The initial premise of World of Final Fantasy is a return to the basics for the Final Fantasy series. Turn based combat, random enemy encounters, a story relevant to the things you’re doing, innocuous sidequests, gear management, levelling charts. In all reality it would be a fantastic entry from a series that has failed to impress in years. It has a lot of nostalgic references, containing characters and creatures from Final Fantasies gone by. A real solid piece of Square Enix product. There’s just one glaring issue.
The whole game is designed for children. I repeat: children. Chibi art style, head stacking monsters, poor and ungainly dialogue (seriously, I think the Cloud wannabe is autistic) lead to a game that is impossible for any functioning adult to plow through without feeling shame at the very least, “special” at best. Even with the fast-forward function during cutscenes, of which there are a LOT, you still have a lingering sense that you’re supposed to be 5.
That’s all well and good, I suppose, as I’m sure nobody at SE sat at the conference table and said “Y’know what our demographic would love? Completing childlike challenges and seeing all their favorite characters from our history in chibi form.” I’m certain they designed the game for gamers who have kids they want to turn into gamers.
The real bottom line is that Square Enix knows how to make games in the classic Final Fantasy style, yet they continue to try to give us new twists that nobody asked for. They also released Final Fantasy XV this year, a game so far removed from what makes a game Final Fantasy that WoFF might as well be the actual XV, chibis or not.
Bottom Line: Don’t buy this game unless you have kids, or your internet friends will laugh at you.
