Graphics:
As mentioned the graphics aren't great, it's a PSP game blown up and retextured quite a bit to make it even remotely viewable. This isn't your ordinary HD release though, you can tell they put a lot of work into making the game workable for the big screen. There's only so much you can do though, and its hardware origins shine through with jaggies abound. It's perfectly tolerable though, and the frame rate never dips unlike the FF15 demo that came with the game which runs at a consistent 15FPS...Still, there's nothing here to impress graphically speaking except of course, some of the jaw dropping cutscenes that are done in CG.
Story (spoilers):
There's not much to say on this game's story unfortunately, and mostly I have a negative opinion of it, however the game does contain some of the best scenes I've seen in recent Final Fantasy memory. There are three scenes in particular that bring a bevy of emotions in the beginning, middle, and end of the game. They are so powerful, and so moving that they make the otherwise completely boring plot tolerable. The ending of this game is probably my second favorite FF ending ever just behind FF9. Again, that's not to say the story was good though sadly.
It mainly revolves around Class Zero a group of students who have been tasked with stopping one of the three kingdoms from gathering all 4 Crystals to take over the world. It's told very dryly, with some very basic politics, and weirdly your own commander hiring one of your group to spy on the person that gave your team power.
No one's actions besides the evil empire kingdom makes any sense at all. Namely, the two characters you meet at the start of the game Rem and Machina who are essentially the main characters of the game. They join Class Zero to fight the good fight. Machina is tasked with spying on Class Zero (even though he's told this later as some kind of "revelation" to him (how the hell did he forget?). Machina never really seems to care about this, and this plot NEVER goes anywhere meaningful either. His main concern is to protect Rem at all costs who is dying from what appears to be a minor cough...., and he gets...well decidedly evil while trying to do so. Think Anakin Skywalker going Dark Side to learn how to be powerful enough to stop people from dying. Anyway, so Machina is hateful toward Class Zero even though they try to help him, he's just VERY mean overall and later becomes a l'Ce in hopes of gaining enough power to save Rem. This, again, never really goes anywhere. He ends up FIGHTING against Rem and stabbing and killing her at the end...which he then cries about....after HIS mask comes off....so I guess his mask made it so he couldn't see who he was stabbing? It's very unclear and another point against characters performing actions that don't fall in line with their character or just don't make any sense at all.
Anyway, he turns Crystal as l'Ce sometimes are want to do and that ends up saving Rem after they come out of Crystal stasis like...a few hours later. That's when the ending starts, and I'm not going to give it away, the game does that for you leading up to the final battle anyway, but I cannot recommend seeing it enough. It's very well done and the whole thing reminds me of Les Miserables if you've ever seen that play. Class Zero are the Students, they just are, 100% the same feeling. It's quite good.
I will point out one other aspect to the story I thought was a missed opportunity. Machina was clearly made out to be a villain, yet Class Zero never confronts him, you never fight him. Yet we really should have, it was a huge missed opportunity.
Gameplay:
This was the most solid aspect of the game. The gameplay is very basic yet very deep. All 12 characters from Class Zero have a special way to play, they are ALL very different and fun. Everyone gets skills that suit their class type, Trey can rain arrows with his bow, Cinque can use her mace to cause an Earthquake, King shoots stuff with guns...etc. You'll find use for each of their unique move-sets throughout the game. Or you could play the way I did and discover Ace is good for every situation and wrecks everything in his path. The game is decidedly too easy if you over level any of the characters. Also, don't worry about over leveling for the final area all the enemies are level 16 for some reason...and you'll likely be in the high 30's by the end.
This brings me to the biggest complaint I have about the game. The end boss is effectively a QTE battle. It's not...really QTE....but you can't die, yet at the same time you're supposed to die. It makes sense for the story but as a gameplay element it makes no sense why you don't have a real fight at the end. If you play it you'll understand. There's literally no reason they couldn't have made this a legitimate battle. So yeah, this game falls prey to horrible boss sequences newer games seem to be doing these days for no reason at all. From Dying Light, to Far Cry 4, and Shadow of Mordor, developers have no interest in making final bosses anymore, even if they've made perfectly serviceable bosses earlier in the game. So it's not like they're incapable of making good boss fights, it's just that...they don't want to? Lazyness, budget concerns, I dunno why this trend continues but it's getting on my last nerve.
Music:
Amazing, get this soundtrack, one of the best FF has produced in years. It's that good.
Final Thoughts:
Type-0 is in unorthodox game with its mission structure, strange time limit system between missions where each thing you choose chops off a certain number of hours leading you to "mission day," and paradoxically a terrible cast of characters surrounded by absurdly well directed scenes that make you want to care about them ever so slightly. This is the closest we've moved forward in the FF series since the dark ages of 12 and the 13 series to having something feel 'epic' again and filled with emotional value where the characters are invested as much as the player again. Kudos to them on this game overall. It's steps in the right direction, not leaps and bounds, but, certainly, it's good enough.
*FF Type-0....it's good enough*
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