Now, let me tell you a bit about the soundtrack. When it comes to music, Square Enix has long been a shining example in video games of composing some of the most memorable tracks in both RPG and game history, and Type-0 is no exception. Takeharu Ishimoto, composer of games such as The World Ends With You and several Final Fantasy spin-offs, dials up the dread and heavy atmosphere of the game, keeping things slow-paced and foreboding when the mood calls for it, but also a few lighthearted pieces when things are relatively calm and some humor is being displayed in the midst of the horror that the characters face on a near-daily basis. The memorable moments in the game become that much more engaging and emotional when combined with the soundtrack.
When it comes to the voice acting, it is, in my opinion, great in some spots, but weak in others. The main cast of characters gets a lot of the praise, with only a few questionable decisions when it comes to the supporting cast. Namely, the decision to have Steve Blum voice the antagonist. While I personally enjoyed his performance in the game, I know that some others are not as fond of his vocals as I am, especially since he’s usually a supporting character. You’ll have to decide for yourself when you play the game, of course.
The game also has a feature called “Secret Training” wherein your character of choice gains experience while you’re not playing. The minimal amount of time necessary to gain any experience is two hours, while the maximum is 24 hours. This is an understandable limitation, since Square Enix would rather not encourage players to not play their game. However, with the option of manually changing the system clock at any time, you can exploit the game to gain several levels in the time span of simply reloading your game. Whether they fix this is in the future, or simply leave it in, is yet to be seen.
As far as the length of the game is concerned, a lot of it depends on how far you are willing to go out of your way to find things to do. There is a time management feature in the game, where you have to decide between each major mission how you wish to spend your time. Will you speak with a myriad of support characters to either learn more about them or get things a bit more fleshed out? Will you leave the school and go exploring? Or will you just skip all of that and go straight to the next mission? The choice is yours, and, luckily, the game encourages multiple playthroughs to get a more complete experience.
I beat the game in a little over 40 hours. However, this was only after a single playthrough of the game. Due to the game’s design, it not only encourages multiple playthroughs, but more of the game’s story and gameplay mechanics are fleshed out as you play it a second and even a third time. The game throws missions and dungeons at you that you can’t possibly beat at the level you are at that point in the game, so that alone pushes you towards continuing the game after the credits roll.
All in all, I have to say that, despite a few setbacks in both the visual presentation and some forgettable supporting characters, Final Fantasy Type-0 HD is an amazing game and deserves to be played primarily for the awesome, emotional story and the massive tone shift from the norm for the Final Fantasy series. Not only is it a memorable experience, but I believe it to be one of the best RPGs of the year so far.
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Review copy supplied by author.
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