This year's big Final Fantasy release comes in the form of Final Fantasy Resonance, a complete, HD-2D reimagining of the 2019 mobile game Brave Exvius. Where the original had you select your battles through menus and dailies, for what's known as symbol fights, Resonance goes back to random encounters with more exploration, because the devs believe this is in line with the property's roots.
"Symbol encounters allow players to engage in battle whenever they want," Keisuke Nakashima, producer on Final Fantasy Resonance, tells tells Automaton. "In that sense, symbol encounters are there to accommodate the players' freedom of playstyle. On the other hand, they could also end up resulting in less battles that are truly memorable."
He agrees that RNG can make battles feel tedious, but the uncertainty makes survival more rewarding. "I do think that random encounters can feel like a hassle at times, but they also allow you to make memories," he explains, "like remembering the time you struggled against a really tough enemy or felt the joy of getting lucky with battle rewards. I think those are the kind of moments that actually stick with you."
He's got a point. Some of my most striking memories from playing RPGs involve the sudden terror of being faced with what's apparently a normal adversary in whatever area I've stumbled into. The first time I faced a Grand Dragon in Final Fantasy 9 is one such example. Nakashima mentions the team's tinkering with how the encounters work, to minimize annoyances.
"We've made sure that encounter rates for enemies are lower in dungeons that feature a lot of puzzles," he says. "This is because we concluded that having fewer mob battles while solving puzzles allows for a less frustrating gaming experience."
Resonance director Hiroto Furuya adds that this is all part of their "pursuit of the classic Final Fantasy experience," since this is the first purely turn-based new RPG from the franchise in a number of years. Newer entries are more action RPGs, and in the advent of the remasters of the first six mainline games, there's a desire for this kind of throwback.
"In Final Fantasy 13, all of your HP recovers after each battle. In that sense, I believe FF1 was designed so that each individual battle is entertaining," Furuya tells Automaton. "In contrast, Final Fantasy Resonance tasks you with the problem of how to conquer each dungeon. We came up with an experience where you will have to decide how to allocate MP and other resources, or make sure there are recovery points nearby as you progress through the dungeon."
This, he believes, fits better with random fights. We don't have long to wait to see how it all sits together, as Final Fantasy Resonance arrives on October 22, 2026.
