Final Fantasy Type-0 HD Reviews
There are no interesting or relatable characters and I found myself skipping most of the movies after I just couldn't take it anymore. There are things to like about Type-0 once you get past the boring beginning, but unless you have a high tolerance for really bad anime or are a desperate Final Fantasy fan you might want to skip Type-0.
All of these issues plague what should have been a solid role-playing game. Its design, combat, and missions are enjoyable but are undermined by the lack of polish and finesse that we've come to expect from a game bearing the Final Fantasy name. Having said that, if you do manage to look past Final Fantasy Type-0 HD's surface flaws, you're treated to a substantial 30-hour odd campaign that's entertaining despite of it being better suited to a handheld console. Considering that this is a full priced game however, its shoddy production values makes it tough to recommend to anyone who is not already a fan of the series.
There are so many aspects of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD that work well, but as a whole it just feels off. It's like so many good ingredients being put into a bad recipe. At its core there's a great game here with a fantastic combat system, but it's buried under the story, graphical issues and frustrating gameplay aspects. It's certainly worth giving this a go… but wait until it's on sale. It's a shame this wasn't ported to Vita where it would have worked better.
Type-0 certainly gets real-time combat right, but this port of an RPG that began on handheld is otherwise not much fun to play on PC.
Final Fantasy Type 0 HD can be fun at times but overall it's an average game.
The combat has it's moments but it has very little to do with Final Fantasy, although the awful storytelling is all too familiar from the rest of the Final Fantasy XIII series.
The story of Type-0 is an interesting one to witness, if only to see a darker Final Fantasy narrative and a more evil side of Cid. But it's a story that'll likely only satisfy FF completists and few others.
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD contains highly enjoyable combat that's unfortunately limited by its design. The repetitive nature of how the missions are structured damages the overall experience, not to mention it isn't until roughly halfway through the campaign before a meaningful plot is established.
Unless you're a Final Fantasy diehard, Type-0 should be played in its original form on handheld, or not at all.
No amount of visual updates can mask the fact that Type-0 was clearly never designed to be on consoles. What great ideas it has are buried under a story that's rendered meaningless and a camera that prevents you from seeing most of them in the first place.
Type-0 HD's "Mature" rating and blood-filled imagery should be telltale signs that we're in for a different kind of Final Fantasy experience heading onto the new systems. Unfortunately, Type-0 HD doesn't rectify the shortcomings of its predecessors and simply rehashes the mistakes of the past while doing very little to update an already outdated PSP title.
Just the type of console Final Fantasy we needed after all those years of Lightning.
I don't want to point fingers at anybody for Final Fantasy Type-0 HD because I am glad that it just exists in English at all. However, this is not the game that Square Enix has been hyping, and it should be tackled with a certain set of expectations.
Final Fantasy is too massive a cultural force to be in danger of failing after a few years of disappointing releases, but hope for the future of the series rests with Type-0 all the same.
Such is the quandary at the heart of every long-running game series. Type-0 HD bears all the hallmarks of a game simultaneously keen to escape its past while being forced to embrace its heritage. At its best, it's a fine, smartly-paced action-RPG with thrilling combat mechanics that just happens to be a better fit for a handheld than a home console. But, crucially, it represents a promise unkept: this isn't so much a blend of new ideas, more a melange of existing ones. It may have been conceived as a fresh start for Final Fantasy, but Type-0 is more often a false dawn.
Is this game worth checking out? Absolutely. Is it worth the $59.99 price point? No, especially when you consider how much Square Enix charged for previous remastered titles which had multiple games in the box.
