The Kingdom of Knights, Grandshelt. Its people lived peaceful lives, blessed by the power of crystals.
Rain, commander of the airship squadron, receives a royal decree—investigate the Earth Shrine, where the magical barrier protecting it has waned, and determine the cause together with Lasswell, his childhood friend and deputy commander.
Upon reaching the innermost chamber of the shrine, the two encounter a mysterious man clad in black armor. Overwhelmed by his immense power, Rain and Lasswell are defeated, and the Earth Crystal is shattered before their eyes.
Though Rain and Lasswell narrowly survive, their airship is wrecked, and their comrades have fallen…
When Rain and Lasswell return, they find Grandshelt under attack by the armored man—Veritas of the Dark. They manage to rescue the king, but once again suffer a crushing defeat.
To protect the remaining Crystals scattered across the world, Rain and Lasswell set out on a journey in pursuit of Veritas of the Dark, joined by Fina, the mysterious girl they met in Grandshelt.
At this moment, none of them could have imagined the turbulent fate that awaited them.
And so, their quest began…
GAME FACTS
TITLE: Final Fantasy Resonance
RELEASE DATE: 10/22/2026
MSRP: $49.99
DEVELOPER: SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
PUBLISHER: SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
COMING TO: Xbox, PlayStation, Switch and Steam(PC)
DEMO AVAILABLE ON: Xbox, PlayStation, Switch and Steam(PC)
DEMO PLAYED ON: Xbox Series S
DEMO IMPRESSIONS
The demo opens with a cool cutscene showing a battle between black mages and knights with magitek mechs (that remind me of the ones in Final Fantasy VI). Then you are introduced to the Archwitch, who is battling against the mech forces as well. The demo has you control her in some very basic battles to get a feeling for the controls, but any Final Fantasy veteran, who began before the PlayStation era, will feel right at home. The Archwitch engages in 3 or 4 battles along her path to reach the enemy forces, and during which you learn the basics of combat.
The opening culminates with a battle between the Archwitch and an extremely powerful Dark Knight. The battle is very well animated, with both foes trading blows and magic blasts back and forth. Despite some powerful hits from the Archwitch, she is eventually defeated and trapped inside of a crystal. The opening sequence is pretty long but the action is impressive, the dialogue is well written and the voice acting is really good.
After that sequence ends, the game transitions to your main character, Rain, who is a knight of Grandshelt. He is told by the King of Grandshelt that the barrier around the Earth Shrine is thought to have been compromised, and he needs Rain to go check it out. Then Rain meets up with Lasswell, his childhood friend, and deputy commander, and you set off on a quest to find out what is going on at the Earth Shrine.
The game unfolds exactly like you hope it would, and feels just like classic Final Fantasy in a fancy new wrapper. The battles are 100% old-school turn based combat, which I really love, especially since I tend to multi-task when I’m gaming. Being able to leave the game alone for a minute while I tend to something else, with absolutely no penalty, is wonderful.
Honestly I don’t want to say too much about how the gameplay unfolds because you should absolutely just go play it for yourself, but I’ll mention a few highlights.
The vision summons you get are really awesome. It feels like it could have been monetized into a Gatcha-like game, but in Resonance you just unlock heroes once you find their shrines. In the demo you unlock the Warrior of Light from the first Final Fantasy, Terra from Final Fantasy VI and Cloud from Final Fantasy VII (if there are others in the demo I didn’t encounter them). Then one of your party members can also summon Espers to fight alongside you, done in a way that is slightly different from other Final Fantasy games I’ve played. There are limit breaks, regular attacks, magic, and all items and things you would expect from a Final Fantasy.
The music is absolutely perfect, mixing old school themes with new music that fits in perfectly. The graphics are beautiful and really well done. Most of the dialog between major characters is voice acted and done really well. The only, kind of odd, exception to that is one exchange between Rain and an old colleague named Scott who helped Rain found the airship squadron, but has since fallen out of contact. For some reason this was the only semi-major character interaction that wasn’t fully voiced, and it seemed a bit odd, given how many others were. I wonder if the full game will correct that, or not.
In all, the demo is quite long and it took me about 6.5 hours to complete it, with me maxing out my characters at level 15. Good thing is your progress allegedly carries over to the full release, although I’m curious to see how that works (will you just pick right up from where you left off, or will you have to replay any of the sections from the demo with your existing equipment and level?) I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
OVERALL IMPRESSION
Overall I found the demo for Final Fantasy Resonance to be absolutely incredible. Unlike my experience with the demo for Final Fantasy XVI, which ultimately convinced me NOT to buy the game, the demo for Resonance did the exact opposite. While I was initially interested at an HD2D Final Fantasy game, I wasn’t quite sure how it was going to turn out. Well, it seems like they made the game exactly for me. It balances retro/nostalgic elements with modern quality of life improvements while keeping the old-school turn based combat style that has sadly mostly gone away in modern gaming, but is SO good for my playstyle. Combine all that with a satisfying story, and fun gameplay, and I’m 100% sold. I can’t wait for the full release!
You can play the demo for yourself on almost any modern console, including Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 1 or 2, and Steam (PC).
DEMO GAMEPLAY
You can watch some of my gameplay from the demo in the video below: