Fabula Nova Crystallis (also known as "The New Tale of the Crystal") was a legend from which three original stories were born. Those stories were to be told through three games in the Final Fantasy saga: Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy Versus XIII (later known as Final Fantasy XV) and Final Fantasy Agito XIII. Final Fantasy Agito XIII went through a lot of phases, but was eventually known as Final Fantasy Type-0. However, the story of Type-0 was only told to a small part of the world. The people cried out in agony and demanded they also learned this part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythos. So, after about 3 years of endless yearning, the people that kept this story held back from the rest of the people, decided to release it in a much better way.
To simplify things, Type-0 only released in Japan in October of 2011 and its worldwide release was put on hold and later cancelled due to the poor sales of the PSP (the console that the game originally released on) in the worldwide market. However, since fans asked for it so badly that they went far enough to import the game and make their own translations of it, the owner Square Enix, decided to release this little trailer at last year's E3 expo (skip straight to 2:50):
With this, the announcement had finally been made that Type-0 would be coming to the west and to next-generation consoles no less! Further confirmation came at September's Tokyo Game Show:
It seemed that the wait was worth the trouble. Now the fans would finally get the chance to learn the story of Orience, the land of the four crystals and how each one grants an individual power to each nation. Like the Vermilion Bird crystal, that grants the citizens of Rubrum the power of magic, the Azure Dragon crystal, that grants the citizens of Concordia command over dragons, the White Tiger crystal that grants the citizens of Milites the power of technology and advanced weaponry and the Black Tortoise crystal that grants the citizens of Lorica the sturdy shield power. The story begins when the army of the Militesi Empire, speared by Commander Cid Aulstyne, assaults the Peristilium (magic academy) of Rubrum and uses a magic jammer weapon in order to render their crystal useless, proceeding to slaughter them all. That's when Chancellor Khalia Chival VI of Rubrum's Akademia orders Class Zero, a highly skilled military faction, to get into the action and they manage to push the Milites forces back and win the battle of Togareth. Events begin to unfold from then-on.
The main characters are 14, but they can be split into 12 and two. The main recruits of Class Zero, who are named after deck cards (Ace, Deuce, Trey, Cater, Cinque, Sice, Seven, Eight, Nine, Jack, Queen and King) and the two new recruits Machina Kunagiri and Rem Tokimiya. The game is different from other games in the franchise in that it has a lot more mature content. The depiction of violence and blood is quite often, since even in the opening scene a man and his chocobo are shown bleeding to death. The pain of loss and the value of life is a message that game tries to push toward the player, so much so that even during a mission when one of the characters gets KO'd, he/she is unavailable for the rest of that mission.
The gameplay is also quite different. It bares a resemblance to Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, yet not so much since that game only had one playable character. Here there are, as previously mentioned, 14 playable characters, yet the player can only have 3 at a time in his party, and can only control the actions of one. This is not turn-based, or ATB, everything is constantly moving and foes are running around all the time so players will need to be quick in their actions. KO'd opponents leave a substance behind known as "Phanotma". There are different colors of Phantoma and each represents something else, though which is what is currently unknown. Players can also summon (6 summons in this game: Ifrit, Shiva, Odin, Diablos, Golem and Bahamut), however the character that performs the summoning sacrifices his/her HP and cannot be used for the rest of the mission. Summons can be used just like a normal character, but have much more HP/MP and much stronger attacks.
The graphics in this remaster are definitely much better than the PSP version! There have even been a couple of "comparison" trailers in order to show people the difference and the work that has been put into it. However, this is not consistent. It's obvious even through these trailers that some areas have been worked on more than others. For example, some battle scenes look like players are gaming on a PS2, whereas there are cut-scenes that look comparable to what we saw in Final Fantasy XIII!
The sound is great and has been upgraded and even the soundtrack comes with one or two new tunes that fans can get into (like "Utakata"). Takeharu Ishimoto who is the composer really put his all into bringing the game to life and the voice acting is also top-notch, whether players will be listening to it in English or Japanese. Although the lip-syncing seems to be off but that is to be expected from a former-PSP title.
All-in-all this is a game that a lot of people and not just the Final Fantasy fanbase wanted to get their hands on, and the fact that they finally will in such gorgeous (most of the time) graphics and sound is like a tribute to them by Square Enix. Coupled by the fact that the demo of Final Fantasy XV will also be in the day one packages, the patience of the fans with the company is finally beginning to pay of. It will be known in about a couple of months whether it was worth the wait or not...
"When nine and nine meets nine...
A voice like thunder shall sound...
And thou shalt know...
We have arrived!"
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