Whether or not Final Fantasy Resonance, the new reimagining of the now-defunct Brave Exvius mobile game…resonates with you will probably depend on when you started playing Square Enix’s long-running RPG series. Though Square Enix says it wants the game to be a potential entry point into a franchise full of them thanks to its anthology format, after putting about a dozen hours into the game, I feel like it’s the kind of nostalgic comfort food that is mostly for people who grew up during the series’ 8- and 16-bit era rather than something that might pull anyone else in.

After stripping out all the gacha mechanics from Brave Exvius and giving the visuals an HD-2D facelift, Resonance is the kind of thing that some fans, those who miss the simple days of gorgeous pixel art and turn-based battles, are likely yearning for. It also has one of the least engaging stories and casts I’ve ever experienced in a Final Fantasy. Its party is full of some of the most one-note Final Fantasy heroes to ever exist, presented here as living tropes that harken back to the old days when Final Fantasy wasn’t presenting some of the most emotionally resonant stories in the RPG genre, and much of its story reads like a first draft that was never really spruced up.

Resonance is working with the bones of a gacha game that probably had different priorities than creating an engaging world and storyline, so I’m not terribly surprised that the world its characters travel through mostly feels like a generic backdrop, but if you aren’t a diehard for the relatively simplistic trappings of old-school Final Fantasy , I cannot imagine how Resonance would ever be the game to draw you in.

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