Final Fantasy Explorers review – gentle stopgap to satisfy existing fans

3DS title provides nice, if non-archetypal, way for devotees to re-enter the universe while they await forthcoming XV and VII instalments

The genre-defining Japanese RPG franchise Final Fantasy is one of the games industry's great lumbering beasts - and is set for a Kraken-like reawakening with both Final Fantasy XV and the reimagined-for-current-gen fan favourite Final Fantasy VII due this year. In the meantime, impatient enthusiasts can blow the dust off their 3DS handhelds, and avail themselves of an amuse-bouche in the form of Final Fantasy Explorers.

A modicum of expectation management is in order, however. Explorers is determinedly atypical as far as Final Fantasy games are concerned although it is, at least, easy to describe. Bizarrely, it shoehorns the gameplay from Monster Hunter (a franchise that is huge in Japan but steadfastly fails to capture the imagination elsewhere in the world) into the Final Fantasy universe.