspectives. While there are still plenty of moments when the overall view tends toward the isometric, at other times (such as when wandering around the game’s many towns), the camera moves toward the ground and uses visual effects like depth of field. Plus, there are plenty of cutscenes, some of which use conventional 2D characters on 3D backgrounds, while others (such as special attacks in battle) enter full-blown anime-style visual territory, often mixing 2D and 3D rendering cleverly.

The overall effect always has a retro edge, yet it still feels strikingly modern: I'd say it marks a moment when Square Enix has pushed HD-2D beyond what I’ve seen before, which bodes very well for the future.

A homage to Final Fantasies I to VI

Final Fantasy Resonance Producer Keisuke Nakashima explicitly says that one of Resonance’s raisons d'être was to preserve “The charm of the classic Final Fantasy titles from I through VI” while creating “An experience that modern players can enjoy comfortably.” Roughly translated, that means it has a determinedly turn-based battle system, but also plenty of save points (where I could heal my characters in tents), and I could fast-travel around the map and, in the latter stages, even navigate the game world by airship.

Resonance is positively stuffed with classic Final Fantasy tropes, with airships, Chocobos, Moogles, and crystals featuring heavily. Story-wise, it starts a tad slowly (I found the early dialogue somewhat stilted) but gradually unfurls into something suitably convoluted, with a welter of twists and sideways turns, and even, at one point, a magical excursion into one character's psyche.

The two main protagonists, Rain and Laswell, start as the top Royal knights of the kingdom of Grandshelt; sent to investigate a disturbance at the shrine of the Earth Crystal, which apparently guards Grandshelt, they encounter a mysterious, super-powerful armoured being (one of a group of baddies known as the Sworn Six), who overpowers them with ease and destroys the crystal. Luckily, a young yet powerful girl called Fina magically appears to save them from death, and the trio embark on a quest to save the remaining crystals, dotted around the game world’s other kingdoms, from destruction by the Sworn Six.

Sophisticated, tactical turn-based battles

A growing cast of characters with varied skills soon joins them, from which four can be selected as a battle party. Resonance may be turn-based, but it’s up against titles like Metaphor: Refantazio and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which aim to prove that turn-based battle systems are no less effective than real-time ones.

Resonance’s battle system prioritises staggering enemies: once I reduced them to a dazed state by identifying and exploiting their elemental weaknesses, I could pile on the damage. Staggering all enemies, or the last remaining one, triggers a Sweeping Stagger, which in turn accelerates characters’ ability to launch devastating Limit Bursts and so-called Resonance attacks.

The game's battle system includes a clever device called Visions, which prove handy in combat and make the game’s Final Fantasy nostalgia even more explicit. Visions are ghostly versions of Final Fantasy protagonists, including Cloud Strife, Noctis, the Onion Knight from Dissidia, Cecil from IV, Bartz from V, and Terra from VI. In all, there are 26 of them to find.

Visions are liberated from crystals in caves, and I could equip each of my battle-characters with one, adding the Vision’s abilities and spells to the character’s own. I was rewarded for swapping Visions around, giving my battle-characters improved attributes, perks, and abilities I could equip permanently. Essentially, they let me upgrade characters to my liking. They also let me trigger Resonances, powerful Limit Burst-style attacks with different effects and elemental affinities.

Fina could also summon Espers, elemental creatures (one of which brought defensive perks) that stick around for three turns; they proved particularly handy in boss battles. Towards the end of Resonance, a sequence of consecutive boss-battles tested my intimate knowledge of the battle system, and its impressive tactical versatility, to the limit. The battle system has a lot of moving parts, but it isn’t as complex as it sounds, and it's very satisfying once mastered.

No mere retro exercise

On the surface, Final Fantasy Resonance seems like an exercise in nostalgia, but it's much more than that. Sure, it evokes the feel of those early Final Fantasy games, but its turn-based battle system feels sophisticated, and its production values easily hold their own in the modern gaming landscape.

It feels like a proper, full-blown Final Fantasy game, reinforced by the fact that it takes over 50 hours to complete. Sure, its attempt to create a sort of everyman Final Fantasy story begins slowly, but it redeems itself in the end. It creates a good impression as a harbinger of HD-2D versions of the original Final Fantasy games, but more than that, it stands up very impressively on its own. Let’s hope it's successful enough to spawn a sequel, and thereby a whole new strand of Final Fantasy games.

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