Hironobu Sakaguchi needs no introduction. The “father of Final Fantasy” is an industry titan, arguably untouchable in the video game pantheon. But, since 2004, Sakaguchi has been at the helm at Mistwalker, his development studio which has a knack for slightly twisting the traditional turn-based RPG affair. Over the years, we’ve seen that in Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and The Last Story.

Fantasian, the studio’s latest game, fits that mould, but it also feels slightly different. Sakaguchi admits that he was inspired to make Fantasian after replaying Final Fantasy VI on stream, reminding him how much he loved the genre. We’ve waited over three years since the two-part Apple Arcade release, but now console gamers can experience Sakaguchi’s ambitious project with FANTASIAN Neo Dimension, a game with flashes of brilliance – including a beautiful world and rewarding combat – held back by uneven pacing, brutally long encounters, and a lacklustre story.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

Sakaguchi may be the lead writer, and Nobuo Uematsu may be the composer, but Fantasian is, crucially, not Final Fantasy. While there are structural and thematic similarities (particularly to FFVI), this really is a culmination of Sakaguchi’s work up until now, and a love letter to the classic RPG genre.

Neo Dimension is pretty much the same as the Apple Arcade release – the visuals have been touched up slightly, full English (and Japanese) voice acting has been added, you can swap battle tracks to various Final Fantasy tunes (from some Pixel Remasters and more modern entries), and there’s a new ‘Normal Mode’ difficulty. The Apple Arcade version was notoriously difficult, particularly Part 2, and Normal Mode helps soften the blow a little bit.

Narratively, the game is fairly uneven: Leo, the protagonist, has amnesia. You start your adventure trying to piece together Leo’s memories while attempting to get rid of Mechteria, a mechanical infection spreading across the land. Eventually, it becomes a dimension-hopping adventure that tackles themes of family, power, and godhood.

One of the biggest problems is a consequence of that original two-part split – the first 20 hours of Fantasian might be steady, but events propel you between locations and towns at a fairly rapid pace, meeting new characters at almost every location. The remaining 40-50 hours blow that structure apart in favour of a 'Searching for Friends' set-up, where you can revisit locations in any order to reunite the party and gain new allies. This means you can stumble into quests and areas that are extremely out of your depth and, as a result of the open structure, the plot grinds to a halt and certain characters get swept aside – including Leo.

What helps elevate the story is the Memory system, short narrative stories that tell you about a character’s past in the form of text and images – if you’ve played Lost Odyssey, they’re identical to Kaim’s 'A Thousand Years of Dreams'. While not of the same writing quality as those, they’re still beautifully presented, and some have real emotional weight.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

Where the narrative missteps, however, the world does not. Fantasian Neo Dimension isn’t a visual powerhouse but it is absolutely gorgeous, largely thanks to the world design. Made up of over 160 hand-crafted dioramas, which were then photographed and converted into 3D models, you can see the painstaking amount of work that’s gone into each building or object – glass looks fragile to the touch, and leaves glisten delicately in the sunlight. Coupled with the 3D character models, it captures the essence of those pre-rendered backdrops we all remember from the PlayStation days and, aside from some wonky controls every time the camera angle shifts, it makes for a truly magical world to explore.

You’ll noodle around every nook and cranny and easily get lost in the visuals, and Umeatsu’s soundtrack is the perfect accompaniment. It’s not his best work by any stretch — the main battle theme is pretty repetitive — but there are some true highlights, such as the water town Vence’s theme, the beautiful vocal tracks, and the techno-style robot boss music.

The game looks and runs great – for the most part. When the camera zooms in, some backgrounds look incredibly blurry up close, which is a holdover of the Apple Arcade version. Luckily, things run at a smooth 60fps, with CGI cutscenes and special attack animations capped at 30fps. There are a few more isolated, and significant, dips in performance however – one early section focusing on the cruise ship and sandstorm chugs, and later when you get to control the ship on the world map, controls and animations are choppy.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

This being a classic-style RPG, you can bet there are random encounters. Combat in Fantasian is turn-based, with your typical list of attacks and skills that consume MP and a turn-order indicating which character or enemy will go next. You can swap characters in and out for free, too. All attacks have different areas of effects – some spells can be curved around the area to hit a line of enemies at the back, while other attacks target all enemies in a small circle area. Almost all enemies have an elemental weakness or status susceptibility, meaning every single encounter has a level of strategy to it.

Random encounters are only part of the story, as once you’ve fought an enemy in an area, if you run into them again, they’ll be transported inside the Dimengeon, a device that stores monsters. Instead of fighting groups of four or five enemies, you can store up to 30 (later, up to 50) enemies and fight them all at the same time. It’s incredibly satisfying – and addictive – to wipe out huge groups of enemies in waves like this rather than deal with slower encounters one by one.

While we largely love the combat, we did find ourselves getting frustrated in the latter hours because there’s a distinct lack of variety in normal enemy encounters and character skills. You do eventually unlock skill trees – called Growth Maps – which allow you to spend skill points to increase stats, teach your party new attacks, and make abilities more powerful. But a few characters have overlapping abilities and most spells and skills are just variants of other skills.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

The Dimengeon, too, suffers from repetition, largely because it just fills up way too fast in the late game, even if you fully expand it. And while you can turn it off (or empty it at a dedicated machine, for a price), that means you’ll be dealing with smaller, less-rewarding fights, also hampered by the fact that, above level 35, the experience you gain is drastically decreased if you fight monsters at a lower level than you.

The strategic combat all comes to a head in the game’s boss battles – and there are lots of them. Every single boss, particularly in the 'Part 2' sections, is like a puzzle, each requiring a specific strategy (or variation of a strategy) to defeat. Sometimes, you’re nudged towards these by the game, while other times, you’ll have to die over and over again to figure out whether you’re missing a skill, elemental attack, or an element-resistant piece of equipment to help you get through it. Fortunately, you can respec your Growth Map at any time, but not being able to change equipment and gems during a fight feels unnecessary.

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Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

It’s here where the difficulty comes into play, particularly in the optional fights. Make no mistake, there are some fights you’ll encounter in side quests that are flagged at level 47, but unless you play perfectly you’ll absolutely need to be at a higher level to take them out. We even played half of the game in Hard Mode, and bosses that would normally be simply dangerous would one-shot us if we made a single mistake.

This is absolutely a combat-oriented RPG before a story one, and those who love a challenge will probably love Fantasian, but even the easier solutions can require patience and practice. If that sounds like your bag, then Fantasian Neo Dimension is an extremely rewarding adventure.

Conclusion

Fantasian Neo Dimension is Hironobu Sakaguchi and Mistwalker at their boldest and bravest, culminating in a JRPG love letter that both delights and frustrates. The stunning world and exploration are a true highlight, and the challenging and rewarding combat will enchant some, but it lacks some of the magic that the game is aiming for and the pacing is uneven. Normal difficulty makes things more accessible for the curious, but make no mistake, this is an RPG for those who want to lose themselves in the mechanics.

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