The story is typical Sakaguchi, as it is epic and hilarious and in the end it is a fine-tuned and memorable, even if it never reaches the same soaring heights as Cloud's journey. The story is very similar to the one in Final Fantasy VII with everything from environmental destruction, memory loss and innocent romance as basic foundations for the narrative. In order to regain his memory, find his way back to himself and on the coup try to put everything in place, again - Leo needs to find the girl who saved him, find out what's going on with the world and who's behind it all. The world is on fire, an evil race of droids has invaded and slowly but surely everything from natural resources to the freedom that man once enjoyed is being strangled. The fantasy revolves around the hero Leo who wakes up in a burning industrial room, dazzled by laser lights from a howling alarm as well as by a memory loss that has left him completely empty besides an small fragment of a girl, who at one point saved his life. This is because Final Fantasy VII is a memory that I will always cherish, an adventure that I have loved dearly for 24 long years, and Fantasian is in many ways a lovely retro return to everything that made Cloud's cyberpunk-inspired journey through Midgar so memorable. Since then, I have been waiting, secretly. But when Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi announced almost three years ago that he would make a final RPG and that that adventure would be designed and structured to mimic the layout, style and narrative of Final Fantasy VII, I naturally lit up. This, apart from a few exceptions (Secret of Mana, FFVII, Zelda), is not a genre that I am ever associated with. That was the last time I reviewed a traditional Japanese role-playing game. There are some more screenshots in the corresponding screenshot gallery.1997. I still encourage fans of old-school Final Fantasy games and classic JRPGs in general to give Fantasian a try, if you can somehow get your hands on a compatible iOS device. The game is an exclusive of the Apple Arcade subscription service, and being produced directly by Apple, there is not much hope to see ports to other platforms anytime soon. Sadly, there is no multiple CD PlayStation 1 version of Fantasian. Think of it has being the first two discs of a 4-CD game. While this first episode thankfully doesn’t end with a cruel cliffhanger, its conclusion is not conclusive, either. Fantasian will be followed by a second part later this year. So is Fantasian the modernized PlayStation 1 era Final Fantasy that some fans were waiting for? Yes, it is. Each boss enemy requires an effective strategy, demanding quite some attention (and not a few consumable items). But be careful: Once the device hits its limit, all enemies have to be battled at once! Speaking of challenging encounters, the boss fights are a highlight in that regard. This can lift some pressure while exploring Fantasians beautiful surroundings. Random encounters do make a return, but not without a twist: Most of the time, Leo has access to a device that traps known enemies in another dimension, where they can be fought at a later point in time. For example, one hero can combine items to produce various effects, similar to the chemist job in Final Fantasy V. Every character has a unique and interesting skill set. Similar to Mistwalkers previous effort Lost Odyssey, certain scenes are told only via text and artwork, to great emotional effect.īattles in Fantasian use a classic turn-based system, with the acting order of allies and enemies always clearly indicated. Despite re-using well-known concepts, the storyline is a fun one to follow. Some of that sounds familiar to the narratives of older Final Fantasy games. His quest to reclaim his forgotten memories draws Leo and his companions into a multi-dimensional conflict. The storyline follows thief treasure-hunter Leo, who suffers from the illness JRPG protagonists fear the most: Amnesia. But instead of using pre-rendered scenes, the world of Fantasian is made of beautifully hand-crafted dioramas, that were scanned and integrated into the game. The most obvious throwback is the visual style: The game features static backgrounds and 3D models rendered in real-time. Despite being 20 years late, an effort like this is very much welcome these days! It is a game that can best be described as the fourth PlayStation 1 Final Fantasy entry we never got back then. Mistwalker - tested on the Apple iPad in 2021 by Binary Scrollįantasian is the latest roleplaying-game by Mistwalker, the studio of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi.
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