Was anyone else slightly taken aback by the reveal that Final Fantasy Resonance would be the series' first foray into HD-2D? Perhaps it was the Pixel Remasters or the three Dragon Quest remakes, but this pairing seemed so obvious to me that it's a wonder Square Enix hadn't done it before.

After going hands-on with the game at a recent event, I'm pleased to say that my suspicions were correct: Final Fantasy and HD-2D is a wonderful pairing.

Of course, I didn't need to play a demo of the game to know that (it's another HD-2D joint, and I'm still on board with it). What I did need some playtime to work out was whether Final Fantasy Resonance would feel like something new, or something too tied to nostalgia. And honestly, I still don't think I have the answer.

My ~50 minutes of playtime didn't show me a huge amount of what FFR has to offer — one 'Temple' dungeon and one boss, to be precise — and I played the whole thing on PS5, so that throws all Switch 2 performance questions out of the window. But I still sensed the pull between the old and the new, the nostalgic and the original. It's... both? Neither? It's a weird one.

I felt this right from the jump. Resonance is, itself, an adaptation of the 2015 mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. At least, it's an adaptation of some of it. I didn't get a good sense of the story from my brief time with the game, but there's a kingdom on the brink of collapse, magical crystals, and two voluminously-haired protagonists at the centre of it all. You know, the usual.

Interestingly, Brave Exvius wasn't mentioned at all by Square Enix during the event, nor does it appear anywhere on the game's website. But it is the mobile game. Those who didn't touch it before it was shuttered in 2024 will see Resonance as something completely new. Those who did will see a lot of similarities. Old and new, you see?

To help our party of heroes on their quest, each member can summon a Vision to assist them in battle. These are iconic characters from the series' past who float, Force Ghost-like, behind the protagonists and dish out special skills and attacks. I saw Cloud, the Warrior of Light, Terra, and Zidane in my playthrough, but I was assured that there are many more to come.

These Visions are effectively equipment — think the Emblem Rings in Fire Emblem Engage — and can be swapped out on the fly to grant their buffs to whichever character you please. Build up gauge with one equipped at your side, and you can unleash a powerful attack that momentarily dumps the HD-2D art style for a 3D-rendered cutscene of the respective Vision hero. As useful as these bursts were, I never fully gelled with the cutscene inserts, and ended up skipping them after seeing one or two.

I never really got my head around why Cloud and co. needed to be there in the first place. Resonance's new protagonists, Rain and Lasswell, are cool enough on their own and have their fair share of swanky attacks up their sleeves — some of which come with a much better-looking HD-2D cutscene, to really put those 3D cutaways to shame.

It's a remnant of the mobile game origins, I suppose, where the promise of unlocking familiar faces is enough to keep you coming back time and again. It's not quite as much of a necessity on console.

It all felt classic Final Fantasy in practice, mind you. It has been a while since I've dived deep into a 2D RPG, and I was pleased with how quickly I fell back into the motions of buffs and attacks, organising my party's skills to find workarounds that felt satisfyingly 'game-breaking' — despite, of course, not being game-breaking at all. Be it whipping through random encounters, boarding the Temple's many elevators, or pouring thousands of damage points into the boss at the end, it felt like classic Final Fantasy, and that's good!

But just like that one Pedro Pascal meme, I couldn't help but wonder if it could be better. I kept waiting for that big 'something new', something that would make Resonance feel not just like a retread of Final Fantasy's best bits and push the series somewhere interesting. I didn't find that here, though considering that I only saw a very small slice of it, that's hardly surprising.

So far, this is a neat trip down memory lane for those craving the Final Fantasies of old. I just hope that it has a few surprises on the way.

Final Fantasy Resonance launches on Switch 1 & 2 on 22nd October for £49.99 / $49.99. Are you excited for this one? Let us know in the comments.