Games as a service are automatically controversial. Their business model is pretty much at odds with many concepts near and dear to many gamers’ hearts, but Final Fantasy Resonance masterfully mitigates one of the largest pain points and may even actually come close to turning it into a perk.
Please keep in mind that this is not a review. We tried the game enough to attest that its quality is high enough to support the topic of this article (a low-quality, low-effort throwaway game would defeat the purpose), but you know we don’t do reviews here on Simulation Daily.
That being said, we’re definitely interested in discussing Final Fantasy Resonance and the idea at the base of its creation.
You may or may not know that Final Fantasy Resonance is a retelling of the original story of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, a beloved free-to-play mobile JRPG launched in 2015.
You need no further evidence of the fact that Brave Exvius was loved by many than the fact that it lasted ten years before it was closed in 2025. Mobile games that aren’t beloved and successful rarely get to last half that, or even a quarter, as Square Enix itself knows very well.
One of the more subtle but perhaps more devastating issues that gives games as a service a bad reputation is their end of life. Usually, they get a cut-and-dry message from the developer thanking the players and saying that development will cease and the game will close in a number of months, and that’s it.
Years of investment and progression become an icon on your smartphone that you cannot launch, but you somehow hesitate to uninstall.
Final Fantasy Resonance doesn’t give you all of your progression and investment in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius back, but does something that, depending on your point of view, could be the next best thing or even better.
It brings back the characters and the original story, remade and reinterpreted in a much higher-quality single-player console experience that you can enjoy at your own pace, with no gacha in the way. You don’t have to hurry before the next chapter release, and there’s no FOMO about spending tons of money to get that overpowered character everyone wants.
Not only does it allow existing fans to enjoy the world and cast they already love again, and this time with no expiration date, but it also represents a way to bring in brand-new players who may have been interested in the game but were turned off by the business model.
I’m actually one of these. While I do occasionally play mobile games, I really cannot play more than one at a time. It simply becomes untenable.
As a massive Final Fantasy fan, I’ve always been interested in Brave Exvius, which always seemed to be the ideal way to celebrate the Final Fantasy franchise in this kind of genre and had really enticing character design, but when it was released, the stars didn’t align (I was playing something else), and then it was too late.
Now I plan to grab a copy of Final Fantasy Resonance, and I’ll finally be able to enjoy the same story and characters without a worry in the world and without displacing my current mobile addiction (please send help).
The demos I tried definitely proved to me that I can expect solid turn-based gameplay, which we certainly need more of.
On top of that, the music is absolutely lovely. It was actually one of the highlights of the time I spent with the game at Tokyo Game Show. It’s actually some of the best Final Fantasy music I’ve heard in a while, on par with, or at least close to my beloved Soken-Sensei. And if you know me, you know this is quite the compliment.
Of course, the original 2D art lent itself perfectly to being augmented by the HD-2D technology, of which you know I’m a big fan and which is basically one of Square Enix’s secret weapons.
Obviously, I doubt that this operation can be done with every single game-as-a-service out there, and many are likely not successful enough to justify the investment.
That being said, there are many titles on the market that do have great storytelling, characters, and worlds that deserve a second look instead of being lost forever in the increasingly massive mobile game cemetery.
That’s why I hope that Final Fantasy Resonance doesn’t remain a unique experiment, but instead becomes a primer on what to do when monetary reasons push a company to shut down a long-running, beloved game.
I actually like this solution even more than a simple offline port, which has happened before. While that’s certainly cheaper and easier to accomplish, it’s good to see the original story’s value multiplied by even more creativity and effort, and by platforms more suitable to single-player big-screen enjoyment on one’s own time.
For many players, these stories don’t just represent a large investment in time and money, but also a large sentimental value. If a game can’t continue in its current form, it’s great to respect and preserve that sentimental value by turning it into something that can be enjoyed forever.
That’s exactly what Final Fantasy Resonance is, and I’m happy it exists.
Final Fantasy Resonance releases on October 22, 2026, for PC, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2.
