LogFAQs > #975071125

#1: World of Final Fantasy

So let's get this out of the way, WoFF is a silly little fanservice game starring funko-esque designs for classic Final Fantasy characters. The two human main characters, Reynn and Lann, are extremely Nomura/Kingdom Hearts-ish character designs - Lann looks a ton like Roxas. One of the main cast is a cute little mascot fox with a polarising vocal tic, where most words she says is prefaced by her saying "the". For example - "I can't the-believe it's not the-butter!". Something you might not already know is that the chibi FF mascot characters aren't those characters sent to a new setting, they're brand new, individual people living in the same general overworld who exhibit a handful of their traits. They're called Lilliputians and you run into at least one of them from every mainline Final Fantasy game up to about 15, at least with the Maxima port.

So now that I've alienated a large swath of people who might have otherwise enjoyed the game by virtue of the "Final Fantasy" branding, only to be turned off by the above explanation - World of Final Fantasy is probably one of my favorite RPG spinoffs. Like idk what you're actually expecting based on my prior description, but I'm just gonna tell you - this game nails everything it does.

First of all, I want to talk about how the game looks. People throw "miracle port" around a lot, but it's for stuff like Doom Eternal and Mortal Kombat 11. World of Final Fantasy Maxima is a perfect interpolation of the PS4 original; there was never a point where I went "wow this looks fucking awful, but I guess that's what I get for buying the Switch version". Are the visuals a lot more simplified compared to those games? Sure. You still have seamless model-switching between human and Lilliputian forms on the fly for the two lead characters, short loading times, visual and audio fidelity, a consistent framerate and what appears to be very, very few visual compromises. World of Final Fantasy is a gorgeous game, there's nature and ice and fire and all that, and there are very picturesque scenes with like soft blue around the lens that are unbelievably high-quality considering the change in platforms.

Secondly, the gameplay. This game is a proper turn-based RPG - it's not an ATB battle system, but it's very menu-y and you have a lot of freedom to pursue different skills because of how your party system works.

Here's another potential point of alienation: World of Final Fantasy is a monster-raising game. You have to weaken enemies and capture them in prisms, adding them to your collection and raising their stats.

Personally, I don't like monster-raising games outside of Pokemon. One reason I didn't like Digimon Cyber Sleuth was because it's a mediocre monster-raising game. I wouldn't be opposed to trying Monster Rancher or Dragon Quest Monsters, but I'm just not a fan of most games of this type. It doesn't help that the other FF games I've played, X-2 and XIII-2, have dogshit monster-raising components.

But it works for World of Final Fantasy. Every one of your monsters has a skill tree like the Sphere Grid or whatever the FF13 version was called. You gather upgrade points, and then you can unlock new abilities and better stats for your monsters. You can also evolve/devolve them up their evolutionary line, so if you invest in a monster you can get a really solid party member going forward.

This is also punctuated by the Stack system - another aspect of this game I should hate, basing the battle system around a gimmick. But this is one of the rare occurrences where I actually really loved the shaken-up mechanics of this design decision. Basically, you and your monsters are grouped into sizes: small, medium and large. You can swap between your Lilliputian form at will, which means you can be a large party member as a human or a medium party member as a Lilliputian. You can then "stack" other monsters - a Large monster at the bottom, a Medium monster in the middle, and a Small monster at the top. Think of it like this: you want a Large monster to deal out damage and a Small monster with a strong list of spells. Beyond that, mix and match the party for you. There is a gimmicky Trip mechanic where you can be knocked off-balance, requiring you to reform the stack lest your individual monsters get picked off one by one - your attack and MP are consolidated as a stack, making unstacked parties very vulnerable - but I honestly love the whole system more than I dislike that individual mechanic.

Third, gamefeel. World of Final Fantasy is the perfect length, and it has the perfect amount of depth to be fun and mechanically interesting without overshooting into fiddly and tedious. I beat all the bonus dungeons in this game, and it was an absolute pleasure from beginning to end. This is a 40 hour game that doesn't overstay its welcome or leave you disappointed - it's loaded with a surprisingly heavy-hitting story, a bunch of humor, tons of fanservice (the non-sexual kind) and consistently entertaining character writing. It does get a bit too dense and wacky at points, but the game is a light-hearted romp at the best of times and it's easy to adjust if you vibe with it. That being said, the story was written by the same guy who wrote Type-0, so expect shenanigans.

World of Final Fantasy is like a really good theme park. You get to meet Mickey Mouse and go on a plane ride with Goofy, and if you decide to stay overnight, you can stay in a suite based on your favourite Disney movie. You can hang out with Tidus and explore a little subplot with him and Yuna - or more specifically, their Lilliputian counterparts - in a way that'll make you go "yay :)". But more importantly, you'll get a very solid RPG experience that is somehow the perfect length, even counting the endgame/postgame content, and you'll get cameos and cast additions you might have never expected. There's an FF11 rep, a couple of Crystal Chronicles reps and a spoiler character who isn't even from the Final Fantasy universe.

If you love Final Fantasy, and you can at least stomach the sort of artstyle this game - which I honestly love more than any dogshit funko pop design you might see anywhere else - this is a must-play game. The Switch port is phenomenal, and on its own merits, this game is a quality experience from start to finish.

There are games I naturally enjoy playing, ala Minecraft, and there are games that are really fun, narratively rich and mechanically interesting that I love but which I have to push myself to play, like Night in the Woods or Life is Strange. World of Final Fantasy was an absolute treat to play the entire way through - I never once got tired with it. It's the perfect combination of a gamey RPG and a story RPG, and it's the perfect length.