World of Final Fantasy Maxima (Xbox One / Series S|X Digital Download Code)

This game is absolutely awesome and probably one of the last good Final Fantasy games, if not THE last good Final Fantasy game. It has all of the iconic series enemies in all their splendor, with tonberrys that actually crit and make you cry.

The plot follows two twins, both the player characters who wake up in a mysterious empty world with a woman who calls herself a god. The flow of the story is very reminiscent of Kingdom Hearts fare. The game is fully voiced and characters even talk in battle and inworld.

The soundtrack is by Masashi Hamauzu, the man behind Final Fantasy 13's soundtracks as well as Sigma Harmonics. There are many tracks which are arrangements of music from the Final Fantasy series including Crystal Chronicles and Sigma Harmonics.

The battle system is standard Final Fantasy with two player characters alongside multiple monster enemies. It's a lot like Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World in this manner, but monsters have different sizes so you have to plan out strategies. The game employs the use of "small sprites" and "large sprites" to perform combos and as special in-world mounts. The bestiary has a lot of series humor. As an aside, the entire game is littered with self-deprecative humor towards the FF series with many found in the bestiary.

Character progression utilizes levels. Character abilities use FF7-like "materia" system in which you must equip magicks. Monsters use a different form of progression where they have FF10-like boards you navigate to choose how you want them to grow, which abilities you prefer, and how soon you want them to transform into stronger beings. You need special items for some monster transformations, so expect not being able to max out a monster until endgame. To me it was frustrating that the little Ifrit/Shiva monster you get in the beginning werent maxable until far into the game as by the time I could upgrade them, I had already found a better replacement.

There are also special items you can equip on the twins which transform them into "little sprite" forms of Final Fantasy series protagonists and notable characters. The male twin and female twin can only exclusively use those of the same sex. For instance, the male twin can only use characters like Warrior of Light, Firion, Cecil, Cloud, Zidane, Snow, Noctis, etc. Equipping these items will allow you to change the default battle music to arranged versions of that FF game's battle music and perform special limit breaks iconic to that character.

For endgame, the game challenges players with special boss battles and colliseum fights. A lot of the fights also reference topics from previous FF titles as battle themes.

This game is a love song to the FF series for sure. All FF games from 1 to 15 are referenced including Crystal Chronicles and sequels (such as Advent Children and Lightning Returns).

Got it for $3 thanks to my $5 monthly pro reward. Great deal OP!