Being an anthology series, you'll never hear remake rumors about.

ittedly, FF Type-0 wasn't all bad; it had some interesting ideas, even if it didn't execute them all perfectly. After all, it technically got two sequels, although they are relegated to Square Enix's floundering mobile games arm. Ultimately, it fails to deliver what many fans (myself included) want from a Final Fantasy game, becoming a bit of a black sheep even among the series' motley assortment of spinoffs. But what exactly went wrong, and why did Type-0 fail so spectacularly?

Final Fantasy Type-0 Is The Worst FF Spinoff

What Went Wrong?

There are lots of half-decent Final Fantasy spinoffs, but Type-0 just isn't one of them. To begin with, it doesn't tell a particularly good story. It has a suitable foundation: you play as a set of 14 students at a military academy, defending their kingdom from an encroaching militant empire. Now, I typically don't like stories set amid classes of elite students at a special school (though I make an exception for FF8). But I do appreciate Type-0's willingness to wade into darker territory, directly portraying the brutality of the war you're waging.

The problem is that the characters are underdeveloped, and I think I know why. I've always ired the Final Fantasy series for keeping its playable parties relatively small, and not going down the "100+ characters to recruit!" route of games like Suikoden. Keeping their main casts small ensures that FF games can devote sufficient time to developing each and every character, both in story and in gameplay. A prime example of this is FF7: every party member, even the secret, optional ones, has a backstory and a reason to fight against Sephiroth.

But FF Type-0 has too many playable characters to give everyone sufficient screen time. For what it's worth, it does a good job at making each of the 14 Class Zero feel mechanically distinct; they all have unique abilities and fighting styles that make it fel meaningfully different to play one character over another. But, in personality at least, most of the characters are one-note, and pretty boring overall. It all culminates in a literal deus ex machina twist that seems to come out of nowhere, and doesn't serve the story particularly well.

The date and time system may be partly to blame: Type-0 uses an almost Persona-style calendar system. It's an interesting idea that FF has yet to return to, but it can be frustrating, in no small part because traveling from place to place uses up a ton of time. There's no way to avoid it, so you're more or less forced to play Type-0 multiple times over if you want to experience everything it has to offer. And with its clunky combat mechanics, which are carried over even into the PC/PS4 remaster, you probably won't want to.

Why FF Type-0 Isn't A Good Final Fantasy Game

The Failure Of Fabula Nova Crystallis

Lackluster character development and unsatisfactory combat mechanics might be forgiven in another series, but this is Final Fantasy. The series has a reputation for narrative depth and combat innovation, so when an entry in the series fails to deliver on these fronts, it stands out.

Type-0 was part of a bigger experiment in the Final Fantasy franchise: the attempt to give several games a shared mythos, in the form of a subseries called Fabula Nova Crystallis. It shares story elements with FF13 and 15, even though it's set in its own universe. Unfortunately, Fabula Nova Crystallis was an ill-fated effort: while I ittedly liked a lot of things about FF13 and 15, I can acknowledge that they're not among the series' best.

I think the biggest issue with Fabula Nova Crystallis is that Final Fantasy games are at their best when they're not beholden to any kind of continuity, and can go in their own direction entirely. The need to fit in with a shared body of lore puts an unnecessary constraint on these games, and prevents them from going in unique directions. Thankfully, Fabula Nova Crystallis ended for good with FF15.

Type-0 did go on to get two sequels: the now-shuttered mobile games Final Fantasy Agito and Final Fantasy Awakening (which is technically set in a parallel universe, although it's very similar). Even those never really caught on, though, at least not in the West, and Type-0 is more or less dead as a subseries today. Still, it should be taken with a grain of salt: while it wasn't a good game, it did try something new, and brought some interesting ideas to the Final Fantasy series for the first (and possibly last) time. Even Square Enix seems to think Final Fantasy: Type-0 is better off buried, and I can't really blame them - though I wouldn't hold it against them to try something so bold again.