Final Fantasy Legends 2 review - Somewhere between a true Final Fantasy and a mobile game

There are some interesting ideas at play in Final Fantasy Legends 2. It's not a full FF game by any mean, but it's not a completely stripped back mobile game either.

Instead it sits somewhere in between, mixing together concepts from different corners of the FF universe. And it all works pretty darn well.

This is a game you can push your face into, or if you'd prefer dive in and watch some numbers go up. It's not without its problems, but there's definitely a lot here to like.

Dimensions of play

After some plotty preamble, the game kicks you into a strange world. The main character is a spiky haired youth with a head full of adventures, and after a meteor lands near his village that's exactly what he gets.

Where in your usual Final Fantasy game a lot of your time is spent wandering around, here all of that is stripped away. Instead the focus is solely on the pared back Active Time Battles. These battles are in waves, and you need to finish every wave to succeed.

The scraps are turn-based, and the order that actions are going to take place in are displayed in a bar along the left of the screen. There are a number of moves you can make each time that one of your characters has a turn.

You've got a simple attack, or a number of magical moves that use up some of your MP. Then there are summons, which you can throw out when you've performed enough attacks to fill up a small bar near your health points.

The battles feel like they're lifted from older Final Fantasy games, so if you've ever played any of them you know what to expect. There's a nice beat to them, and while they're not super tactical, they're still a lot of fun.

When you're not fighting you're taking quests, pushing the story along, and buying new equipment to toughed up your team.

There's more management to get into as well, and the deeper you get into the game the more you can play around with the make-up of your team and eidolons, the monsters who tag along and help you.

Finally fantastic?

Like I say, there's definitely a lot to like in Final Fantasy Legends 2. It's not a fully fledged FF game, but there's enough meat on its bones that fans aren't going to be too offended. And it's light enough that mobile gamers won't be too overwhelmed.

It's not going to warrant too much of a paragraph when the complete history of the Final Fantasy series is written up, and the price point might put some people off, but it's still worth paying some attention to.

Final Fantasy Legends 2 review - Somewhere between a true Final Fantasy and a mobile game

There's a lot to like in Final Fantasy Legends 2, so give it a crack
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.