Final Fantasy games have been rendered in 3D engines for far longer than they have in 2D, but the new trailer for Final Fantasy: Resonance wants you to imagine a world where Square Enix’s risky 1997 gambit never happened. What would Final Fantasy look like if it stuck to its 2D pixel-art guns? We’d probably have gotten the HD-2D aesthetic a lot sooner, but regardless, this reimagining of the mobile gacha game Fantasy Brave Exvius continues to look stunning:
While the new trailer doesn’t outright say it, it heavily suggests that viewers should use their imagination to dream up a world without a 3D Final Fantasy 7. It was the first game in the series to shift to 3D graphics, which were in their infancy back then. It was a high-stakes move for Square–which had not yet merged with Enix–and it required a shift to CD-ROM so that the idea of pre-rendered backgrounds and high-fidelity audio could be realized.
