Over the course of the past decade, our little interactive medium has seen the rise of a new genre: the hunting game. Not to be confused with game-hunting sims like Cabela’s, hunting games are usually third-person adventures in which a group of two-to-four players team up to take down fantastical beasts, crafting new equipment from their severed body parts in an effort to take on even more ferocious creatures. To categorize a hunting game as an action game would be a misnomer: Although a hunting game’s combat takes place in real time, it is generally slow and deliberate, requiring expert attention to one’s surroundings and careful consideration of which moves to use at what point; not unlike RPGFan favorite Dark Souls.
Capcom’s aptly-named Monster Hunter series is widely considered to be the undisputed king of the genre, but that hasn’t stopped dozens of developers — almost exclusively Japanese — to try their hand at crafting a worthy successor. Square Enix are no stranger to the genre, having developed the short-lived Lord of Arcana series, but this time they’ve developed a hunting game that proudly bears the hallmark of their flagship Final Fantasy series. With three decades-worth of rich monsters to draw from, a Final Fantasy hunting game sounds like a perfect fit, doesn’t it? Well, about that…
Final Fantasy Explorers is very light take on the hunting genre. The highly-technical and deliberate combat that the genre is known for won’t be found here, as Explorers opts for simpler hack-and-slash action RPG mechanics. Players can let loose a series of blows by pressing the Y-button repeatedly, while equipped skills (including spells) are activated by holding down L or R and pressing the face button that the skill is mapped to. Skills are subject to a cooldown period and also cost AP, a value that steadily regenerates as you move throughout the field. Standard attacks have no AP cost and can be unleashed at will. As your skills make contact with foes — or friends, in the case of support spells — a value called Resonance will start to increase. The greater the Resonance, the greater effect skills will have, but Resonance will decrease at a steady clip when skills aren’t being used. When Resonance reaches a certain threshold, players can activate Crystal Surges, randomly-chosen temporary states which grant special properties to your skills (eg. a fire spell which inflicts the freeze status). Multiple players contribute to a single Resonance gauge, so the more players, the quicker the value will climb, and the faster Crystal Surges will become available.
Players start out in a hub town from which they can manage their equipment, learn and map skills and manage their preferred playstyle via the series’ trademark job system. Jobs include knight (melee), ranger (a mix of melee and ranged combat) or black mage (ranged with emphasis on spellcasting), among many others; a total of 21 classes become unlocked as progress is made. Experimentation is encouraged; switching jobs is as easy as selecting it from a menu, but take care to re-equip the appropriate gear. There’s definitely something to suit everyone; I didn’t enjoy playing as a melee class, but when I swapped over to black mage (with a few support spells thrown in for good measure) I started having a much better time.
Once players have set up their characters, they’re ready to take on quests solo or in groups of a maximum of four. The most common quest objectives are to gather x-many items, kill x-many monsters or to slay the boss, all within a set time limit, and with a difficulty rating of one-to-ten stars (ten being the hardest). Quests to gather items are mercifully easy: these items are dropped by slain monsters or harvested from gathering points around the map, and Explorers clearly signposts where these items are found so you won’t be aimlessly searching. Quests to kill monsters similarly pose little challenge; non-boss enemies have a limited move-set and tend to go down quickly, and they’re also spread far enough apart that you’ll rarely be fighting more than one at a time.
The basic quests end up feeling more like busywork than achieving any meaningful outcome, but boss encounters are where the game truly comes to life. These lengthy fights pit you and your friends against iconic Final Fantasy bosses and Eidolons (summoned beings) and require a more attentive battle strategy in which you must manage your position and ability to dodge. Bosses always telegraph their special moves, but unlike Monster Hunter you don’t have to watch for tells: the name of the move and an area-of-effect circle are displayed for a few seconds before attacks are activated, so you just have to make sure to get out of the way. Many of these encounters are delightfully high octane; the bad-breath spewing Dryad, for example, demands you stay behind her to avoid a crippling dose of status-effects; but some of them feel a little unfair, such as Odin and his trademark instant-kill Zantetsuken attack.
Eidolon-class bosses can be transformed into Magicite by activating the “Encase” Crystal Surge while they’re on the verge of death, and then equipped when back in town. Magicite allows characters to enter Trance mode when the Resonance meter is high enough, which restores all HP and AP, sets skill AP cost to 0 and enables a Magicite-specific Crystal Surge that unleashes an overpowered attack. Magicite aren’t just awarded through Eidolon encasement; hit a certain milestone (eg. kill 500 monsters) and a friendly Moogle in the hub town will give you the Magicite of a Final Fantasy protagonist. When Trance mode is entered with one of these equipped, your avatar will temporarily transform into the character in question, and gain access to their signature move. Superfans will appreciate these cameos, no doubt, but I felt they were a little unnecessary: Fighting series monsters was enough for me, while these transformations did little more than wink and nudge to drive the point home that I was playing a branded product.
