Introduction
We are going to once again delve into the 3DS game library! This time we are going to look at a Final Fantasy spin-off. Final Fantasy Explorers. You will be exploring an island with many iconic monsters roaming around. There are also big eidolons that need to be taken down. You start at one-star missions, all the way up to ten-star missions! This game takes some elements from Monster Hunter. There is a very tiny story which we will delve into in the story section!
What did I think before playing Final Fantasy Explorers?
I was very interested in revisiting some 3DS games that I played in the past. Final Fantasy Explorers is one of them, all I remembered was that this game took elements from Monster Hunter. There are multiple jobs that you can choose from. We will go deeper into the job system in the gameplay section! There are also monsters that can join your group if you do not have friends to play with. For more information, we went to the Nintendo Page!
The Nintendo Page
https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/final-fantasy-explorers-3ds/
The Nintendo page does not give much information except that this game is online based, I have seen a few small communities that still team up with each other. However, it might be hard to team up as most of the online community has died out. This does not mean you are going to slay monsters alone, you can team up with some monsters after you have stolen their atmaliths!
Rating
I rate Final Fantasy Explorers with a 7.6 before playing.
This game looks like a lot of fun, but knowing that most of the online community has died out in a Monster Hunter like game is a big problem. Luckily, you can complete this game solo with no issues at all!
Story
The story starts with your explorer heading to the land of Amostra, after crashing on the island, you join the union to fight a path to the grand crystal. As you fight Eidolons, more paths will open up with new Eidolons waiting to fight you!Â
Rating
I rate the story of Final Fantasy Explorers with a 3.0
The story is absolutely horrible, and you should not even pay attention to the story but focus on the gameplay!
Gameplay
You start the game as a low level explorer, you are a simple freelancer, but you can change to multiple different jobs. The different jobs all can wield different weapons, and they all have different skills that you can equip. However, you can not just mash on any skill that you want, there are eight slots for skills, but you also have a limit, this limit depends on the chosen job. The stronger the skill is, the more it will cost in your loadout.
Your character will not level up, despite this being a hunting role playing game. Your skills can, however, level up. This is harder to do than you might think. You will need to use multiple skills to activate a crystal surge, there are many crystal surges. All of them can level up your skills in different ways. Using the Angel’s Litany crystal surge, you can learn re-raise with white magic!
If you use enough skills and crystal surges, you will unlock trance surges, but. Before you can use those, you will need to encase an Eidolon. There are also special trance surges that take the form of iconic Final Fantasy characters. To get stronger, next to leveling up your skills, you are going to need to create gear at the smithy. You can also upgrade your gear at the smithy.
One of the most important items that you can craft is an accessory. While most of them look underwhelming at first while needing a lot of materials, most of them have hidden stats that will be randomly generated upon creation. One of the best items is the thief’s anklet, this item can give you to absorb health points and absorbs ability points. This item can give you the ability to spam infinite skills or magic!
Rating
I rate the gameplay of Final Fantasy Explorers with a 7.8
The gameplay is very fun, but it can be repetitive as you climb up the star rankings. The game effectively ends after 9-star missions, the 10-star missions are mostly post-content!
Sound and Graphics
Graphics
The graphics of this Final Fantasy game suffers from the 3DS, while not amazing, it is also not bad. The mediocre graphics does not take away that the iconic monsters and characters look remarkable! The collection points all look the same, if you are trying to collect a certain ore, it might be hard as all ores look alike.
Sound
The soundtracks and sound effects are iconic from the Final Fantasy series. The victory music is still great, even after a lot of Final Fantasy games.
Rating
I rate the sound and graphics of Final Fantasy with an 8.0
The music in Final Fantasy Explorers is exactly what you would expect from a Final Fantasy game!
What did I think after playing Final Fantasy Explorers?
There are many unlockable jobs, some of the best ones being, Samurai, Paladin and Sage! The Sage job has amazing magical spells that can easily hit the damage cap but the spells have a slow casting time, I used the Sage job and used three centurion enemies to tank damage while casting the spell! There are also upgrades to reduce the casting time!
I had a lot of fun when playing this game, however, the game does become repetitive once you have unlocked the complete world map. The Eidolons that you face, though, will become stronger and there are also different variants!Â
Rating
I rate Final Fantasy Explorers with a 7.2 after playing.
The game is very fun, along with the many jobs and the easy way to keep changing your job! Who knows, if you use the job enough, you might just master it and make your job stronger!
What are my personal thoughts of Final Fantasy Explorers?
I like the job system, but the missions feel very repetitive, the grinding for new items can also take a very long time. It is important to keep your armor and weapons up to date, otherwise you will get slaughtered by the enemies!
Rating
My personal Rating of Final Fantasy Explorers is a 6.8
I like the skills that can mutate, you can level them up in any way that you would need for your build.
Last Words
Pros
- Experience many different jobs as you explore Amostra!
- Many different abilities to choose from.
- Level up and mutate your abilities to gain new power!
- Create monsters and let them help you on missions!
- Create new gear and become more powerful as you climb the ranks
- Use trance surges to transform into iconic characters
- Fight iconic monsters and Eidolons on the island!
Cons
- The online community is very smal and mostly died out.
- You might need to grind a lot to get certain items for gear.
If you are interested in a mild Monster Hunter game, this is a great game that emulates that genre with Final Fantasy characters!
Final Rating
6.7
Let me know what you think of Final Fantasy Explorers in the comments!
I hope you enjoyed reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review!
If you liked reading this review, maybe you would like to share this review with your friends!
megusuri
I like the skill-based system, but I don't really like repetitive quests!
supersven
I completely agree with you!
DonCarlos
Have heard the Monster Hunter comparison a lot too.
supersven
A lot of the mechanics have been taken from Monster Hunter and altered a little to make it their own.
Jaromir Krzyszczak
I loved FFVII, finished it twice, but did not know about this game. Thanks for the review!
supersven
You should try it!
quilor
Nice graphics
supersven
Yeah, the 3DS limited it a lot though!
emperoru
im kinda new to ff game series
Roman
Very experimental project
supersven
It was a fun game!
Samet
I want to review new final fantasy ones 😉
Mateusz
Never played FF games, those new TPP kind looks cool.
supersven
You should start playing Final Fantasy games!