Young adults with a different way of thinking and unique talents find their way into Class Zero. They are being trained into killing machines with a new set of abilities and an awesome yet intimidating uniform to leave a mark in the minds of their fallen enemies. Let’s get battle ready and start reviewing Final Fantasy type-0 HD.
In Orience, there’s this great war going on between the “once peaceful” Crystal States. There are 4 nations based on their crystal of power: Dominion of Rubrim, the controllers of magic ( Vermillion Bird Crystal), the Militesi Empire (White Tiger Crystal), interested in science and weapons, the Kingdom of Concordia ( Azure Dragon Crystal), containing the power of the Dragons and the Lorican Alliance( Black Tortoise Crystal), using the power of shielding. Each nation marks their servants (L’Cie) and each servant has a job( Focus) to do. L’Cie live long enough to complete their task but they have the burden to lose their memories of the dead, in order for them to remain productive.
As the story begins, the Militesi Empire have a thirst for power and they invade the other nations. The Militesi Empire start invading the Dominion of Rubrum and jam its Power Crystal, to have an advantage over those people. Class Zero reacts and helps the people defend against the Militesi Empire. Step by step, you try to regain control of different sections and push back the enemy invaders. Different playthroughs offers you more insight into the game’s plot.
You take the role as one of the cadets of Class Zero, whichever character suits your play style best. You can choose between 13 different students all packed with their own set of abilities and play style. Every character has a different weapon alongside some action abilities. These abilities come in the form of curing, fire bombs, elemental missiles, dashing… etc. You can equip your character with aura’s, potions and weapons to boost your game. For Each mission, you can set up a squad of 3 cadets and if one of them dies, you’ll be able to summon another cadet from your reserve piles. Each character has access to an Eidolon ( war god) which can be summoned by draining a players health to zero. Each Eidolon is playable and has their own set of unique abilities and fighting style. As the game progresses, you’ll be rewarded with different forms of those Eidolons.
I like the fact that every cadet has its own weapon
The game’s battle system is real time action based. It means you’re locking on, hack/ slash, use an ability and repeat. Abilities can be powerful if the player holds down the action button for a couple of seconds. The player can also switch between his members of the party, so you’re not limited on your play styles. On certain moments during battle, you’re able to perform critical blows thanks to the “Break Sight” and “Kill Sight” feature. “Break Sight” deals a lot of damage to an enemy while “Kill Sight” will often get you a one hit blow kill. You’re party members can also combine their attacks to perform a Triad Manoeuver and deal lots of damage. Enemies drop Phantoma which replenish magic points and can be used to upgrade a cadet’s magic abilities, if you spent them in the Altocrystarium.
The game’s campaign is all about “winning the war” by freeing town, defend bases and invading occupied cities. Before each minute, you have a couple of “game hours” to train your cadets. You can train them by doing activities like accepting side quests and battling in the arena of the Akademia or just by attending a lecture at school. Since your actions are limited due to the given time, it makes you think about who and what you want to train first. There’s been a lot of thinking in my first hours. If you’re really up for the grinding, you can redo campaign missions to help you with your progression.
The game itself is greatly designed and it takes you a bit back to the old school real time action packed games, which is nice for a change. The HD version of this game ( since it first released on the PSP) did do a lot of good things. The sound quality is good and the portable version of the game runs smoothly on a bigger screen. The shading and the lighting looked perfect and there are enough scenes that leaves a scar emotionally. All the cadets are dealing with their emotions throughout the game. Some are hurt badly while others have fun in manipulating commanders.
The story is good but I had to read a lot of lore, to have a background on the whole situation. Everything seems to happens so fast that you don’t have a sense of understanding some characters motivations. A thing I didn’t like was the clunky camera and the dull environments. Also, some NPC’s just look bad in what they’re doing and textures tend to pop- up. Although it’s fun to catch on some of the weirdly phrases NPC’s give.
Some other issues I have to mention are the following: the voice acting in the game isn’t a catch. Some of the English voice actors are terrible in what they’re saying and it makes the sound design look bad. There are some weird dialogues to go through during the whole game. Good thing is, you can switch to the Japanese voice acting any time you want. Loading times were also a problem. It takes ages to load a game and if you die, you’ll have to restart from your last save point which sometimes is a long way from the place where your soul left your body.
All by all, it’s an okay game to enjoy for a good amount of hours. The battle system is fluid and it’s fun to experiment with different party members. I like the fact that every cadet has its own weapon, abilities and personality. It makes the game so much interesting and it helps you to play the whole game through. The setting is a bit dark and unique with the whole class- zero thing. If you can look through the loading times, the weird dialogue and you want to do something different and yet old school. Why don’t you give it a try?
7/10
Tested on PC
