It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that we're rather excited for the new Final Fantasy game here at Everybody Plays - but not the one everybody else is. Final Fantasy XV may be all well and good, but the cutesy World of Final Fantasy is where it's at for us. After all, what other game lets you carry around a Chocobo on your bonce, like a fetching yellow feathery hat? Exactly.
Game of the Forever.
Set in the fantasy world of Grymoire, you play as a pair of twins, Reynn and Lann, who are on a journey to try and recover their lost memories; a journey that will see them meeting up with all kinds of familiar Final Fantasy faces along the way, as they search for their long lost mother. Suddenly waking up in a land where everyone else is a tiny chibi person, it doesn't take long before the twins hear talk of a prophecy, that "giants from the hills from a world not our own", will be lead Grymoire to one of two divergent futures - either one of salvation, or one of ruin. And so it falls to them to not only recover the memories they've lost, but also to save the world in another epic Final Fantasy tale, in which all your favourite Final Fantasy characters, from emo sword-wielder Cloud (FF7) to the pink-haired Lightning (FFXIII) and the ladylike Yuna (FFX), all crop up along the way.
In the peculiar land of Grymoire, stacking things on your head is apparently a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence - and as the old saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them. Both Reynn and Lann are able to tame various iconic Final Fantasy monsters - here known as 'mirages' - such as Chocobos, Cactuars and Behemoths, and once tamed, you'll be able to send them into battle for you, stacking them on top of each other in battle to create some seriously adorable monster towers. The siblings are also able to adjust their sizes, letting them either shrink themselves to stack on top of their team mates, or grow large enough to support a couple on their heads. The twins' relative sizes, your monsters' different elemental types, and even the order in which you stack them will affect how battles play out.
With Final Fantasy XV using God knows what battle system, it's nice to have a more traditional turn-based game too.
The battles themselves make use of the Final Fantasy staple ATB (Active Time Battle) system, where characters take it in turns to attack - which makes a nice change to the more real time hack-and-slashing of most of the more recent role-playing games. Seemingly taking its cues from Nintendo's collect 'em up Pokemon, World of Final Fantasy has oodles of little Final Fantasy beasties to collect, raise and battle alongside. Whether you're levelling them up through repeated battling, and evolving them to gain new abilities, or even turning monsters into ability-boosting magicite (which sounds a bit cruel if you ask us), it sounds like the game will have an impressive amount of scope for crafting and customising your perfect (and cutest!) team. But your new-found monster friends can do more than fight your battles for you - you can even hop on their back to ride across the vast landscapes of the toy-like Grymoire too.
But your friendly monsters aren't the only stackable things in World of Final Fantasy either - dungeons like to reach for the skies too. These vertical towers come littered with obstacles to overcome, and you'll need to make use of your different creature's abilities and 'magicite effects' to pass them, adding a layer of puzzle solving to the proceedings too. Precisely how these will play out still remains to be seen, but the recent E3 trailer references an intimidating Crystal Tower, in which the sibling's mother is trapped, so we're imagining scaling that will be a key part of the adventure.
During your adventure you'll team up with all kinds of familiar Final Fantasy faces, such as Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning.
Intriguingly, World of Final Fantasy is listed as being for one to two players, either online via the Playstation Network or over local co-operative - we expect this will be for the Playstation 4 version only though, as multiplayer tends to be a bit more awkward on handhelds. But still - cute, cuddly AND co-op? Square Enix, you do spoil us so! And as an extra treat, those who purchase the day one edition of World of Final Fantasy (presumably from the Square Enix official store) will receive the legendary Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII as an exclusive summon to aid you in battle, and he's never looked so adorable!
World of Final Fantasy will be hitting the Playstation 4 and PS Vita on the 28th October, and we don't know about you, but we can't wait. Why not check out the recent E3 trailer below:
