Final Fantasy Resonance removes the paid character pulls and daily energy limits from the now-shuttered Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. The design built around them is harder to shake. In Polygon’s assessment, this premium adaptation preserves a mobile RPG worth saving, but its constant reminders of other Final Fantasy games leave too little room for an identity of its own.
Co-developed by Square Enix and Lancarse, Resonance is the franchise’s first HD-2D entry. Like Octopath Traveler 0, it rebuilds a mobile game as a more streamlined, standalone release with a visual overhaul. Removing predatory gacha mechanics is a welcome change. But a different business model doesn’t automatically improve every part of the underlying game.
That distinction drives the review’s criticism. The Polygon critic, who spent a couple of years playing Brave Exvius, argues that the affection once used to sell familiar characters now has to sustain a conventional RPG. Without the mobile systems surrounding it, Resonance’s dependence on callbacks becomes harder to ignore. It competes not just with the series’ past, but with modern successors that don’t have the Final Fantasy name to help them.
Series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi is reported to have said, “Final Fantasy is Final Fantasy if it has a blue window with text in it.” Resonance certainly has another familiar ingredient covered: crystals. It has plenty of them, alongside Easter eggs and references inherited from its mobile source. The reviewer suggests that franchise fans may find enough satisfying moments to forgive its flaws, but that familiarity is both the attraction and the problem.
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A tale as old as time
Resonance adapts only the first season of Brave Exvius, opening with a premise that could fit several early Final Fantasy games. A great evil threatens the world’s magical crystals, and a group of heroes sets out to stop it. Friendship, love, laughter, tears, and a journey with close companions provide the emotional framework.
The names change more than the outline does. Protagonist Rain follows Cloud and Lightning in the series’ fondness for weather-related names. More specific echoes appear in the setup: two knights leading an airship recall Final Fantasy 4, while an amnesiac girl with a powerful connection to Espers brings Final Fantasy 6 to mind. These aren’t isolated similarities; the review describes a story whose beats repeatedly invite comparisons with earlier entries.
Familiarity isn’t automatically a failure, though. Polygon’s critic finds that Resonance often uses its tropes effectively, telling a comfortable, predictable story rather than an unpleasant one. The limitation is its reluctance to take risks. The review interprets that caution as a legacy of Brave Exvius: a gacha game depends on keeping players engaged and spending, so a divisive narrative turn could threaten both retention and revenue. In Resonance, that means few serious lows, but relatively few highs, too.
There are exceptions. A priestess reminiscent of Aerith and Yuna struggles between the demands of duty and the wish to live for herself, leading to one of the reviewer’s standout moments of emotional release. Those scenes suggest that familiar material can still work when the storytelling finds its rhythm. Too often, however, recalling another Final Fantasy simply invites a comparison Resonance doesn’t win.
Lost in translation
The combat has a similar problem: recognizable ingredients without a distinctive enough combination. Battles are turn-based rather than using the series’ familiar Active Time Battle system. Turn order and elemental weaknesses matter, with attacks used to stagger enemies, a mechanic the review identifies as Final Fantasy 13’s most enduring contribution to the franchise.
Polygon’s assessment is that the system is engaging enough, but lacks the urgency and fresh tactical ideas of Octopath Traveler’s boost-break system. The move away from mobile also drops something Brave Exvius did well. Its touch interface let players chain attacks and strike enemies simultaneously. Losing that interaction is a meaningful sacrifice, not simply the inevitable cost of removing monetization.
Other familiar mechanics fare better. Each character can unleash a showy Limit Break once a meter fills, dealing extra damage while giving the HD-2D presentation room to shine. The reviewer considers that visual style a smart choice and a fitting match for a game carrying the Final Fantasy name, even while judging Octopath Traveler 2 to be its strongest expression.
Fina also brings something distinct to the party. As the group’s only true summoner, she can call Espers into battle. That ability supports her unusual role in the story while adding variety to encounters the critic otherwise finds repetitive.
The most heavily promoted mechanic is the Vision system. Visions are equippable tag-team partners that give party members access to additional skills and spells. A handful represent original Brave Exvius characters, but the bigger draw is the chance to equip familiar faces from earlier Final Fantasy games. In principle, they function like a Job System, expanding what each member of the main cast can do.
In the reviewer’s playthrough, personal attachment mattered more than that flexibility. Rather than continually reshaping the party’s abilities, the critic kept favorite protagonists equipped, particularly Squall. Staggering every enemy in an encounter triggers elaborate 3D animated attacks from these characters, making familiar favorites an appealing choice even without much experimentation.
Collecting a Vision also requires watching a montage summarizing that character’s original game. This is where the system’s useful combat function runs into the review’s central complaint. Each montage asks players to remember their affection for another adventure. For the critic, Visions consequently feel somewhat empty: the old strategy of turning attachment to Final Fantasy into spending is still visible, even though the paid pulls are gone. The repeated callbacks leave little space to appreciate Resonance on its own terms, or to decide whether what remains would be compelling without them.
Removing the gacha barriers is still a net positive. Players no longer need to pay for slot-machine-like attempts to unlock Visions, and exploration isn’t interrupted when a daily energy allowance runs out. The review describes Brave Exvius’ implementation as rough even by the genre’s standards. Those are restrictions worth leaving behind.
Yet the replacement experience can feel too frictionless. On “Normal” difficulty, the reviewer never found combat truly challenging and never felt a need to grind. The party reached dungeons at an appropriate level with minimal preparation. That ease also weakened the appeal of exploring: the world offered relatively few of the rewarding secrets the critic associates with the early Final Fantasy games Resonance draws from.
Esper hunts provide an exception. These encounters send players into the world to find summonable monsters and defeat them in demanding battles before gaining their support. The critic finds it disappointing that almost nothing in the main quest, including climactic bosses, approaches that level of challenge.
Several endgame superbosses offer tougher fights as well, following series tradition. The reviewer didn’t fight every one, but considers those encountered among the game’s more interesting battles. Their presence doesn’t resolve the broader difficulty problem: optional challenges at the edges can’t supply the tension missing throughout much of the main adventure.
By any other name
For all those criticisms, Resonance’s existence earns qualified praise from the reviewer. Square Enix has spent time and money turning a defunct mobile game into something people can hopefully keep playing indefinitely. Alongside Octopath Traveler 0, it demonstrates a willingness to give at least some discontinued live-service titles a second life.
That deserves recognition without letting the company’s wider record off the hook. The review also asks why Square Enix has so many shuttered games available for this treatment, pointing to Final Fantasy Ever Crisis, Mobius Final Fantasy, and Kingdom Hearts Union X and Dark Road. For every Brave Exvius receiving another chance, the critic fears that several comparable games will likely remain lost, while expressing a particular wish for Nier Reincarnation to receive a remake next.
The industry’s dismissive attitude toward mobile games can make those losses seem inconsequential. This adaptation offers a reason to reject that assumption, but it also reveals the limits of preservation through reinvention. Resonance removes exploitative systems and gives the material an attractive new presentation; it also loses a distinctive touch-based combat interaction and leaves substantial parts of Brave Exvius unavailable.
Multiple later story seasons remain outside this adaptation. Strong enough sales might persuade Square Enix to revisit them, but there’s no assurance that will happen. For now, preserving the first season still leaves the rest of the story waiting for a playable home.
The Final Fantasy name and HD-2D engine give Resonance an advantage that originality alone can’t explain. In Polygon’s assessment, that combination positions it for greater success than games such as Octopath Traveler, Harvestella, and Dungeon Encounters, despite its lack of fresh ideas.
The comparison cuts deeper than branding. Those games draw on the same nostalgic inspirations as Resonance, but the critic argues that they do more insightful things with their predecessors’ storytelling and mechanics. Some have crystals; some use turn-based combat. Yet all three feel at least as much like Final Fantasy as Resonance does, if not more. Familiar ingredients and an official name aren’t necessarily what give an RPG the series’ character.
Resonance still has a place as low-pressure comfort gaming. Polygon’s verdict frames it as casual, popcorn-style entertainment, best played on a handheld with a snack nearby and something on the TV. The appeal lies in that easygoing experience, not in a distinctive new take on its inspirations.
Final Fantasy Resonance will be released Oct. 22 on Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. Polygon reviewed the game on Steam Deck using a prerelease download code provided by Square Enix; its ethics policy explains its review standards.
