In fact, a lot of plot points fall flat over the course of the game. It works well enough to start, but it barely uses any of it to good effect outside of codices. Therefore, you’ll find a lot of talk about l’cie and focuses and whatnot but altered in a way that suits the game’s universe. Due to its involvement in the Fabula Nova Chrysallis project Square Enix started in 2006, Type-0 uses a lot of the same mythology found in Final Fantasy XIII while not being directly connected to that universe. They reside in a place called Akademeia, where teens can go to become full-fledged warriors in order to take on the other nations. Class Zero hails from Rubrum, one of the four nations vying for total domination. This is one of the cartoon-like main characters of Type-0īorrowing the mythos of Final Fantasy XIII-more on that in just a second- Type-0 takes place in the warring continent of Orience. Shout out to Rem’s voice actress, however, for somehow saying “Why, my friends and I were sure yourselves were just one of Akademeia’s urban legends now, we were!” and not immediately walking out of the recording booth. Unfortunately, for a majority of the game, you’re left with the Final Fantasy equivalent of a Saturday morning cartoon cast, complete with insufferable catchphrases (Nine’s “Hey, yo!” “Yo… hey!” and “YO HEY YO!” come to mind immediately). It was bizarre and a little bit infuriating that the entire game wasn’t given the same treatment by the voice director. It’s strange too, as I was going to write off the game’s voice acting as “completely fucking awful” until the ending scene, which, for some reason was fantastic. Luckily, there’s a Japanese voice track to make it a bit more sufferable. There’s nearly no character development over the course of the ~30 hour campaign and any bit that you do find is accompanied by some of the worst voice acting since Chaos Wars. Everyone in Class Zero is named after a deck of cards (Ace, Deuce, King, Queen, etc) and that’s about as interesting as they get. Type-0 puts the player in charge of a bunch of ruthless, murderous teenagers known as Class Zero. The cast of Type-0 HD is equally as banal as the environments they inhabit. In fact, there’s absolutely no ambient noise (something added even to the Birth by Sleep remaster, so, you know, precedent) and if you turn off the music, you’re left with complete silence other than the constant squeaking of the main cast’s fresh pair of keds. However, Square Enix missed a prime opportunity to give these places a piece of well-needed identity. Locations are all too similar, constantly reusing maps or assets, which would be understandable if this was still the PSP version due to the limitations of that system. Barren towns and caves highlight the world map, but outside of a handful of NPCs or level 99 monsters (more on this later), there’s not much to them. This is pretty common with HD remasters but is especially apparent with Type-0 HD.Įnvironments have terribly blown up textures that do an outstanding job of making this game look cheap. Likewise, the FMV cutscenes, excluding one specifically created for the remaster, look blown up and blurry. This is especially jarring during cutscenes where you have one low-res, fingerless PSP model talking to a higher-res, fully articulated HD model. Outside of the fourteen playable characters, all of whom received completely new models, not much else was changed. To say this remaster is disappointing is polite at best and delusional at worst. Let’s start with the latter: Type-0 HD is about as HD as Square Enix can legally get away with marketing while putting in the least amount of effort. Two of the best action-RPGs for PSP, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep came out in 20 respectively, so what went wrong with Type-0 and why didn’t Square Enix fix it for the HD remaster? Textures.? But it was immediately apparent that somehow during development, Square Enix forgot how to make a compelling action-RPG (if only briefly). Type-0 HD had a lot going for it an explorable world map (not seen in the series since Final Fantasy IX), a real time combat system a la Crisis Core and Birth By Sleep, chocobo breeding, a pilotable airship, a more politically charged “mature” story line, and a slew of playable characters. Type-0, formerly Agito XIII, wasn’t held back because of music licensing issues or Japanese voice acting contracts, but for a much sinister, simpler truth: Final Fantasy Type-0 is a bad game. For years, Final Fantasy fans have theorized over why the game was denied a release outside of the Japanese 2011 launch for the PSP and, for years, they’ve been entirely wrong.
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