Hayama Marin Plays Through Chapter One of Final Fantasy Resonance on Launch Day

NIJISANJI — Hayama Marin, a Nijisanji streamer, played the first chapter of Final Fantasy Resonance on the game’s launch day, working through more than eight hours of the new role-playing game in a single stream on Thursday.

The stream began with about 15 minutes of talk unrelated to games. Marin said they had woken to news of a security problem affecting some websites, then weighed whether to change reused passwords and whether it was wise to trust a phone with all of them. Chat answered with how its members keep track of their own, and Marin said they were surprised at how orderly the comments were before asking, “Can I play games today?” One chat message replied that they could play games any time.

“The story and the combat were both just plain fun.” — Hayama Marin, after finishing the first chapter

Marin said they had not followed the numbered Final Fantasy games closely but had been drawn in through the Kingdom Hearts series and the Final Fantasy VII remakes. They played on PS5 on Normal difficulty and said the game’s HD-2D look was a first for the series. A command-based RPG was a change of pace, Marin said, since they usually play action games.

An opening battle set the tone: a summoned Bahamut dealt 99,999 damage, and chat filled with the number. The story then moved to a knight captain and his deputy sent to check on a crystal temple, where the crystal was destroyed by an unknown armored attacker. A mysterious girl later joined their party. Marin spent much of the night on the battle system, hunting for enemy weaknesses and debating which abilities to hand to which character, and said the options made them want to level up everything. Shrines that hand out characters from earlier games, among them Warrior of Light, Cloud and Tina, ask players a series of personal questions, and Marin answered each one aloud.

The chapter closed with the girl calling a spirit to calm rough seas. Marin ended the stream there, saying the story and the combat had both been fun, and said they would pick the game back up that night.