Final Fantasy Explorers (Nintendo 3DS) Preview

Final Fantasy Explorers felt very much like Monster-Hunter-meets-classic-Final-Fantasy. The demo consisted of taking on series regular, Ifrit, inside a fire dungeon as one of eight classes: Black Mage, Dragoon, Knight, Ninja, Paladin, Ranger, Time Mage and White Mage. Each class has up to eight special abilities mapped to the face buttons that are useable when holding the shoulder buttons, abilities that will be recognisable to players of older Final Fantasy titles. The Black Mage can fire off elemental spells, along with Quake and Meteor, and Dragoons can Jump and Splash. There are lots of abilities to unlock and maps to customise play styles, along with limit breaks and the ability to transform into famous Final Fantasy characters from other titles.

The game has a real focus on co-operative play and uses teams of up to four players to take on quests, but since there were no other players to join in the demo, computer controlled monster NPCs took their places. This is another big aspect of Final Fantasy Explorers - finding and recruiting iconic enemies from around the world and levelling them up to use as minions on quests.

The demo's dungeon was filled with these familiar enemies from the series and taking them on with the new combat system was lots of fun. While clearly a Monster Hunter clone, the combat is fast and feels fluid so far. The demo was short, but this turned into a positive, allowing for a number of run-throughs using the different classes available.