Final Fantasy World Maxima Review

Introduction
What would you get if you create a story with all Final Fantasy characters? You will get this gem but it has a lot of flaws in the core mechanics, I liked Final Fantasy World a lot but it has a few core problems.
The story is a bit odd but it tries to tie together all of the realms of Final Fantasy, you get to meet characters like Cloud and Squall, usually, they come busting in and saving your hide. This game plays like a Pokémon game but instead of taking multiple Pokémon into battle, you put them on your head.

The Final Fantasy creatures are called mirages and it is your job to collect them all and use their powers in a dungeon to unlock secret paths. Don’t expect to capture mirages that are owned by other people unless you kill their owner. The mirages are also able to evolve or devolve into different creatures but there is were some of the problems in Final Fantasy World that come into play. You have two characters that you can control and you need to make sure your stack of mirages doesn’t fall over! The gameplay is very good but after a certain point, the gameplay comes tumbling down and goes downhill very fast!

What did I think before playing Final Fantasy World?
I was looking for a Final Fantasy game to play but I was also looking for a game that does not get a lot of attention, my sights veered towards this game!
The trailer looked very funny, capturing a Cactuar and putting it on my head? It sounded very Pokémon like, the story features Reynn and Lann.
You get the ability to summon champions or even villains like Sephiroth, some other creatures that you will meet are the Espers like Shivah, Ramuh, and Ifrit.
You can freely switch between the giant form and small form, I also learned that you need some of the abilities of the mirages to unlock new paths.
The mirages are able to stroll alongside you and find items for you, when entering new dungeons, you will be able to find new mirages.
Your mirages can level up and transform into new mirages to become stronger, there are also legendary mirages as they apparently differ in size!

I rate Final Fantasy World before playing with an 8.0
This game looked very good before playing and I was very interested in collecting mirages and seeing what monsters are out there! I was very curious as to how the evolving would work in this game!

Story
The story starts with Reynn and Lann going to work but suddenly noticing that for except one person the whole town is empty, they quickly learn that they are mirage masters but have forgotten how to summon mirages.
Lann and Reynn are foretold by a prophecy to either bring ruin or a prosperous future in Grymoire, a new world where the inhabitants are very small. You must decide their fate!

I rate the story of Final Fantasy World with a 6.5
The story was very weak and it did not make much sense to me, usually in Final Fantasy games I am completely wrapped in the story and I want to see the next moment. In this game, I was more enticed to just skip the story and get ready for the next dungeon segment. The story felt weak to me but it was very fun to see Cloud, Squall, and more Final Fantasy characters in action!

Gameplay
The gameplay is the most important in any turn-based strategy game, the first thing that you need to know before playing Final Fantasy World is that you need to have two setups before entering any battle. You can switch between a giant form and a smaller form so you need to have a setup for both sizes. All mirages have a size indicator that shows if they are small, medium, or large. Your giant character is large so you can stack two mirages of medium and small size on top of your head. If you are in small form you can ride on a large mirage while having a small mirage on your head. (get ready to become a live mirage sandwich!).  when you are stacked with two other mirages all skills and status will be combined into one huge stack, this means that abilities will also be upgraded, if you have two mirages that can cast fire, you will get the fira skill. To find rare mirages you might need to unlock special skills and return to dungeons later.

When you enter a battle your setup will be stacked, depending on the speed of your combined stack you will either go first or after the enemy has made a move. Enemy mirages can also come in stacks, you need to watch your health points carefully and also have to watch your stack. If you take too much damage your stack can start to wobble, if you take another hit your stack will fall over and you will become very weak! You can also topple the enemy stack if you encounter them, enemy stacks can also be toppled! You are able to either defend, attack, or use special skills, special skills cost ability points that you regenerate every turn. Special skills are able to topple an enemy stack much faster. Once you get further in the game you can also summon champions to perform a strong attack, I have to say summoning Sephiroth was amazing, the song one-winged angel started playing in my mind! To capture mirages, you will need to perform special tasks, these can be identified by using Libra on a mirage. You can complete the task multiple times to increase your chances of success when trying to capture the mirage! Your mirages will level up after each battle and here is where some problems form in the gameplay.

