What exactly are Visions in Resonance?

Visions are the core combat system: you can equip a former Final Fantasy hero (like Noctis) to a party member to give them access to elemental abilities they don't naturally have. Facing a boss weak to ice but with no ice spell? A Vision solves the problem in a second.

Do you need to know Final Fantasy Brave Exvius to understand the story?

No. The story draws inspiration from the Lapis arc of mobile Brave Exvius, but Square assures that no prior knowledge is necessary. That said, it remains an unknown for the majority of Western players.

Is the combat system revolutionary?

Not revolutionary, but effective. It's classic turn-based with a timeline like Star Renegades. The stagger that lets you chain your four characters together for a combined attack is what brings real strategic depth.

Why is it difficult to evaluate the game after this demo?

TheGamer tested an ultra-short linear dungeon with over-leveled enemies. Not enough to judge the true difficulty, the narrative, the overall pacing, or whether the game knows how to vary its gameplay beyond this tuned corridor.

Preview Final Fantasy Resonance: TheGamer's impressions after Gamescom

TheGamer's hands-on session was limited to a short slice of the game: recruiting an ally, exploring the world map, a dungeon, a boss. Deliberately overleveled, as Square Enix itself admitted, it's therefore hard to judge the real difficulty. But the feeling that dominates coming out of the demo is visual dazzlement. It's the most beautiful thing done so far in the house's HD-2D lineup, the journalist states.

The world opens up in HD-2D and it works at full throttle. The world map alone justifies the stylistic shift, but it's the towns and dungeons that give you vertigo: a strange blend of pure nostalgia and ultra-modern look. Square also slipped in fully 3D sequences for summons and certain devastating attacks, a contrast with the pixel backdrops that, on screen, actually lands rather well.

On the combat side, nothing revolutionary, but the system seems to hold up. We find a classic turn-based system with a timeline in the style of Star Renegades that shows the order of upcoming actions. The real find is the "Visions": you can equip a former Final Fantasy hero (Noctis in our case) to a party member to make up for their elemental gaps. Facing an ice-sensitive boss with no ice spell on hand? A Vision solves the problem. Add the stagger system that lets you chain all four characters on the timeline for a combined attack, and you get a layer of strategy that goes beyond mere visual dressing.

What's worrying, inevitably: the content played remains tiny, a linear dungeon packed with enemies, basic puzzles and hidden chests, with no notable surprises. It's hard to judge the narrative or the overall pacing from such a calibrated and easy excerpt, TheGamer points out. The narrative foundation, drawn from the Lapis arc of the mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, also remains an unknown for most Western players, even though Square assures that no prior knowledge is necessary.

Provisional verdict: it's off to a great start visually, the combat system has substance with its Visions and stagger mechanic, but we'll have to see whether the pacing and writing hold up over the full length of the adventure.