I'm one of the (seemingly) few people that had the luck to have played the PSP version of Final Fantasy Type-0 before having purchased this version. For this reason, my opinions might not resonate as well with some of you as with others. Bearing this in mind, I've come to appreciate this game for what it does well (combat and story), even in spite of what it does not do well (this list is longer).

First, the graphics are going to be a sore spot for many that have played and that will play this game. The cliche argument is that, since Final Fantasy Type-0 HD is a current-gen port of a PSP game, our expectations concerning graphic fidelity must be tailored accordingly. This is true, but I don't think it is entirely fair, either. I doubt there are as many people out there that genuinely seem to be affected by graphics as the trolls might suggest, but Square Enix has unintentionally made this issue worse than it had to be. This is because they decided to rework graphics in some areas, while leaving others indistinguishable from their PSP counterparts. This is apparent in textures, character models, etc.

Now, that doesn't sound so bad, but when you consider the fact that changed and unchanged models and textures can appear in tandem, the difference between new and old is made more stark. The earliest example of this that I can think of occurs after the first mission, where General Qator Bashtar (with a relatively updated model) appears next to a random imperial grunt (whose model was not updated). The difference is jarring, and it casts the game in a poor light relatively early on. Now, I don't care about graphics in the least, but to say things like this are not noticeable is a pretty ludicrous claim.

Second, the gameplay. Square Enix got it right this time. I thoroughly enjoy games in the Kingdom Hearts series, but I worry that I'll get diabetes from the sickly-sweet tone and story. Well, Final Fantasy Type-0 HD takes what the Kingdom Hearts games do right in terms of combat, and pairs it with a much more mature plot (to be discussed further down). In Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, you are given fourteen playable characters with relatively distinct archetypes ranging from slow, heavy melee (Cinque and Jack) to quick melee (Machina, Seven, Eight, Rem) to quick ranged (King, Ace, Cater), to slow ranged (Trey), to buffbots (Deuce and kinda Queen) and pretty much everywhere in between. The game gives you many ways to play, and is likely to please any player that enjoys action RPGs. Combat is further augmented with Killsights and Breaksights, which leverage the game's lock-on system to allow the player to deliver powerful attacks on opponents at certain times (usually tethered to the target's activity). Magic is sufficiently powerful, as well, though it may seem more costly in the early game than in the end. Summons are one of the game's weak points, as I've found that Eidolons are generally not worth using unless you absolutely have to, since the forced death that they inflict on you is reflected in your post-mission statistics and score.

Missions are fun, and they can take place in either a pure-combat corridor style similar to some FPS games, or they can take on a more RTS-like feel in campaign missions. I've found both to be enjoyable, though how much enjoyment I take from the game is dependent on the mission itself. One notable improvement in this version of Type-0, as opposed to the PSP version, is that you can replay the RTS missions from the main menu. This was not possible in the PSP version, which always irked me, since I would've liked to have been able to replay them from time to time, as you might be tempted to do if you need to grind levels to get past a roadblock, in typical JRPG fashion. The missions themselves tend to be fairly combat-heavy, with some other objectives sometimes interspersed amidst the carnage.

Next, the story. Type-0 does not spoon feed the story to its players, so you'll probably need to spend some time reading the Rubicus (the game's in-world encyclopedia) to get all the background information necessary to appreciate what is going on in the world. I think the game is better for this, though. Orience is a place whose complexity seemingly mirrors our own world in its sheer depth. I certainly wouldn't expect any game about our world to be immediately and completely understandable to any external players. As the game progresses, the stakes of the war at hand escalate until a victor is decided, but the end is sudden, abrupt, and brutal. It took me a fair amount of external reading to make sense of it, which is rare. At the end of the day, though, I consider the story to have actually been one of this game's stronger points.

