Neo FANTASIAN Size Review (Switch)

Hironobu Sakaguchi needs no introduction. “Father of The ultimate illusion” is an industry giant, considered untouchable in the video game pantheon. Since 2004, however, Sakaguchi has been at the helm of Mistwalker, his development studio, which has a knack for slightly twisting traditional turn-based RPGs. Over the years, we have seen that in Blue Dragon, Lost adventureAnd Final story.

imagineThe studio’s latest game fits that mold, but it also feels a little different. Sakaguchi admitted he was inspired to make Fantasian after playing it again Final Fantasy VI on stream, reminding him how much he loves the genre. We’ve waited more than three years since the release of the two-part Apple Arcade, but now console gamers can experience Sakaguchi’s ambitious project with FANTASIAN Neo sizea game with flashes of brilliance – including a beautiful world and rewarding combat – is hampered by uneven pacing, brutally drawn-out encounters and a lackluster story.

Sakaguchi may have been the main writer, and Nobuo Uematsu may have been the composer, but the important thing is that Fantasian was the composer. Are not The ultimate illusion. While there are structural and thematic similarities (especially with FFVI), this is truly the pinnacle of Sakaguchi’s work to date and a love letter to the classic RPG genre.

Neo Dimension is pretty similar to the Apple Arcade release – the visuals have been tweaked a bit, full English (and Japanese) voice acting has been added, you can switch the battle tracks to multiple stages. different Final Fantasy tunes (from some songs). Pixel Remaster and more modern entries), and features a new ‘Normal Mode’ difficulty. The Apple Arcade version is notoriously difficult, especially Season 2, and Normal Mode helps soften the blow a bit.

Naturally speaking, the game is quite uneven: Leo, the main character, has amnesia. You begin your adventure by trying to piece together Leo’s memories while trying to escape Mechteria, a mechanical infection spreading across the land. Ultimately, it becomes an interdimensional adventure that touches on themes of family, power, and divinity.

One of the biggest problems is a consequence of the initial split into two parts – the first 20 hours of Fantasian may be solid, but events push you between locations and towns at a fairly rapid pace, encountering Meet new characters in almost every location. The remaining 40-50 hours will destroy that structure to get ‘Search for friends‘ setting, where you can revisit locations in any order to reunite the group and gain new allies. This means you can stumble across missions and areas that are extremely out of your depth, and due to the open structure, the plot stagnates and certain characters are pushed aside – including also Leo.

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

Yet where the story makes mistakes, the world does not. Fantasian Neo Dimension isn’t a visual powerhouse, but it’s absolutely stunning, thanks in large part to the world design. Made up of over 160 handcrafted dioramas, then photographed and converted into 3D models, you can see the amount of painstaking work that went into each building or object – the glass looks thin Delicate to the touch and the leaves sparkle delicately in the sunlight. Combined with 3D character models, it captures the essence of the pre-rendered backdrops we all remember from the PlayStation days and, aside from some fiddly controls every time the camera angle changes , it creates a truly magical world to explore.

You’ll be fascinated by every nook and cranny and easily get lost in the visuals, and Umeatsu’s soundtrack is the perfect accompaniment. This is not his best work – the main battle theme is Pretty over and over again — but there are some real highlights, like the theme of the water town of Vence, the great soundtracks, and the techno-style robot boss music.

The game looks and runs very well – for the most part. When the camera zooms in, some backgrounds look extremely blurry up close, which is a holdover from the Apple Arcade version. Luckily, everything runs at a smooth 60fps, with CGI cutscenes and special attack animations capped at 30fps. However, there are some separate and more significant performance drops – the first part focuses on cruise ships and sandstorms, and then as you take control of the ship on the world map, the controls and activities photo is jerky.

This is a classic style RPG, you can bet there will be random encounters. Combat in Fantasian is turn-based, with a typical list of attacks and skills that cost MP and a turn order indicating which character or enemy goes next. You can also swap characters in and out for free. All attacks have different areas of effect – some spells can be curved around the area to hit the back row of enemies, while other attacks target all enemies. enemies in a small circular area. Almost all enemies have a base weakness or status sensitivity, meaning each encounter has its own level of strategy.

Random encounters are only part of the story, as once you have fought enemies in an area, if you encounter them again they will be teleported inside the Dimengeon, a storage device monster. Instead of fighting groups of four or five enemies, you can store up to 30 enemies (later up to 50) and fight them all at once. It feels incredibly satisfying – and addictive – to wipe out huge groups of enemies in waves like this instead of dealing with each slower encounter.

While we loved the combat for the most part, we found ourselves feeling frustrated in the later hours by the distinct lack of variety in common enemy encounters and character skills. Finally, you’ll unlock a skill tree – called the Growth Map – that lets you spend skill points to increase stats, teach your party new attacks, and make abilities more powerful stronger. But some characters have overlapping abilities, and most spells and skills are just variations of other skills.

Dimengeon also suffers from repetition, largely because it fills up so quickly in the late game, even when you fully expand it. And while you Maybe turn it off (or dump it into a dedicated machine, for a price), which means you’ll face smaller, less rewarding battles, while also being hindered by the fact that , above level 35, the experience you gain will decrease significantly if you fight monsters that are lower level than you.

All of the strategic battles become important in the game’s boss battles – and there are a lot of them. Each boss, especially in ‘Part 2’, is like a puzzle, each requiring a specific strategy (or variation of strategy) to defeat. Sometimes you’re pushed by the game on these things, while other times you’ll have to die over and over again to find out whether you’re missing a skill, an elemental attack, or an antigen device something to help. you get over it. Luckily, you can honor your Growth Map at any time, but not being able to change gear and gems during battle is out of the question.

This is where the difficulty comes in, especially in optional battles. Make no mistake, there are some battles you will encounter in the side quests flagged at level 47, but unless you play perfect You definitely need to be at a higher level to take them down. We even played half the game on Hard Mode and the bosses were often just plain boring danger will shoot us dead if we make even the slightest mistake.

This is strictly a combat-first RPG, and those who love a challenge will likely love Fantasian, but even the easier solutions may require patience and practice. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then Fantasian Neo Dimension is an incredibly rewarding adventure.