When your mirage levels up they can spend their skill points on a skill point board, there is no reset possible at all. I advise you to look at guides or think ahead at least 10 steps before admitting a skill point. On the skill board, you will find new abilities and status upgrades like attack up or defense up. When your mirage is a high enough level your mirage can evolve (some mirages might need a token before they are able to evolve.). This is another big problem for me, you have that insane behemoth and it has amazing skills but if you evolve your behemoth it will lose all of the skill that you have taught him! The status upgrades will transfer but you will need to teach your newly upgraded behemoth new skills again. Your behemoth is now higher level so leveling up goes much slower and you now have a mirage without useful skills. There is no reset button to put more skills into your new form and get the status upgrades later.

This brings up another big issue, there are legendary mirages that act like a summon, they are the XL mirages, these extra-large mirages are very powerful but since you need a very high level to evolve these mirages you will run into new problems. Your newly extra-large evolved mirage has no skill, as they are temporary in battle until your ability points run out you want to make the most of your time. Your new mirage needs to be leveled much more before you can then even use him in battle! There is yet another huge problem, you cannot take these extra-large mirages into combat normally, you have just evolved your beloved Behemoth that you have trained all the way from a baby to a large fearsome legendary mirage. Now you won’t be able to use this mirage in battle anymore, I hope you have another mirage to replace your behemoth since he won’t be usable anymore unless you summon him! For this reason, I was training another legendary mirage called Cerberus.

I rate the gameplay of Final Fantasy World with a 5.5
The idea is great and it works wonders, that is till you start transforming your mirages. The summoning of the champions is very cool and well performed. Did I mention you can speed up in this game?

Sound and Graphics
Finally, we get to an aspect of the game that has been done very well, the graphics look very nice but the only thing that I wonder is how their bodies did not get crushed yet by those big heads!
The soundtrack and sound effects are what you would expect from a Final Fantasy game!

I rate the sound and graphics for Final Fantasy World with a 7.0
there is nothing special to mention about the sound or graphics

What did I think of Final Fantasy World after playing?
The game was a big letdown from what I expected before playing, I was expecting a grand adventure with fine-tuned mechanics since it is a Final Fantasy game.
It seems that someone dropped the ball big time in this game, they just went with it, and even though the game is very confusing at times I would still rate it positive but that does not mean that it is a great game. I transformed some mirages and made mistakes because I only found out later how it really worked, I think I need to completely restart my game to actually utilize my mirage to its fullest potential or level them up even more.

I wanted to let my Holy Dragon heal by learning a skill but nothing happened, this is how I found out about how odd this worked!
I had to scratch my head many times before I finally realized how the mirage system worked, there was a very simple solution to all this convoluted mess of mechanics, make a reset of skill points possible!
I would recommend this game but do not get attached to any mirages, you can always let them travel with you as all mirages in your party get some experience after a battle. You can also ride on some of the mirages but only the large mirage, riding on the small mirages would be a problem

I rate Final Fantasy World after playing with a 6.0
This game was a very big letdown, there are some more issues later in the game but I won’t mention these in the review because of the spoilers it contains, I don’t want to pull up the curtain and tell you all the spoilers!

Personal Rating
I don’t have anything to add to my personal rating of Final Fantasy World.

My personal rating for Final Fantasy World is a 5.5

Pros and Cons

Pros
– You will meet many enemies and heroes from the Final Fantasy Franchise.
– The sound and graphics are exactly what you would expect from a Final Fantasy game.
– The mirages are very fun and most of them are very cute.
– There are a lot of dungeons to explore and many mirages to capture.
– Backtracking nets you more loot and secret mirages.
– You have a coliseum where you can battle secret mirages.

Cons
– The story is very weak and I would expect much better from a Final Fantasy game.
– The mirage system and mechanics are a convoluted mess of weird mechanics mashed together.
– There are other problems with the gameplay which I cannot mention due to massive spoilers.
– You can not reset the skills of your mirages.

Despite the big problems this game has I liked playing through the game and I managed to catch a whole bunch of mirages but I know I missed some, I would recommend this game to anyone that loves turn-based battle systems.
The final rating of Final Fantasy Worlds is …Drumroll…

6.6

Let me know what you think of the game in the comments!
I hope you liked reading the review, I hope to see you in the next review!