While we’re hoping that the game would launch on the Nintendo Switch, I feel that after trying out this game, don’t count on it coming to any of the consoles any time soon.Īlso given that this game is the first half of the full experience, we’re only really diving into a part of the game the same way that Final Fantasy VII Remake teased that the entirety of the remake will be situated at Midgar alone. With a sudden surprise preview the last few months and with the game dropping on Apple Arcade a day shy of April Fool’s, there’s a joke in there somewhere I could not put my finger on. Save for Wii’s The Last Story, Mistwalker has not been making games for consoles for nearly ten years and counting. Price: Estimated SRP Free with Apple Arcade subscription ($4.99 USD)īefore Fantasian, my last foray into Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Mistwalker Studio was in 2008 with Lost Odyssey.Similar Game/s: Lost Odyssey, Final Fantasy VI (mobile).All that long, layered history is noticeable, even if you're not personally familiar. ![]() That you're watching your escapades through a god's eye.Īttention and care is the thing with Fantasian. Teeny tiny creations that you romp through, often in ultra close-up, where the brush-strokes, miniature sprigs of feathery moss and little pinprick clumps of artist's putty are visible, the beauty often secondary to the sensation of it all - that the world is overtly authored, specifically hand-placed. ![]() There's a faint sense that these are acting as smart cover for a fairly thin budget (there's a recurring sound effect that is absolutely just a recording of a TIE Fighter, for instance, and a lot of laboured text in place of more elaborate cutscenes). The thing you'll know Fantasian for of course, alongside its director, is its extraordinary use of physical dioramas for its overworlds. ![]() It also makes for a kind of self-directed difficulty meter - if things are feeling a little easy, use the machine and fight the random monsters a couple dozen at a time. You can choose to battle them at any point, or you're forced to when it gets full, so the convenience of getting around the world without battles is gained, at the cost of a little mind-game you play with yourself about when to take them all on at once. Likewise the wild encounters, which you just start to tire of before being introduced to a very clever twist called a "Dimengon Machine", a doohickey that bottles up enemies you would've encountered, up to a limit. There are a moderate amount of systems here, and they're introduced in layers: turn-based battles, fine, but then positioning becomes important, and then a bit of very casual mechanics become important, as you learn to "bend" spells to get around blocking enemies or hit several at one. ![]() A welcoming kind of "onboarding" is not something I've associated with JRPGs, but - maybe because of its launch on Apple Arcade, with the different, presumably quite specific kind of audience that brings - Fantasian does it well. I have more or less no familiarity with any of this though, having dipped toes in a number of Final Fantasies and reliably found their water a little cold - but I'm sinking into Fantasian quite nicely.
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