Final Fantasy Type-0 (FF0) shares a lot with Monster Hunter and this makes it one of the best games ever conceived.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the facts.
Weapons. And Lots of Them.
Monster Hunter games offer around 12 or 13 weapon types, and even amongst those types there are differences. FF0 offers 14 different characters each with their own weapon type.
Weapons being limited to only one type of character is not unusual for Final Fantasy games, but this time, the weapons actually impact how you control and play the game.
For example, Cater can shoot exploding energy bombs by pressing up and triangle together.
Each character has their own play style and controls differently based on their weapons. There are some drastically unique weapon traits such as King’s reloading and Deuce’s flute requiring her to keep far from enemy sight. But there are even more subtle differences such how Sice’s scythe has her dancing around the map whereas Seven practically stands in place whipping the enemies.
Monster Hunter may have you selecting which particular weapon you want to bring to the hunt for its particular traits, in FF0 these differences are found in the skills you set for each character. Either way, both games play differently depending on the weapons you chose to play or not play.
Carving and Phantoma
Kill an enemy, get their loot, right?
Things are no longer that simple.
Monster Hunter takes a more slow and methodic take to collecting items from defeated enemies. The other monsters do not stop attacking if the player decides to carve their hunt. And since corpses do not stick around forever this means monsters must be taken out fast enough so there will be enough time to reap the rewards.
FF0, however, adds an interesting tactic to the loot collecting. While holding R to target slain enemies within range, they float in the air slightly and the player can tap any attack button to make the corpses explode and gain their Phantoma (Essentially magical essence used for upgrading magic.) and perhaps item drop.
This collection method has two more perks, however.
Sweet, delicious Phantoma.
One is that it restores a slight amount of MP. The other is that if any enemy is within the small range of the explosion, they’ll take a hefty chunk of damage. Timing your harvesting is as equally important here in FF0, but it is more of a battle tactic than a safety measure.
Weak/Break/Kill Points
The key to any good fight is knowing your enemies weaknesses. Monster Hunter relies on hitting specific parts of the beasts with certain elements or weapon types. This adds a strategy element when selecting your weapons and who to hunt with. However with each monster having their own quirks, this can be a lot to remember.
FF0 instead relies on timing. Generally when the enemy is about to attack if they are targeted a red or yellow circle will appear. Hitting the enemy as this circle shows and will instantly kill (red Kill Points) or massively damage (yellow Break Points) the enemy.
Ace, running away, will sadly not be able to take advantage of the freshly shown Kill Point.
Remember, though, each character has a different weapon. So it is not simply a matter of pressing the button as soon as the circle appears, but having the weapon’s attack hit the enemy when the circle appears. Long distance characters will need to attack earlier, but even then not all of their timings are exactly the same.
The Claw
Sadly not all of the similarities are positive.
In order to maneuver the camera, players will need to hover their left index finger over the d-pad in a painful manner known as “The Claw”. This is made less of a nuisance in FF0 thanks to the targeting system but is still required from time to time.
Like any good game, however, both Monster Hunter and FF0 can engage the player so much that they will likely forget about their discomfort until they put the PSP down and notice what gaming has wrought upon their hand.
The Head Honcho
In Monster Hunter when you are hunting a particular beast and finish the kill, the quest ends. In FF0 if you take out the leader of a group of enemies the remaining squad (or pack in case of the non-human enemies who still follow this rule) run to the corners and can be searched for items.
In both cases the player would end up with less than if they killed everything in the area. But this is quite time consuming. While the main goal in many Monster Hunter quests is to kill the monster, having a similar “beat the big guy and you can move on” system in FF0 allows for speeding up mission time.
And now for the most important point:
Adorable Assistants
Monster Hunter has Felynes. FF0 has Mogurin. I think my point here is made.
Adorable and powerful.
Now, many of these points are not unique to Monster Hunter. Some are simply good design choices. It is not so much the individual points but rather their sum that has me feeling like FF0 took some inspiration from the popularity of the Monster Hunter games.
In reality, they are actually more different than they are similar. I wouldn’t recommend FF0 to replace your Monster Hunting. But instead of being a direct Monster Hunter clone, FF0 takes some strong clues from the series (I’d say genre, but really what else is there other than MH and its clones?) and puts the spin on Final Fantasy rather than it being simply a coat of Final Fantasy paint onto the Monster Hunter engine. This allows the game to still have its unique Final Fantasy side while using smart decisions that have made the Monster Hunter games extremely popular.
All said it gives us a very unique Final Fantasy that is quite enjoyable.