MOBIUS FINAL FANTASY REVIEW

Final Fantasy Mobius is a RPG game developed by Square Enix and published by Square Enix on both iOS and Android mobile platforms. Originally developed as a game giving a console gaming experience on a mobile platform it is an interesting addition to the Final Fantasy series.

The games story draws a lot from older games in the Final Fantasy series and there law with a hint of its own semi original ideas. You play as a potential candidate for the warrior of light who has awoken with amnesia and finds himself in the land of Palamecia were dark forces are attacking the world’s people. You, and the other candidate’s affectionally known as Blanks, are directed by an unknown voice known as Vox to proceed forwards and become stronger. Along the way you meet other characters such as Garland referred to by the other Blanks as a “Heretic” and Mog a friendly companion as seen in other Final Fantasy games. Others appear to guide you as well as Echo and a Princess called Sarah. The game does a good job of pacing the exploration of the world with developing the characters and the story giving you enough time to figure out some of the basic gameplay mechanics. Also since this game is an episodic rpg the story is yet to be fully finished however the events that I have played that have been introduced feel like little side missions introducing extra little stories of their own into the game.

The Gameplay is what you expect at its core with RPG’s with the beating up of monsters to acquire some form of better item and more experience to make your character better. But, in final fantasy Mobius the combat is very new and inventive. As you travel from point to point in a map you will encounter a battle which is comprised of multiple waves of enemies which uses stamina for each encounter. This is like other mobile games. Nothing new.  However when actually dealing with these creatures you fight very differently. Each turn you get the ability to perform three actions such as a normal attack, using a skill depending on the cards you have assigned to your character, your limit break or absorb some of the orbs you have collected giving you resistance for that element and also making that orb element type less likely to be obtained when attacking. To use a skill you also require orbs which are obtained from using standard attack while limit breaks build up gradually from dealing and taking damage. The game also uses the stagger system present in the later final fantasy’s such as 13 and final fantasy 13 lightning returns in which you deal extra damage to enemies once there in a staggered mode. This is easily done by pelting them with magic and skills with high breaking power until there little orange bar is non-existent. This gives a much better interactive feeling to the combat and still gives a very strategic kind of battling rather than just tapping your phone.

In order to do this effectively you will have to power your character up which is done via cards. These cards give you skills as mentioned but they also boost various stats and also provide skill seeds. These skill seeds are needed to level a class or “job” up. This gives that class boosts such as extra defence or a new weapon which can be selected from a set of upgrades. After this set is completed you can rank-up the class to become even stronger and obtain a new set of boosts to obtain as well as a cooler look to the character. Originally there were only three classes – ranger, warrior and mage but with summoning cards you can obtain more interesting classes giving a bigger variety and a class to suit how you play.  But, back to the cards, these have a limit to the stats per card which can be increased via combining cards of the same type or other special cards such as cactuar cards. Also, these cards can be ranked up via augmenting which increases there level cap and other features of the card. This is a really interesting way for levelling as cards can be swapped in and out giving various bonuses and being more relevant for other battles. This means if you are stuck on a battle full of fire monsters then you can equip a bunch of water cards to put that problem out. Also, you can equip cards to any class however that class may not be able to use the skill so choosing cards to level also has more applications as some classes can share abilities whereas others cannot. This also allows you to switch classes easily. Overall this levelling up system can seem very daunting at first but after getting to grips with it it actually seems a lot easier than most games with very simple choices available to the player. This is made easier further by how the game introduces you to these things slowly such as not allowing you to augment cards till the end of the first chapter and having a very in-depth tutorial that nets you important rewards when finishing it.

Visually the game looks very akin to the newer final fantasies such as final fantasy thirteen and lightning returns- almost as if a lot of the assets where directly ripped from it. This includes the enemy design and it does make you feel like you are playing a game that was meant for the last generation of console. The same vibe is created by the soundtrack and sound effects which are great and very well composed and surprisingly soft making some of the fights feel a lot more satisfying. Especially in a lengthy fight when you save up those orbs and here the almighty crash of that spell hitting your enemies.

Overall the game is a very different experience to most mobile RPG games which is great. Both the combat and whole levelling system is extremely unique and suits the game perfectly. There is even a multiplayer mode to give the player more to do with regular content updates. There are a couple of issues with the game such as the hike of seeds required to unlock boosts in later classes however this is not nearly as bad as the exp. wall you hit with some games like Pokémon GO. Also, although you can select different paths on the map the game does feel very linear with not a lot of exploration available. But, the game is still having content added to the superb experience already there. So, fight on warrior of light.