Fantasian Neo Dimension Review

A Tale of Two Halves

Who says old hands can’t be taught new tricks?  The Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, and his team at Mistwalker, took a lot of creative gameplay ideas and mixed it with a traditional RPG story formula to create Fantasian.  What was originally released on the Apple Arcade in two parts received some sprucing up with Square Enix coming on board to release it as Fantasian Neo Dimension on PC and consoles.  There is a decided shift from a light-hearted adventure to a grueling difficulty spike against a lot of bosses in the second half that takes some adjusting to, but the great gameplay and stunning presentation shine throughout.

Fantasian begins as Leo wakes up in a mechanical world with no idea of who he is or how he got there.  While fleeing a giant robot, he uses a magical device and, poof, appears in a frontier town.  Leo’s only memory is of a woman he met in this village, so Leo begins retracing his steps to figure out who he is, meeting up with new and former companions along the way.  What starts as a simple journey of camaraderie and hijinks is derailed by the ominous Vam, a harbringer of chaos that fancies himself a God.  Through this chaos, he is sowing mechteria around the world.  Mechteria is a mechanical spore that spews poison and drains the life of all that are nearby.  When this mechteria starts to invade more of the human realm, it intersects with Leo’s journey of self-discovery, leading to the ragtag group’s quest expanding to saving everything.

This type of story is definitely nothing new to RPGs. However, it is well crafted and dripping in charm every step of the way through, making it an easy journey to progress.  Experienced players will spot certain character types and moments pioneered by Sakaguchi.  The first half is littered with moments where the party is split up because someone was kidnapped, incapacitated, or otherwise doing something opposite to Leo’s path.  This half is linear, but shines as a lot of comedic touches and character building is found here.  In the second half, things open up exponentially and makes it feel more like unknown territory for a veteran development staff.  In opening up the world, Fantasian loses its smaller character moments; everything feels like part of something grander and since it is technically approachable in any order, the latter half is less intimate than if it was planned out.

Some fights just overload the screen with enemies making for a fun game of whack-a-mole.

The cast of characters are capably voiced and capture the dialogue well.  Everyone gets little moments to shine, but a few party members’s involvement is largely relegated to personal side quests as they interact minimally with the others.  The game’s moments are beautifully uplifted by a wonderful soundtrack from Nobuo Uematsu.  The Neo Dimension version also adds in the option to swap out the original combat music with various Final Fantasy titles, furthering the ties between this title and others from its creators’ pasts.  The game is littered with little visual, musical, and stylistic choices that feel like odes to Sakaguchi and Uematsu’s past with Squaresoft and makes Fantasian Neo Dimension feel like a fine encapsulation of their life’s work in case another opportunity never comes.

One of the novel ways Fantasian makes its presentation truly different is how the maps are presented.  Each area that the players traverse through was created as a physical diorama, and moving around every meticulously crafted set piece is such a joy to take in, especially as players see it shift around them when the camera moves to present the best angle.  Visually, this is always stunning, however, it causes some interaction issues.  The shifts in camera are not accompanied by a change in directional control until players stop moving, creating a temporarily confusing disparity between input and output.  This sensation is clunkier when trying to helm a vehicle, even with less angle shifts it can take some time to move the vehicle where players want it to go.  Beyond just seeing every nook and cranny that the camera angles show in each detailed diorama, there’s treasure to find, giving additional reason to check out everywhere as Leo goes to various locales.

Beyond in-game rendered story scenes, there’s these hand-drawn beautiful artworks that are accompanied by narration.

Unless Leo is in a town, exploration leads to a lot of combat.  Players that don’t make use of Fantasian’s novel Dimengeon system will find themselves fighting every few steps, like it was a title from the 1990s.  The system keeps things fresh by taking the enemies from the random encounter and stashing them away.  When the Dimengeon becomes full, or when players choose to empty it, the party enters a large alternate dimension battlefield that slowly fills with enemies until the fight is completed.  There are multiple ways to dish out damage, from elemental special abilities, to utilizing trajectories.  These make an open and slightly randomized playground more preferable than seeing the same formations of enemies found in an area.  Combat against certain special enemies, or any newly encountered foe have to be fought during exploration, but otherwise players are free to use Dimengeon to help give them time to explore.