If you don’t have any nearby friends to party with, you can always link up with far-away pals (or strangers, for that matter) via wi-fi. But if you simply wish to play through the campaign single-handedly, Explorers is balanced to make this viable. Solo explorers can take up to two monster companions with them, which can be created from an Atmalith item occasionally dropped by the monster in question. Almost every standard monster in the game can be made into a companion, but none of them could ever take the place of other players: Each monster only has one skill, relatively low HP and zero prerogative for dodging. They provide a decent amount of support when fighting their own kind but tend to go down quickly in boss encounters. After a set amount of time, monster companions revive to full-health automatically, but all they’re really good for is to briefly provide the boss with an alternative target, so they largely feel disposable. Monsters level up as you take them on missions, but I never saw much improvement in their performance.
Although your monster companions and foes scale in level, you do not: Your HP, AP and stats are solely reliant on the gear you have equipped. The base shop in town only offers the bare minimum of equipment, so you’ll have to visit the blacksmith if you want to stand a chance against anything tougher than the tutorial quests. Equipment is forged by expending gathered materials, and more options unlock as you progress further in the story. Helpfully, the item description of every material in your inventory tells you exactly where the item comes from, so as to narrow the hunt, but a little bit of flavor text would have been nice. Each piece of equipment (with the exception of accessories) has a unique visual look which allows for some neat combinations: Ever wanted to see how a Black Mage hat would look with a military uniform? Go right ahead! Equipment can be upgraded a variable number of times, so many of your favorite fashion choices can be viable options for the majority of the game. There’s also a number of legacy costumes available that allow you to dress up as your favorite Final Fantasy character, but these require a heavy time investment to unlock: The school uniform of Class 0 requires ten Phantoma items to forge. How do you get Phantoma? Take on a quest to beat a souped-up version of the already-difficult boss Amaterasu, and you’ll be awarded a single specimen! Many of these costumes have gender restrictions, too, which sometimes feel arbitrary: Why can I dress my female character as Sephiroth, but not Cloud? Gender doesn’t mean you’re permanently locked out from your favorite costumes, though: you can always pay a fee to change your sex. (!)
Despite exploration being referenced in the game’s title, Explorers tends to keeps players on a tight leash. Even if you wander out into the world without a quest, you’re still subject to a time limit that will return you to town upon expiration. Most of the world is closed off by giant purple walls from the outset, which eventually disappear as quests are completed. There’s not even much reason to explore; the outside world is a segmented mix of vast fields and thin corridors with no landmarks to reach or sights to take in, just monsters to kill and loot to gather. At one point I took on a quest to use a skill that would change the landscape and grant access to a secret area, but I was disappointed to find that the path I had opened led to nothing but another purple wall that wouldn’t be unlocked for some time later. The game restricts party-quest access to the member who’s made the least progress, assumingly for reasons of balance, but it feels like a missed opportunity to allow newer players a sneak-peek of late game content.
My main gripe with Explorers is just how unadventurous it is. The graphics are OK — maybe a half-step above the DS — but there’s no 3D functionality. It doesn’t seem like it’s pushing the 3DS to its limits, but at one point the framerate slowed to a crawl when I was embroiled in battle with five Marlboros. The music is similarly forgettable, save for the fact that it constantly shifts between field and battle themes, but it’s not a dynamic shift: You’ll be well acquainted with the first five seconds of each song, following each other endlessly. It was enough to make me play most of the game with the sound off. Worst of all, there’s hardly any story: You’re on an island, now complete some quests. That’s it. It’s not an awful set-up, but there aren’t really any characters, either. The townsfolk serve no purpose other than to offer tutorials, sell goods and occasionally unlock a quest by dropping a line of dialogue about an Eidolon being spotted at x-location. Eventually some different factions come into play, such as a group of church paladins and an army of imperial knights, but nothing ever comes of it. There’s no conflict, no antagonist, no story arc. Some people will love this light-on-narrative/heavy-on-grind approach, and If this does happen to be your cup of tea, you’ll be pleased to hear that there’s a gargantuan amount of post-game content that includes battles with fan-favorite bosses such as Gilgamesh and Omega. Keen explorers have a mountain of content here to keep themselves occupied for a very long time.
Ultimately, the sum of Explorers’ parts make it feel less like a hunting game and more akin to Diablo, Phantasy Star Online or even Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. If you’re interested in the hunting genre but find the learning curve intimidating, or you’re just a fan of all things Final Fantasy, you’ll probably find a lot to enjoy in Explorers, but experienced hunters seeking a highly technical experience should look elsewhere.
