Final Fantasy Type-0 Review
 CHEATfactor Game Review by:  Joe Sinicki Reviewed on: PC 
 

Welcome to our CHEATfactor Game Review of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. We review the game and then factor in how the available cheats affect the overall game experience. For better or worse, our reviews will help you decide whether or not to use cheats when playing the game.

A nearly five-year-old re-release of Japanese portable game is an awfully a strange place for a franchise that's been around for nearly thirty years to get fresh life but somehow it happens with Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. From it's tone and it's grim story to it's fast paced war based combat, this Final Fantasy is different from what you'd expect from the series and that's a very good thing. The visuals may not be perfect and it may be guilty of attempting to be too much at one time but this is unquestionably the most interesting Final Fantasy I've played in years.

 
...with Type-0 HD Square is clearly taking chances.
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD Review Screenshot
 

I may get some flack for saying this but the Final Fantasy series has been pretty safe over the last few years but with Type-0 HD Square is clearly taking chances. While it's not clear if those chances are more being taken now or in 2011 when the game was originally released for the PSP but the fact it's hitting PCs and consoles is definitely a good sign. Those chances start right away when you first boot up the game. Nearly everything in Type-0 HD is tied to war and the game's grim opening does everything in it's power to remind you of that. Children are killed in explosions, you watch Chocobo's suffer, it's very different than the cheery Final Fantasy vibe you're used to. It does do a great job at setting up the rest of the game though.

The game centers around a group called the Militesi Empire who has broken a peace treaty and invaded the other nations of the World of Orience. These nations are normally protected by a powerful crystal that gives it's soldiers the ability to use magic but the Miltesi Empire has developed a technology called “The Crystal Jammer” that prevents everyone except their own soldiers from using magic. As Final Fantasy history has proven, the only hope for stopping the invasion rests on the hands of a group of unknown kids, but at least this time they're being trained for some sort of combat. Type-0 HD's protagonists are a group of powerful school children known as Type-0 and they're thrust into the conflict when one of their cadets is killed in battle. Most of the game's dark and tragic happenings have them at the center, but it makes you feel closer to them in the long run.

Of course, that may be tough with fourteen (14!) playable characters. I made the mistake of going in and thinking that it wouldn't matter which one I picked because if one failed I could easily pick a new one from the ranks. While that may be true for the first quarter of the game I quickly started to level characters up and have favorites for different situations. Type-0 HD is driven mainly by the main combat missions but they're far from the sole attraction here. After each mission you're given a timer that tells you how long until the next mission and it's up to you to to figure out what to do in between them. Most of your choices lead you to familiar Final Fantasy tropes like falling asleep on the beach takes you through one character's backstory and leaving the academy gives you the chance to grind in random encounters and increase your character's stats. Each action takes up time though and it's an important balance trying to find what you should do and how you should spend your time.

 
...you're sure to have trouble with some of them...
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD Review Screenshot
 

It's the war missions that keep Type-0 HD moving though and they took are sure to surprise even Final Fantasy veterans. These battles are big and if you don't prepare well enough for them in your off time, you're sure to have trouble with some of them (luckily the game gives you the chance to go back and earn experience before you try tougher missions again). Another big surprise is that the game's combat is all in real-time. Each of the game's fourteen characters also has their own unique style and weaponry so you'll be able to experiment in the battlefield at least early on. These giant battles also kept evolving so I never really became bored of the combat. One minute I'm fighting infantry troops and the next I'm in a furious race to save another member of my troops. Type-0 HD does a great job at keeping me interested where other games in the series have had me burned out.

Visually though Type-0 HD is far from the game it is in nearly every other regard. No, it's become very evident that this started out as a portable game, and one from a previous generation at that. SquareEnix has given the game a bit of an HD upgrade but it's downright ugly compared to some of the similar games available for modern day machines, and especially when compared with the newly released preview version of Final Fantasy XV. It seems like Square was able to do just the bare minimum when it came to the game's visuals and it shows on bigger screens.

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD isn't your average Final Fantasy game and if you don't look at the visuals it may be hard to tell that the game is nearly five years old. It's the rare exception to the rule that you don't take chances like this in an established franchise. Not all of those choices pay off but the ones that do make for a truly unique and satisfying action RPG.

 
Overall:  7/10 Presentation: 5 Gameplay: 8 
Lasting Appeal: 7 CHEATfactor: 8 
 
 
CHEATfactor
 
CHEATS USED: Max MP, Max HP, Max AP Phantoma, more
 

This is war and you've got to do everything you can to get an advantage over your opponent and that includes using the new trainer from Cheat Happens. Going into a large battle you're not ready for? Spent too much time reliving old flashbacks and falling asleep on the beach? Just max out your stats with the huge amount of available features and unleash hell on your enemies.

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