Fantasian comes with two distinct character growth systems depending on which half of the game players happen to be in. In the first half of the game, abilities are tied to level-ups, allowing the pool of skills to slowly grow, with the party rotating in line with the story.  As the second half swiftly brings all the members together, it adds new layers of strategy to every fight as they can be rotated in and out during combat.  There is a tendency for party members to become specialists dishing out specific elemental damage, with some being better at healing, buffing, or tanking depending on what’s needed at the time.  Customization opens up as players are introduced to a growth map, which gives every character different sub-categories to branch into, improving their existing skills or learning some new ones to make them more rounded.  This growth map is quite extensive and has a lot of overlap, but there are definitely a few skills on there for each party member that makes them feel unique, with the option to reset it for free at any time.

As options grow for players so does the difficulty.  The first half of Fantasian Neo Dimension is rather breezy, showcasing newly learned abilities as enemies have generally simple mechanics to make it through.  The second half takes the kid gloves off and tries to bare-knuckle box players like they stepped in to an MMA octagon.  This feeling comes from the relentless boss fights, which beyond ramping up in difficulty, also become much more frequent.  The bosses are all quite distinct, and some use mechanics not seen elsewhere, while others have a set of attacks or weaknesses that always keep players on their toes and ready to swap party members out when necessary.  Items, buffs, and debuffs are musts in this half, some fights are nearly impossible without using certain mechanics, but outside of one particular instance where a specific growth map skill is needed, there’s still some freedom in how to approach these bosses.  Even with optimal equipment and skills, deaths will be frequent as players learn the ins and outs of how each boss works.  This approach is both incredibly rewarding and also quite taxing.  Boss fights are never short or simple, and they appear in most quests of the game.

Recurring and heartwarming the Cinderella Tri-Stars are always around for some comedy and boss fights.

This spike in difficulty and shift in gameplay focus causes some issues with the overall pacing of Fantasian Neo Dimension.  The first half of the title focuses on the journey, while the second half more the destination.  What this means is that little character moments and even some story beats feel more fleshed out in the early going, giving way to a relentless fistfight with increasingly difficult enemies and less thematic thread to connect them.  While there’s greater gameplay freedom in the second half, many of the games sidequests offer access to unique abilities on the growth map or equipment that feels necessary for progress.  Luckily, these side ventures also hold unique combat mechanics and even a series of dungeons where the perspective shifts to a full on first-person dungeon crawler.  There’s little left on the table as almost every trick available from its systems is represented in a well-crafted adventure.  Conversely, it offers little breathing room, and greater thematic weight given to some of these side ventures would result in things feeling like a total package, rather than temporary puzzles to figure out.

Fantasian Neo Dimension is a tale of two halves.  Its first half feels like an homage to the older parts of the legendary catalogue of its creators.  The second half, meanwhile, feels like that homage got to flex its muscles and pummel players into submission as they endeavor against boss fights until the adventure reaches its conclusion.  Those able to adapt to the shifting changes between halves will find a love letter to turn-based RPGs that could only come from lifelong experts.  The pacing shifts cause a juxtaposition between a restrictive feeling start and thematically minimal end, which just goes to show that even experts can find ways to grow in a given field.  Where passion, creativity, and talent co-exist in such a lovely harmony always means there’s new avenues to explore and this wonderful game is worth undertaking the journey.

Scores
BATTLE SYSTEM
    
INTERACTION
    
ORIGINALITY
    
STORY
    
MUSIC & SOUND
    
VISUALS
    
'Great' -- 4.0/5
nsw
60-80 HOURS
HARD

Diorama-based visuals create a unique look

Truly feels like a love letter to the storied careers of RPG titans

All boss battles showcase something a little different

Excessive boss fights in the second half throws off the pacing

Character building takes a back seat in the second half

Dalandar

Ryan Costa

Friendly neighbourhood reviewer that thinks every RPG should be discussed, because one never knows where a hidden gem can appear.

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