One of the worst changes I think they could have made with respect to this version of Final Fantasy Type-0 is the complete removal of its multiplayer component. Honestly, when I first heard that Type-0 was being remade for consoles, a revision of its multiplayer sprang forth as one of the first overdue changes that would be made. The original PSP version had a sort of local multiplayer that required people to convene and play together, despite the fact that the Internet was a thing. Granted, it's not like we needed Link Cables or any other such antiques to engage in jolly cooperation, but the game came out in 2011 and eschewed the seemingly more user-friendly Internet-based option for something that parents nowadays probably tell their children about when the Internet is out in true "back in my day..." fashion. However, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised, this version of Type-0 has absolutely no multiplayer whatsoever. As anyone that's played this game for more than an hour can tell you, this game desperately needs multiplayer, since the party AI is dumb as a bag of rocks. Many times, your teammates will only be good for casting Cure spells on you when you get hurt carrying them to the finish line. Functional, practical multiplayer could have helped alleviate many players' frustration with this.

As for good changes they've made, I already mentioned the new ability to replay RTS missions. Additionally, opening the menu now actually pauses the game (that pause option on the first screen of the menu used to be the only way to pause the game), so you won't be taking bullets while you navigate to the item you want to use. I think the updated character models look pretty good, as well. As I continue to play through the game, I'll probably encounter more good changes than bad ones.

So yeah, that's my review. I consider this game to be worth purchasing, and I consider its current review score on Steam (53% positive, 47% negative as of this posting) to be both unacceptable and troubling. It's unacceptable because I think this game is good, and troubling because this kind of knee-jerk response, toward what is likely a new experience for many of those angry reviews, reflects on gamers and gaming poorly. I like this game, and if you like ARPGs and JRPGs, I think that you should buy it.

EDIT (8/20/2015): See the comments section for some more information about the game, since these reviews apparently have size limits.

This port is a mess, but its not a mess in the same way ports usually are.

Typically, when we hear about "bad ports", we think bad graphics, bad optimization, bad controls, etc. That's not the problem here. All of those are pretty good, provided you play with a controller.

The reason this port is a mess has to do with the game's core design. I will try to explain it as succinctly as possible.

FF Type-0 was originally a PSP handheld game with a heavy emphasis on drop-in/drop-out co-op.

Each of your 13 playable-characters are limited to 1 life per mission, the enemies are tough, your characters can very easily get KO'd in a few hits. And while you can freely switch between your 3 active characters, you can't control them all at once and your A.I. companions are garbage. Your A.I. companions will die, and they will die frequently.

You were originally meant to offset this difficulty with the PSP's Ad-hoc network to play with other players via the Reinforcement System, which allowed other players to drop-in and replace 1 of the 3 characters that you are using with 1 of their own characters. Other players acted not only as better companions, but as additional lives during a mission as well since they were using their own characters and not your's.

That drop-in-/drop-out co-op feature is completely absent from this port.

In fact this game doesn't have multiplayer at all. Its entirely singleplayer.

Instead, the Reinforcement System was changed so that, if you turn it on, your active party members could be randomly replaced by a shadow clone of one of the 13 playable characters. Like real Reinforcements, these act as additional lives. Unlike real Reinforcements, these shadow clones are every bit as bad as your normal companions. They don't fight well and will die very easily.

As an added detriment, because these Reinforcements were originally meant to be other player's characters, you can't control them in any way. You can't switch them out for other characters and you can't even dismiss them. They will only leave if they randomly decide to leave, or they die.

This can result in situations where mission progress could become soft-locked.

Enemies will sometimes spawn in elevated positions, behind low walls, or flying off the map on the side. You are meant to attack these enemies with ranged attacks. The game encourages you to always have at least 1 ranged character in your active party at all times.

But, if your ranged character was replaced by a melee shadow clone, you have no more ranged attack. You will not be able to kill the enemy that requires ranged attacks to reach, which soft-locks mission progression until the shadow clone leaves or dies or you fail the mission due to time out and have to start over.

The end result of this retooling of the Reinforcement System is that the game is still very difficult, your A.I. companions are liabilities, and the system that was meant to offset the awful A.I. just replaces them with other awful A.I. with the added detriment that you have no control over them.

-Gameplay is really fun and addicvitve.
-A simple 4-button battle system that's full of finesse and is very responsive.
-The story, while somewhat confusing at times, is satisfying once you get through it.
-Character interactions and story arcs that make the characters feel like real people, particularly Rem and Machina.

