Final Fantasy: Explorers sends you to the island of Amostra to hunt crystals, and it hands you more than 20 jobs to do it with. Square Enix published the game on the Nintendo 3DS in Japan in December 2014, then brought it to North America and Europe in January 2016. Racjin developed it with Square Enix Business Division 3. The pitch is Monster Hunter with eidolons instead of chocobos, and that trade is where the trouble starts.
Trailer, via IGDBcom.
Starting Out as a Freelancer
You begin as a Freelancer, a job that adapts to various skills before you commit to a specific one. The familiar roles wait behind it: White Mage, Black Mage, Monk, Paladin, Dragoon. There are jobs exclusive to this title too. The party system fills three ally slots with other human players or with monsters you already defeated. That last option is the best idea in the game.
Libertas, Amostra and the Crystal Loop
Explorers drops the narrative spine the series usually carries. Instead you take quests, and you can adjust their difficulty by hand. The goal never changes: collect the crystals scattered across the world, the source of life and civilization. Libertas, the rural town your explorers come from, is home base. Amostra is the big prize, and the beasts guarding it are the reason the quests exist.
Ifrit, Bahamut and the Trance
The Trance feature lets you call on eidolons like Ifrit and Bahamut, or transform into series legends including Cloud, Squall and Lightning. It is fan service with a mechanical hook, and it lands. Fights against classic Final Fantasy enemies and summons are the game’s clearest pleasure.
Eight Skills and a Cancelled Cast
Combat gives each character a maximum of eight skills. Abilities cost magic points, less when the skill matches your job. Skills can be cancelled mid-battle. Equipment can be crafted from material found on the field or won in combat. That is a real crafting game under a thin one.
No Chocobo to Ride
Here is the strangest cut. Chocobos appear throughout the series as mounts. In Explorers you cannot ride one. A game built on traversal and monster hunting removes its own best vehicle, and the island feels smaller for it.
The main goal of the player is to collect crystals scattered across the world.
Four Slots, Four Players
Multiplayer supports a maximum of four players. Single-player, multiplayer and co-operative modes are all here. The structure works. The ambition is visible.
Job Mastery Pays Off
The job mastery system rewards patience. Skills learned for one job carry to others once mastered, which makes the 20-plus roster feel like a long-term project rather than a menu. The monster recruitment does the same. Beating a beast and then fighting beside it is the kind of loop that keeps a handheld game alive in your bag for months.
Solid, Repetitive, Short of the Standard
Final Fantasy: Explorers is a competent hunting game wearing a Final Fantasy costume, and the costume is the better half. The Trance transformations and the eidolon fights carry genuine weight. The quest grind does not. Stripping the story out to chase Monster Hunter was the wrong trade for a series whose strength was always its characters. What remains is solid and repetitive, and it falls short of the series standard.
Key facts
– Release: December 2014 (Japan), January 2016 (North America, Europe)
– Platform: Nintendo 3DS
– Developer: Racjin, Square Enix Business Division 3
– Publisher: Square Enix
– Jobs: over 20
– Multiplayer: up to 4 players
– Score: 6.9/10
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