A love letter to old school JRPG’s
If you’ve an avid fan of JRPG’s you may have heard of Fantasian which was an original game when released solely for the Apple Arcade in 2021. You’d be forgiven for not actually playing it though due to this rather large limitation but thankfully just a few short years later the JRPG community wishes have been granted and Fantasian has seen a multi-console release under the guise Fantasian: Neo Dimension.
Fantasian was created by Final Fantasy creator himself Hironobu Sakaguchi after some Inspiration after playing Final Fantasy VI. Joining in on the project also is legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu who has primarily worked on Final Fantasy soundtracks but also has dabbled in other projects also. So with two legendary designers at work on a new project you can expect a home run right? Well let’s just say it certainly hits a lot of high notes.
Fantasian: Neo Dimension certainly captures a lot of what makes JRPG’s good but the real crux comes in the form of the games visual design and art. Before even playing it most people were aware of the design and the clever use of real dioramas inserted into the games visuals making environments look real and close in visual clarity to that of early 3D Final Fantasy games such as Final Fantasy VII, it is a clever and unique modern take on pre rendered backgrounds and at times while playing it I could not stop comparing it in my head to previous Final Fantasy games.
Graphics aside the gameplay is real simple but in a good way. Exploring the hand crafted environments that are mostly of a fixed camera angle until you hit a certain point where the camera pans to a new angle revealing secret paths that can lead to treasure chests. NPC’s have more than just a few words to say and feel part of the world living in a world ravaged by Mechteria, a mechanical infection that steals from humans and robs them of their emotions. You play as protagonist Leo who awakens with most of his memories lost and even though the story I will say is not the strongest point, classical character tropes are attached to each character and female characters have very feminine roles, the game also grapples with notable themes of science, magic and evil gods, themes most common in JRPG’s however the game does a good job of delivering a story with good pacing overall.
Turn based battles are again very simple but are well executed with a unique targeting mechanic. For example you can bend a Holy spell in a curve like shape which will hit all enemies in a line and taking them all out at once is satisfying as it is rewarding, the games simple battle system is reminiscent of two other simple and successful JRPG’s, I am Setsuna and Lost Sphear. I almost find myself comparing those games to this one a lot often too just for it’s resemblance to simplicity. What I am saying is if you enjoyed those games you most certainly will love this one.
Random battles are once again initiated by walking around demon infested areas and dungeons and while I found myself annoyed with the seemingly high encounter rate at first I was pleasantly surprised by the Dimengeon system. This unique system provides a twist to traditional random battle encounters by allowing players to store previously encountered enemies away to a dimensional dungeon. This allows you to grind away at the battles when you get to a safe place making exploration easier and grinding on your own terms.
While Fantasian: Neo Dimension appears easy at first the difficulty spike in parts is certainly felt and you would be forgiven for thinking the game is easy. You level up and regain all HP and MP once you do and items are abundant but this is just a visual trick of the mind. The game even allows you to steal once you’ve gained a few levels early on and this appears to never miss either allowing you to stock up well before you set out on the real journey. The real challenge is some of the bosses which have cheap one shot mechanics which can often happen near the end of an arduous battle. Fantasian: Neo Dimension does provide provide a difficulty select option and whilst the original difficulty which is now considered Hard, new players will have the option of playing on Normal and having a good all rounded experience.
Fantasian: Neo Dimension has established itself as a very simple game, the turn based mechanics and simple use of skills, levelling and learning new skills may appear frustrating to those wanting a bit more character building, the game does not really break the bounds of gameplay but what it does is it introduces very unique features even if there are very few of them. The game does feel in a lot of ways built for the late 80’s early 90’s gamer who grew up with JRPG’s during that time in mind making it feel very niche and with all thanks to composer Nobuo Uematsu, who has designed a fitting soundtrack for Fantasian: New Dimension you can’t help but realise that this man of many talents never loses his touch and still pours his heart and soul into anything thrown at him, no matter how many years seem to pass.
My only grip with Fantasian: Neo Dimension is the translation from mobile game to console release is obvious and this is due to how the games interface looks. While I am a fan of how the battle systems interface looks, you do have giant menu buttons which when on Switch probably looks okay but on console when you’re playing on a bigger screen looks clunky and a mess, especially when the game has visual flair in all other aspects although this is something I can live with.
The fact that Fantasian on its original release and being solely available for the Apple Arcade made it unplayable for a lot of players who didn’t have access to it. The game was also released in parts and came with some other issues that made it a hard recommendation. Now we have a release on PlayStation 5 amongst many other recent consoles makes the game readily available and as these issues have been alleviated and with also a great cast of voice actors voices the characters implemented into the game, I cannot recommend Fantasian: Neo Dimension enough.
A PlayStation 5 Review code was provided by Square Enix