-Graphics definitely look like an HD port of a PSP game, with muddy textures and some NPC faces looking pretty flat and low-poly.
-Lack of graphics options, the launcher settings are limited to shadows, motion blur and textures, with some options only going up to "Normal" setting. Perhaps a hi-res texture/shadow pack will arrive in the future (or modded in) but for now we're looking at a pretty crappy variety of graphical options.

NOTE: This game is locked to 30fps due to engine limitations, being a PSP game originally. There will likely be no fix/mod to make it run beyond that. If you are one of those people who consider 30fps to be unacceptable, you will not like this game. However, for those who don't mind 30fps, this game runs very smoothly on 30fps, haven't seen a single drop so far, even during the most intense part of the opening section.

this game would be very awesome but the thing is that you cannot chancge the keybinding in your keyboard and that is kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ becose every ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game has to have option chancge keybinding ♥♥♥♥ YOU SQUARE ENIX

An OK port from an OK handheld console of an OK game with OK graphics and OK plot and OK battle system but with GREAT music (it's Square Enix after all).

This game is a good example of why Steam could use "meh" rating.

Believe it or not, but this is my first Final Fantasy game. Despite that, I decided that I wanted to review it.

+ Fairly long, took me about 60 hours to beat it once, but then again I play like a tortoise.
+ Game looks great, especially Class Zero and a couple of other NPC's. Same goes for certain maps as well.
+ Story is engaging enough if you're into that.
+ A likable main cast that are well fleshed out. They're fairly cliché, but they also gets the job done. In this point I also want to include that there are a lot of playable characters, each with their own set of abilities and playstyle. You will most certainly find a favorite amongst them, and one of the greatest parts of the game for me was experimenting with all of them to figure out which one suited me the best.
+ Good replayability, if you want to experience everything you will have to play it through at least twice, and with several difficulty levels and the amount of characters available this will not be boring.
+ Combat was a bit difficult for me to get into at the beginning, but once I got the hang of it I was treated to one of the best combat systems I've experienced in recent years.
+ Voice acting is nice, although I thoroughly despised the English voices. The Japanese voices are amazing however.
+ No major difficulty spikes as you're encouraged to explore. If you find yourself underleveled, there is always the arena and special training.
+ Skill improvement for both abilities and magic is pretty fun, since you won't be able to unlock everything in a single playthrough most of the time.
+ Fun conversations/cutscenes and quests around the main hub.
+ Death system works great, and you're encouraged to try to keep everyone alive in order to get as high a rating as possible on missions.
+ Super speed for when you want to move from one place to another quickly.
+ In my opinion, a great ending. (reminded me of Mass Effect though...)

- A controller is a must if you are going to play this. Don't get me started on how poorly optimized mouse and keyboard is for this game.
- Textures for everything but Class Zero is generally pretty bad. Though since this is a remastered PSP game that is fairly forgivable. If you're not the type of person that cares much about graphics (like me), you will likely not mind the occasional Tomb Raider III type of graphics.
- Not very noob friendly, while it does explain all the major aspects of the game, some things are left out.
- The antagonists are not very memorable, and neither is the plot as a whole.
- While you're given the freedom to explore freely, there is time limit on how much you can do at once. Later on this was reversed and I was given more freedom than the US but not enough stuff to do.
- Side quests, while fun, are not as many as I had hoped for. Especially when you visit minor towns there are often only one quest to do in each, and you probably won't need to return to that town ever again.

All in all, I can definitely recommend this game. In the beginning I was not sure whether or not I wanted to continue playing it, but I'm glad I did. This has been all I've been playing for some time now and I don't want to put it down anytime soon. If you got the money to spare, or even better, if it's on sale, don't think twice about picking it up!

that is, if you have a controller

Windows 10 post-1803 update breaks it. Square (and MS) have not fixed this. The game itself will run, but the cutscenes (the major reason you're playing a JRPG right?, the story???) will not function and freeze/crash the game. You can "skip" the cutscenes, but I just had the game totally freeze during a mission (thereby not allowing the scene to skip) because of this.

