Topic: World of Final Fantasy Maxima

I used the search function and I was surprised to see there wasn't a thread for this game. Maybe everyone is hyped up on those ports of FFVII and FFIX to care? Anywho, World of Final Fantasy, this game is jolly. A lighthearted affair with a whole bunch of callbacks from other games in the series. With core gameplay mechanics that make this feel like Square Enix's spin on Pokemon.

The game's vibe is chill and laid back, but the audio design and visuals are tremendous.

In some ways it feels like a spiritual successor to Mystic Quest.

This game looks pretty good but I'm a bit confused about what audience it's aimed at. It seems to be simpler than the mainline Final Fantasies and aimed more at kids and new players, but it also has all the cameos and callbacks to previous FF games, as you mentioned, which wouldn't make much sense to new players. Personally I've only played one mainline Final Fantasy game; I'm interested in playing most of the others but would you recommend playing World of FF first, or waiting until I've played some of the other games so I can understand the references and cameos?

@Dogorilla - I would play more of the mainline entires first, so you don't miss the references.

World of Final Fantasy has 2 things I dislike :
1. I-Know-Everything Erna Kross, U-Know-Nothing Lann & Reynn. Typical Kingdom Hearts. 🙄
2. Chatterbox conversations.

@Dogorilla I have played it and only played through only one mainline title (aka FF9, and only played the non mainline after that), and while I probably miss out on a lot of references... I still enjoy it.

Like the gameplay's very hooking and it's fun to just think on what monsters do you want to put on the stack. Personally I say give it a try

FF9 is the only one I've played too, but I've also got FF6 on the SNES Classic, I just haven't played it yet. I'll probably pick up World of FF when it goes on sale at some point then

There used to be a thread on it...I wonder what happened to it? It was short lived though. Squeenix botched the release of this game originally on PS4/Vita, then botched it again on Switch/XBox One. (And doubled down on botching the Switch launch by not making a physical release until after the holiday period.)

@Dogorilla Square made noises about WoFF being for "younger generations who have not experienced FF as an introduction." but I think that was the marketing executives. The dev team set out to make a game that was more of a callback to classic FF for veterans amidst the hooplah over the ARPG change in direction for 13 and especially 15. Some things are simplified and "child-like" but mostly it's just a final throwback to good old FF for the veterans. There's a few cameos here and there early on, Warrior of Light, Yuna, catuars etc, but half-way through it goes into FF-reference overdrive, and starts mashing together characters and places from different games in fun ways. It's not the most challenging game and it doesn't even pretend to take itself seriously at any turn. The Pokemon system is modestly broken in that most of the time you don't need to worry about your stack (and going too deep into it is just confusing) so brute forcing works fine enough. But it doesn't matter because it's just fun. Gameplay can be interesting without being overwhelmingly difficult.

It's definitely an underrated game.

About twelve hours in now. 24% of the Mirage Manuel (Pokedex) done and 34% of the Who's Who (characters met tracker) done. I like how this game has a little Metroidvania backtracking blended in, as there are areas that cannot be accessed until certain skills on specific Mirages are acquired. Feels good.

@NEStalgia That sounds good, especially as I generally prefer turn-based RPGs. I'll try and get through some more of the mainline games before playing WoFF then. It's great to see so many FF games finally coming to a Nintendo platform