It seems like every game company wants a slice of the huntin’ pie now that Monster Hunter has proven that beating up big dinosaurs with friends is something that people enjoy.
Square Enix is diving into this fray with Final Fantasy Explorers, an adorable little hunting game that makes full use of all the Final Fantasy characters and locations we’ve come to know and love.
At Tokyo Game Show 2014, I played a showfloor demo that had you accepting a quest in the game’s main hub before entering the fabled Fire Cavern—Ifrit’s home. As you would expect, the cavern hosted enemies such as your old favorite, Bomb.
(See: 4 Final Fantasy mini-games that need to be ported to mobile)
Movement in Final Fantasy Explorers handles very well, though the sprinting in-game stutters a bit too much for my liking. Players can engage enemies that wander into their paths with simple sword-slashes and with the bigger spells and special moves hidden in the L and R trigger buttons. What isn’t so awesome is how you cannot change the camera angle. Fortunately, Square Enix has done a fine job of placing it in the best possible corners wherever you move, so that’s more of an annoyance than a true bother.
Combat was fairly straightforward, with potions available at the press of a button. I suffered the occasional paralysis from heavier attacks, and these would limit movement and stop a player from attacking for over ten seconds! That seemed a bit lengthy, and I’m not sure how this is going to pan out in tougher battles.
In the single-player demo I tried, I was accompanied by one NPC and a helpful chocobo. There were, however, groups of up to four players engaging Shiva in what seemed to be an icy cavern, and they didn’t seem like they had a chocobo. Check out the video we took of it!
[fve]http://youtu.be/ZbL821kS7Tg[/fve]
And of course, you can’t have a Final Fantasy game without some good old battle music from games past.
Final Fantasy Explorers releases in Japan first this December, and we cannot wait until its international release. If this is a game you think you’d like to play, let us know in the comments!
This story is part of our Tokyo Game Show 2014 coverage.
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