Want Nostalgia? Play Final Fantasy Brave Exvius!

When it comes to famous franchises, one would be remiss not to mention Final Fantasy. This series has so many games and spin-offs that it can be hard to keep track of them all. As such, with so many options to choose from, it can be overwhelming for new people who are interested in checking out the franchise.

This is where Final Fantasy Brave Exvius comes in.

Although FFBE isn’t a numbered Final Fantasy title, it’s clear the Dev Teams at Gumi, A-lim, and Square-Enix have done their research. FFBE pulls in various elements from the earlier FF titles while also having an easy-to-use interface and a brand new—and gripping/hilarious—main storyline.

I highly advise you to try the game yourself, but if you’re wondering why you should… brave this new Final Fantasy adventure, keep on reading. 😉

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THE STORY
The main storyline is constantly being expanded. It features elemental crystals, surprising monster uprisings, character collection, map exploration, and phenomenal character development that will make you laugh and, sometimes, cry (because we’re not allowed to have nice things, apparently).

This story is wacky as hell and I don’t even know how to describe it, to be honest. It follows Rain (a good-to-his-core swordsman) and his best bud Lasswell (also a good-to-his-core swordsman) who stumble upon an amnesiac girl in the midst of trying to stop some villains from shattering the elemental crystals powering the world.

…Sound familiar?

Not to mention the humor is amazing. (And, a picture is worth a thousand words, soooo…)

(???? I… guess this is friendship? #bestbudsforlife?)

(This beautiful cinnamon roll re: romancing the 700-year-old party member.)

(Some more random examples of humor, because what’s an adventure to save everyone without some lols?)

(Oh, Rain. It’s funny how you think they’re going to listen to you.)

CHARACTER SUMMONING
The game uses a “lottery” system where you use tickets (awarded for completing various quests throughout the game) or in-game currency (called lapis) to add new units to your ranks. FFBE features a wide-range of characters across the various Final Fantasy games (as of late-August, the game is only missing characters from FF7 and FF8) as well as these characters’ iconic move sets; having those little pieces of familiarity really makes it feel like you’re enjoying a little piece of the original games.

(You’d best believe I shoved this 5* into my party immediately.)

(Look at all my precious babies. We’re off to go save the world!)

With the currently available character roster, there’s more than enough variety to lead to hours of enjoyment and to not make you feel like you’re missing out on anything integral. (As with most other games in this style, the characters tend to fall into the general roles of tank, magic damage, physical damage, support, and healing—along with additional, more niche-y offshoots—and, of course, some characters are better than others within the same categorization). Additionally, for those who are new to the franchise, it’s possible to check each character’s biography to learn more about them/what happened in the games they came from.

Yet, because so many character types/roles exist, some teams are better suited to certain scenarios than others; a team that might be ace for the Arena might get utterly slaughtered when going up against Gilgamesh in the Vortex. Succeeding in FFBE means that the player needs to be well-aware of their team’s strengths and weaknesses, a play style that harkens back to other Final Fantasies.

(y e o w c h)

THE VORTEX
The Vortex is a mode that offers the player a few different options, such as:

• Fighting challenging, uber-hard bosses (I don’t recommend this unless you are a seasoned player!)
• Collecting materials to upgrade/power-up your units (unlike other mobile, free-to-play games, FFBE makes sure that, if you want to have the best, most powerful team to have ever existed, you can. In this mode, you’ll run the same set of four battles in order to gain specific rewards).
• Story-specific events (like the recent Final Fantasy X-themed event where you had to wander through Macalania Woods and fight increasingly difficult monsters for bigger and better prizes).

(REFIA. POWERING UP!)

PVP ELEMENTS
The game offers an Arena and Coliseum, both which offer pretty sweet prizes and materials for buffing up your party. Within the Arena, the player is able to experience a PVP-esque mode wherein you pit your characters against the NPC-controlled characters of another user in the hopes of destroying them and getting rewards to buff up your team.

On the other hand, the Coliseum has the player fight against ranks of increasingly-challenging monsters which will net you increasingly-valuable loot.

(…Needless to say, I didn’t win this battle. It ended in sadness and death.)

EXPEDITIONS
This is the newest feature in the game and allows the player to send 1-5 characters out at a time to complete quests and return with prizes. Depending on the request, certain characters might be more beneficial than others and more likely to bag you a successful mission. The only downside of these is that the timing can range anywhere from 10s to 1 day, which, if it’s the latter, means that up to five of your characters will be unusable for that time frame.
And, it burns doubly if they come back from an expedition and report they’ve failed.

(BOO-YAH. I’M A WINNER.)

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There is so much more to detail here about FFBE, but the true enjoyment comes from—of course—playing it. FFBE is completely free-to-play (although in-app purchase options are available if desired), but I’ve not found my experience lessened because of my lack of funds. My friend, who consistently spends money on extra pulls and character-enhancement bundles isn’t more or less more powerful than me. It harkens back to team versatility – even his best bought team can be destroyed by my F2P team with the right tactics.

In summary… I’m not sure why more people aren’t playing Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. It feels like Final Fantasy, it plays like Final Fantasy, and with every patch and update, it continues in this vein. At the very least, if you’re skeptical because all I’ve done is effuse praise, it’s worth trying it out whether you’re a longtime fan or looking to try something new.

Agree? Disagree? Sound off in the comments below!