Final Fantasy Resonance reviews split on the story, not the fights

Final Fantasy Resonance is the first Final Fantasy built in Square Enix's HD-2D style, and the review embargo lifted on Tuesday, two days before the October 22 launch. The short version: almost nobody hated it, and almost everybody had the same complaint. As of Wednesday morning the PlayStation 5 version sits at 85 on Metacritic from 46 critic reviews. Nintendo Life counted 83 for the Switch 2 version from 25 reviews when it ran its roundup.

Resonance is not a new story from scratch. Square Enix says it is based on the first story arc of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, the mobile game, "refined and extensively rebuilt as a full-fledged console-quality RPG experience." Brave Exvius shut down outside Japan in October 2024 and in Japan a year later. So this is a dead gacha game coming back as a $49.99 boxed RPG with the microtransactions stripped out, which is a sentence I did not expect to type this decade. I like it. Live service games usually die and take everything with them. This one got a second body.

The scores, sorted by what each critic cared about

Reading the reviews side by side, the number each outlet gave mostly tracks one thing: how much weight the reviewer put on the story. Here is my sort of the scores from the roundups linked in this piece. The "weighed most" column is my read of each excerpt, not a label the outlets used.

The pattern is clean. When a reviewer came for turn-based fights and pixel art, Resonance scored in the 8 to 10 range. When a reviewer came for a Final Fantasy story, it dropped to a 3 out of 5 or no score at all. gamerfuzion's roundup spells out the same split and notes that, at the time it checked, the PS5 Metacritic page had zero negative reviews. That matters. This is not a divisive game. It is a well-liked game with one weak organ.

The story complaint, in the critics' own words

Polygon's roundup collects the sharpest versions. Eurogamer's Dom Peppiatt called it "a grab-bag of nonsense." VGC's Dave Aubrey wrote that most party members "are downplayed by the plot past the chapter in which they're introduced." Polygon's own Willa Rowe said the habit of evoking other Final Fantasy games "only leads to comparisons that aren't in Resonance's favor." Even the positive reviews hedge on it. Nintendo Life's 8 came with the note that the story is a little dry, and IGN's 8 came with a reviewer left underwhelmed by parts of the storytelling.

I think I know why. Brave Exvius was written as a mobile game that had to keep you opening the app every day, and the party was a rotating cast you collected. That structure leaves fingerprints. A character who exists to be pulled from a banner does not need a second act. Square Enix rebuilt the systems, but you cannot fully rebuild a plot whose job used to be selling characters.

Square Enix rebuilt the systems, but you cannot fully rebuild a plot whose job used to be selling characters.

What the critics agree on

The fights and the look. Polygon quotes IGN's Michael Higham praising "some of the best cutscene work in HD-2D," and Game Informer's Nadia Oxford saying Resonance "wears the HD-2D aesthetic confidently." The combat is turn based with a stagger meter, and you can call in Visions, the ghosts of famous Final Fantasy heroes, for extra abilities. Wikipedia's entry gives the example of Cloud granting stronger physical attacks and lightning magic, and notes that Sephiroth appears as a superboss. The same entry says the soundtrack carries 87 tracks from Brave Exvius and its spinoff plus 33 new ones by Noriyasu Agematsu.

The one presentation gripe worth knowing: Shacknews, via Polygon, says the fixed camera in towns makes it hard to tell which way you are going and can hide treasure chests. That is the classic HD-2D diorama problem, and it is a little funny to see it survive into the series that should have the biggest budget for the style.

Should you buy it Thursday?

Here is where I land, using the one thing the reviews cannot test for you. Square Enix's free demo covers the opening through the first chapter, about 3 to 5 hours, and the save carries over to the full game. It is on every platform the game launches on. That makes the decision easier than usual:

• Buy it at launch if you finished an Octopath Traveler or the Dragon Quest HD-2D remakes and mainly remember the battles. That is exactly what the high scores are rewarding.
• Play the demo first if you want a Final Fantasy story. Chapter one is where the cast gets introduced, which is the part VGC says the plot later drops. If the characters do nothing for you in five hours, the critics suggest they will not later.
• Wait for a sale if you are lukewarm on HD-2D already. Nothing in the reviews suggests Resonance converts people who bounced off the style.
• Consider the Switch 2 version carefully. It is scoring a couple of points lower on Metacritic than PS5 so far. That is a small gap and the review pools differ, but it is there.

Timing, if you are staying up: gamerfuzion reports the PS5 and Xbox versions unlock at midnight local time on October 22, while Steam unlocks at 16:00 UTC, which is noon Eastern. The standard edition is $49.99 and the Digital Deluxe is $59.99.

Resonance is not the only retro revival this month that critics have measured against the older games it borrows from. The Tales of Eternia Remastered reviews argued over the original mode, and Castlevania: Belmont's Curse split critics on whether it kept the old spirit. Resonance has the opposite problem. It has the old spirit in its combat. What it is missing is a reason to care who is holding the sword.

I am not giving it a grade, because I have not played the full game. But an 85 with no negatives and one shared complaint is a better launch than Square Enix's last retro-style RPG, June's The Adventures of Elliot, which Polygon notes sits at 78. If the demo hooks you, the story reviews are not a reason to stay away. They are a reason to set your expectations at "great fights, fine fairy tale."

How we made this: researched and drafted with AI assistance. Sources are linked in the piece.