Square said they were looking to fix it... early in the year... and they still haven't.

AVOID until 1) they fix this or 2) they don't and pull it from the store.

This is Worthwhile!

Was this seriously ONLY available on a PlayStation Portable prior to the PS4 and PC outing? This right here is what the internal dev teams at Square Enix need to channel when creating new and more Final Fantasy games.

Granted, Type-0's PSP roots show. We have ourselves many many "Loading" pauses in between levels, intra-level sections, rooms/corridors during exploration, loading for the Crystarium (ingame library... sigh; BUT we also have game systems that actually work in spite of these limitations. Team micromanagement that's actually not a chore. Quick and satisfying switching between numerous varied team members during battle.

And what a bloody awesome team these characters of "Class Zero" have turned out to be. Imagine for a moment that you have to somehow juggle a ridiculous three-man team of a mace wielder, a PLAYING CARD master and a girl with a rather powerful FLUTE..... Think on that last for a moment..... Moving on, imagine further that on ANY DIFFICULTY this game can throw you some nasty curveballs to the extent that you'd better not develop favorites. Please dear reader

LEVEL... UP.... EVERYONE

Keep each and every team member equal in level/hence abilities. the realtime action nature of combat forces you to do so. And believe me, the war-torn world depicted in game does this system credit. The motley crew of 14 members of Class Zero have the uneviable task of putting an end to a gruesome war waged among four nations. Each with their own motives. Each very susceptible to shifting alliances. And all not averse to a little betrayal. This story is told in a rather fascinating documentary-esque (yes, I created some word to serve this review) format with timeslots describing events in no particular order. First impressions of these approach would have you thinking that the story is ridiculously incoherent...

Except you'd be wrong. Very wrong.

For good or ill for some, this serves to create alot of suspense and poses questions that build up especially at the end of the game with its multiple endings. The explanation of which requires a second playthrough to unlock more information in the form of cutscenes and dialog. It's even more surprising that the story is so much more engaging and with real pathos as compared to FF-XIII; which incidentally shares the same "Fabula Nova Crystallis" mythos, but executed in a totally different way.

In closing, will there be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, yes. For now your framerate will be locked to 30FPS. Minor characters apart for Class Zero have some very dodgy texture work inluding some environmental areas and level design here had to take the portable nature of title into account. But, it is all executed very well in terms of pacing and story beats. Add in the fact that the New Game+ explains more of the story and we may have ourselves a winner here in terms of a great sub-series with mature sensibilities.

Take the plunge.

Something I want to get out of the way before getting to the review: currently, the top comment on this game's store page mentions that the Windows 10 (version 1803) update has broken the game, which is NOT TRUE. I finished this game on the latest version of Windows 11 (version 22H2) without having any issues. Please ignore that outdated/misinformed review.

To start off, I played the PSP version, and I think this version looks a lot better overall. The major problem for this port is the 30 FPS lock. Apart from the 30 FPS lock, I don't see any major problems with the port. Fortunately, there's a 60 FPS mod, and I HIGHLY recommend it:

https://github.com/Banz99/Final-Fantasy-Type-0-Hd-Unlocker

WARNING: You won't be able to progress at a certain point in main story mission Chapter 3 and Chapter 5 ONLY. You must disable this mod (just rename the d3d11.dll file) for both missions. Do not worry too much; this occurs just after save points. It's still a must-have mod despite the issue.

The story starts off well, but later on, at the end, it just stops making any sense. So I dug around a little, hoping to find some explanation, and I was shocked to find that the main story barely explains the overall plot of the game. This is really not a great way to present a story; without looking it up, you won't be able to fully understand the story. Also, I realized that to understand a major part of the story, you need to play FF XIII, or else you won't understand who are L'Cie's.

Gameplay is decent; it could've been better if it didn't feel too clunky. The game features a massive roster of 14 playable characters, the most I've seen in a game. Each of them feels unique to play with, with different skills to unlock. Unfortunately, having this many characters gave them inadequate screen time for character development. This is made worse by the short length of the game (~23–25 hours). It's a shame; the characters were pretty good.

