Final Fantasy Resonance is a Delightful Return to the Series’ Classic Roots for Xbox Series X|S

FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE is available now on XBOX Series X|S and XBOX on PC. Play it on both console and PC at no extra cost with XBOX Play Anywhere.

Confirmed console details

Adapting the story of former mobile exclusive FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS into a wholly reimagined and rebuilt console RPG experience, it’s a charming, nostalgic return to the series’ aesthetic, narrative, and mechanical roots, thoughtfully modernized.

It’s also the first time Square Enix has applied its HD-2D hybrid visual style to the FINAL FANTASY series.

FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE is the first time that Square Enix has applied its trademarked “HD-2D” style to its flagship franchise. Like in Triangle Strategy and the Octopath Traveler games, it combines expressive 2D pixel art sprites with 3D environments, cinematic cameras, dynamic lighting, particle effects, and depth of field into a compelling, hybrid aesthetic.

Several RPGs experimented with a similar look back on the PS1 (including Square’s own Xenogears), and the HD-2D games aren’t so much a throwback as they are emissaries from a parallel universe where pixel art was never supplanted by full 3D and instead evolved. With nearly a decade of practice in the style, FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE might be the best and most pushed it’s looked yet.

The story is an adaptation of FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS, a free-to-play mobile gacha RPG that ran from 2015 to 2025, but this is no simple port or visual upgrade. Developers Square Enix and LANCARSE have built and balanced the combat/progression systems and world anew on top of that original story into a fully featured, single-player, single-purchase RPG. It’s a love letter to the series and a nostalgic return to its foundational roots with a modern upgrade, much like FINAL FANTASY IX did over 26 years ago.

FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE follows childhood friends Rain and Lasswell, knights for the idyllic Kingdom of Grandshelt. That idyll is shattered when a mysterious, powerful, armored man attacks the castle, steals a magical relic, and destroys the sacred Earth Crystal under the kingdom’s protection, throwing everything into chaos. Joined eventually by Fina, an amnesiac spellcaster with some connection to all of this, and a party of unique individuals each with their own reason to stop the impending chaos, they set out to stop the Sworn Six from destroying the world’s other elemental Crystals, each protected in different lands.

Like in the classic games, the high-fantasy melodrama of the overarching plot is balanced out by a brighter tone that’s often quite lighthearted from scene to scene. This levity keeps it fun and easy to play through but also helps land the heavier emotional beats by contrast.

In addition to returning to the series’ aesthetic and narrative roots, FINAL FANTASY RESONANCE is also going back to classic, menu-driven combat. It’s not even Active-Time Battles, like the series iterated from FINAL FANTASY IV on, but fully turn-based, with a timeline on top of the screen showing the upcoming action order of allies and enemies. This adds a satisfyingly strategic layer to combat as you can preemptively react to the enemy, prioritizing targets and minimizing incoming harm.

Official trailer

Official videoWatch directly inside the article

Official source: Xbox Wire

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