Final Vision

3 FFMario?
A combination of Final Fantasy and platforming, what a brilliant idea! Right? Right? Well, perhaps not, because while the graphics are dead-on, the GUI is strangely intuitive, and the flavor isn’t bad, there are two elements at odds with each other here, to wit the platforming and the RPG.

There are other games that have mixed these formulae well, nay, brilliantly. Don’t believe me? Then grab a Wii and an old-school PS1 and play Super Paper Mario, Tomba, and Tomba 2 and come back when you’re done, I can wait. Yes, those are professionally-created games, and you would have to pay for those while you don’t for this game, but my point stands. Final Vision isn’t bad at either end of the formula, it’s just painfully THIN. The platforming is easy, to the point where your eight year old kid brother might have issues with it, but otherwise any gamer would breeze through while simultaneously surfing Homestar Runner reruns. And most frustratingly, you could also get the minimal plot elements processed at the same time! I’m sorry, but if you’re going to take inspiration from Final Fantasy, you should at least take a cue from what has made it king year after year, and I don’t mean colorful hairstyles and Squeenix backing, I mean PLOT! Okay, perhaps I should cut Silvernova a break, after all, there’s only one character and thus no interparty conflict, but no, I’m going to be a jerk and say “BZZT” to them.

Overall, Final Vision isn’t a bad download. It’s still an interesting experience for a while, and it’s nice to see someone doing something with the RPG/Platformer formula. Now if only someone would pick it up and do an endzone run with it…