Difficulty is quite unbalanced in the game. The first half is pretty easy, but the later half becomes very difficult. Leveling up becomes very grindy, and with 14 characters, it becomes very difficult to manage as reserve party members receive no EXP.

The game does feature good replayability value. There's lots of high-level areas/quests that you can't pass in the first play-through. Speaking of quests, you can only take them 1 at a time. Just what is wrong with FF games only allowing you to take 1 quest at a time? There are so many quests, and they're scattered around, so it makes no sense to be able to take 1 at a time. The game needed a fast travel system, as you have to walk around so much.

Although I mentioned a lot of negatives, it's still a decently fun FF game.

Before the real review I think I have to highlight a couple of things:

This game was born for PSP. This affect many aspects of the game some obvious like graphic and characters movement during dialogs (or no movement, they just stand still); some less obvious, for example I am pretty sure that many aspects of the game would have been different if thought for a console, like the time progression in academia or the side characters mini storilines.

If you read the review you can see the 90% - 95% of the "Not Recommended" ones are about:
1) the Camer Control (problem solved in a game update),
2) bad porting because graphic was not improved enough for their tastes
3) bad porting because of performance issues (I am pretty sure that at least someone of these was doing something wrong like using the intel integrated video card). I had no performance issue using a mid level laptop 3-4 years old.
4) 30 fps. Again, it was created for PSP and they could not change this.

And one last note: this game was born with a controller in mind. You can use the mouse+keyboard, but if you have one use a controller (or buy the steam controller, i like it).


REVIEW:

GRAPHIC: watch the trailers and the sreenshots: that's the graphic level. Personally for me is fine. But I don't care about the graphic, I didn't buy this game for that.

GAMPLAY:
here we have to distinguish between combat, RTS and the events/exploring the world.

Combat: I think it is very cool, each character (14) has an unique style of combat and this make changing the primary char really fun and often needed. Then the fact that you can't ressurrect them if they die during missions is nice, since each death makes you closer to defeat (winning with the last standing char is amazing). There is also a killsight system that let you do a lot more damage if you hit the enemy at the right moment (for example while he is performing a particular action). My opinion is: I love the combat style of FFType0. Fun fast but also tactical and never monotonous.

RTS missions: In this game there are RST mission (DOTA style), I found them cool and nice to do something a bit different every now and then. Also those make you feel the "war" that is rampaging in Orience and is not only on the background since you will participate in the battles to conquer cities and regions.

Events: finally there are the events you can discover around academia and orience between missions. You have a time limit and each event you activate (dialogs, scenes, exiting academia) will cost some time. Do not worry you will have plenty of time to do almost all the events. And the game is born to be played many times: for example doing an event you already saw in a previous playtrought will cost no time. And there many things that could not be done during the first playtrought like the expert trial mission or the code crimson missions. Personally I am not a fun of this "time cost" system but I don't hate it either; it is


STORY:
everyone has his opinion about what a "Real Final Fantasy" is. For me is the story. If the story is bad or worse if it doesn't exhist (and I am watching you FF XII and XIII) that is not a real FF for me. Well this game (my personal opinion) is the first FF game since FF X.
One of the things that I liked most is the fact that in this world when people dies they are forgotten. This makes it easier for everyone to fight but it also scares them in many ways and some of the most interesting stories told in FF type 0 starts from this loss. But this is not the only things that makes the story of FF strong and powerful. The world of orience is a world at war and they describe this state really well, making you feel it (I think you can begin to understand now why FF type 0 is considered the "darkest" FF).
14 characters may seems a lot, and for sure I can say the some of them are not shown enough; but still they hardly feel bidimensional. And while some may receive little time, Machina, Rem and Ace are shown in all their depth.


IN SHORT:
I really liked Final Fantasy Type-0. Yes it suffers a lot from being a PSP game, but still the gameplay is probably one of the best ones in the saga (if you like action) and the story, while it may not be told as well as it was in FF X, is deep, is strong and is there.