If you're a fan of RPGs, you'll probably recognize the names Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsuand any project involving the two is sure to grab your attention right away. Even if you're not familiar with the names, you'll recognize their work, as the father of the Final Fantasy series and its composer have created some of the most acclaimed video games of all time. Unfortunately, when it was first released in 2021, Fantasian was limited to Apple Arcade, denying many people the chance to experience it. The release of Fantasian Neo Dimension, a console version of the game with added features that make it more than just a port, is something of a dream come true. So let's find out if this is the final answer to the fantasy or just another quest that drags on.
Fantasian tells the story of Leo, a young man who finds himself with an unfortunate case of amnesia after venturing into the Machine Kingdom and narrowly escaping with his life. From there, he meets Kina, a young woman with a mysterious past of her own, and the two embark on a journey together to recover Leo's lost memories and how this ties into the threat of the Malevolent You, a mysterious and seemingly omnipotent presence that has a keen interest in the two of them. The story unfolds slowly after a dramatic opening as Leo and his allies travel the land in a way that often feels arbitrary, piecing together his past in a way that feels natural but often lacks urgency or drama despite the dire state the world is in thanks to the mechteria threat.
While it takes time to become a story you'll want to continue for its own sake, Fantasian does an incredibly good job of keeping you hooked. This is mostly thanks to Memories: short visual novel-style vignettes that act as flashbacks and outline the supporting cast, detailing the events leading up to their meeting and providing background context for the state of the world in general. The lack of cutscenes is a telltale remnant of the game's mobile origins, though it's saved from boredom by the inclusion of a large amount of new voice acting. All of the story and Memories scenes are voiced entirely in English and Japanese, and they do a great job of bringing the dialogue to life and projecting emotion in a cast that often seems oddly flat except for the occasional witty, light-hearted moment between them.
Fantasian offers classic turn-based combat, but is more of a strategic experience than many of its contemporaries. The highlight of its combat system is the inclusion of skill paths; for example, standard physical attacks will be projected in a straight line, while magical abilities may curve and other skills may have a wider area of effect. Before performing an attack, you'll be able to set its trajectory, allowing you to hit multiple enemies at once or bypass those that might block or be resistant to it. As you'd expect, each of your party members has their own set of unique skills, and while you'll generally be tied to using a predetermined group for the first half of the game, later on you'll need to consider which party member is best suited for a given situation. In normal mode this is more suitable for taking down mobs faster, but in hard mode it becomes a necessity, especially during boss encounters, which often require a special strategy to successfully take them down.
One of the more ingenious gameplay mechanics is the Dimengeon Machine, which allows you to capture enemies and seal them away for later combat. You can either wait until the machine is fully charged – at which point you'll be forced into random battles until you clear it – or enter it before then and face a larger number of enemies at once. This has a surprisingly transformative effect on gameplay, as it allows you to avoid random battles almost entirely (the first time you encounter a new enemy you'll have to fight them before you can seal them) and makes the leveling process feel much faster. Of course, you'll need to keep track of how many enemies you can take on at any given time; although you won't face every enemy stored in the Dimengeon machine at once, new enemies will appear to replace old ones almost immediately. This system isn't quite as convenient as one that would allow you to completely disable random encounters, such as the sliders featured in the Bravely Default series, but it's a good compromise that can help reduce the frustration of having to stop fighting enemies for a minimal amount of experience every minute. and reduce the risk of a sudden game-over if you're low on health on the field after a tough battle.
Outside of his combat, Fantasian has a number of smaller side quests to undertake, which are mostly standard fetch quests but occasionally lead to some useful rewards that make them worth doing, all of which are clearly marked on the map. The game is fairly linear in the first half, but opens up in the second act to allow players a little more freedom in their actions. Although the difficulty is slightly increased here, on Normal this doesn't feel particularly unmanageable, and it remains a fairly accessible title for those new to RPGs, while providing an adequate challenge on Hard for experienced players.
The visual style of Fantasian is one of its more striking aspects, as the game's locations are made up of stylized dioramas strongly reminiscent of PS1-era Final Fantasy titles. Elements in some areas look like they've simply been scaled up from the original mobile title and are uncomfortably blurry (this is most noticeable on the foliage), but the overall level of detail here is absolutely stunning. Despite the backgrounds being static, each area you visit has an added sense of depth as the camera angles will change frequently as you explore to give you a different perspective, and there are plenty of hidden things to discover.
As beautiful as the diorama landscapes are, moving through them is sometimes unnecessarily difficult. The shifts in camera angle that do occur aren't always accompanied by a change in the direction you need to push the joystick to continue moving forward, and you'll often need to push it in a different direction than the one you want to move. I often found myself stuck on a landscape or momentarily going in a completely different direction when the camera angle changed, resulting in a stop-start moment that felt unnatural and awkward. It's an annoyance that's greatly mitigated by the Dimengeon Machine, since you won't be stopped often by unwanted random battles, but it can still be distracting at times.
The game's UI also still retains some of its mobile aesthetic and can look a bit awkward when docked, but it lends itself naturally to handheld play. The larger text and simple menus are quick and easy to read and easy to navigate, and there are some useful added combat menu shortcuts that allow you to automatically open the skill window at the start of your turn if you so choose. You can also customize the battle music to suit your preferences mid-fight, and the game has a variety of songs included from various Final Fantasy titles. While you can't select specific songs, being able to switch between them at will is a nice feature nonetheless. The game's original soundtrack, composed by Nobuo Uematsu, is consistently of the high quality you'd expect, with an excellent variety of orchestral and synth pieces that perfectly set the scene and enhance the atmosphere of each location.
Fantasian manages to hold its own among the Switch's heavyweights in the RPG genre thanks to some inventive and enjoyable gameplay innovations that break up the traditional grind, making its otherwise by-the-numbers turn-based combat a more tactical and engaging experience. Its diorama-style visuals are wonderfully refreshing and very nostalgic if you've ever played a Final Fantasy title from the PS1 era. While not an entirely new dimension of entertainment, Fantasian is a welcome breath of fresh air that is more than worth your time.
8/10
A copy of Fantasian Neo Dimension was provided by Square Enix for the purposes of this review.
