Each time I load up Fantasian Neo Dimension, I feel a bit of catharsis. While it’s certainly fulfilling to find the former Apple Arcade exclusive RPG on a full-fledged console at last, what really warmed my old Final Fantasy fan heart was seeing the logos for Mistwalker and Square Enix both pass by on the way to the loading screen.
Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi left SquareSoft, the company he put on the map, shortly after it merged with its former rival, Enix—partly because of the box office shortcomings of his first feature film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. He then struck out with his own small studio, Mistwalker, and has since put out a couple smaller titles like Lost Odyssey and The Last Story. In recent years, however, he’s begun to re-enter Square Enix’s orbit, lured out by anniversary celebrations and his infatuation with the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.
Now his former home is publishing the console version of Mistwalker’s crowning achievement. It’s like watching nature heal in real time.
Fantasian Neo Dimension is, in many ways, a direct descendant of the blockbuster RPG franchise Sakaguchi once led. It’s also the kind of game that Square Enix might not have made from the ground up in 2024. Where Final Fantasy leans bombastically on the most cutting edge technology possible, Fantasian is insular, with an almost cottage vibe—though it’s not without its own epic ambitions.
A lot of this stems from the incredibly unique approach that Mistwalker took to its visuals. Each environment in the game was first rendered as a real world diorama, then scanned into the game for the computer-rendered characters to interact with—akin to the way polygonal characters in Final Fantasy VII moved upon pre-rendered images. It’s a novel approach to level design that lends each locale a distinct character.
“Beneath the balancing, voices, and 4K makeover, the original game within Fantasian Neo Dimension is a lesson in RPG fundamentals.”
While it was previously playable on Apple TV, Fantasian Neo Dimension breaks the original game off of iPhones and iPads, putting those handmade environments on more TV screens than before. The handmade flora makes the transition to next-gen hardware and larger resolutions well. (By the same token, I’m curious to see how the visuals translate onto the Nintendo Switch, especially with the OLED’s display.)
Some environments have more life than others, granted; the desert climate of the first city feels a little flat, but the cities and forests that follow really benefit from the texture that can only come from real world materials. Either way, each diorama feels distinct, and evokes a PSone-era vibe of world design.
There is one small side effect to this approach, however. I did find that when the camera shifts to a new angle of the same diorama, the directional controls go off-base a little. It’s nothing that can’t be fixed by stopping for a split-second and course correcting, but it is a small, unfortunate disruption.
The story follows Leo, a mysterious young rogue with amnesia who finds himself stuck in a world ravaged by a biomechanical infection. He joins up with Kina, a woman with a rare magical gift, and Cheryl, a princess he apparently scorned, to regain his memories and put an end to whatever caused this “mechteria” to slowly encroach over the world.
Fantasian Neo Dimension brings voice acting to most of the game’s dialog, which is a welcome addition now that the game is on consoles. This is especially potent for the “memory” cutscenes, short vignettes that unfold in storybook fashion to illuminate Leo’s restoring memories or backstory moments from other characters. I especially liked how each random battle also starts with a quick quip from someone in the party, perfectly timed to a certain cadence in the battle theme.
“Fantasian Neo Dimension brings voice acting to most of the game’s dialog…”
This console version also tweaks the difficulty curve for combat with the addition of a “Normal” difficulty option. Without having played much of the mobile iteration, I can’t speak to the difference per se, but even on Normal some early bosses still require you to know what you’re doing and utilize the battle engine’s tools to come out alive.
Beneath the balancing, voices, and 4K makeover, the original game within Fantasian Neo Dimension is a lesson in RPG fundamentals with some worthwhile additions that help it stand out. Old-school RPG fans will be right at home: combat itself is true turn-based, and characters have their unique skill sets. Basic attack inputs are mapped to the left trigger, and the right trigger tells the character to repeat their last special attack or item they used. In this regard the mobile game DNA is obvious, but at the same time these controller inputs have been optimized, especially when a character is repeating the same actions. It’s easy to get the hang of it after a couple of more complex battles.
Aiming is an important consideration, however, in a welcome twist for the genre. Certain attacks, like Leo’s slashing techniques, can be aimed toward a specific point, allowing them to hit multiple targets. This is especially true for many magic spells, like Kina’s Holy, which can even be curved like the assassins in Wanted, hitting enemies at unconventional angles or even bypassing guards. Thanks to considerations like this, some encounters in Fantasian Neo Dimension have a puzzle-like quality, only heightened by the diorama visuals.
Going hand-in-hand with this is the “Dimengeon” feature. Thanks to a device Leo obtains early on, Fantasian Neo Dimension‘s random battles can essentially be turned off; the enemies you would fight in an encounter are stored in the gadget until you choose to take them all on at once (or until you reach capacity). This not only bypasses the cliché of over-abundant random battles and keeps players invested in their exploration, it also creates more stimulating mega-battles that can be played, more or less, at leisure.
It’s these clever circumventions of RPG mechanics that truly enamoured me with Fantasian Neo Dimension. It may not pack the same crunchy character customization as some of the games Sakaguchi oversaw in the SquareSoft days, but it still has that pioneering spirit that led his former studio to works of art like Chrono Trigger or Xenogears.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Sakaguchi is not the only SquareSoft vet returning, as Fantasian Neo Dimension also features a score by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu. In fact, Fantasian will almost certainly be the last complete game soundtrack he composes—making another reason to be glad the game is seeing a wider release.
I wish I could say it rivals his timeless work on Final Fantasy, but it doesn’t quite surpass the likes of FFVII or VIII. Nonetheless, it’s a Uematsu score, so it’s naturally fantastic. The music remains the same as the original release, without re-orchestration like the Pixel Remasters received, though there’s also a smattering of classics pulled from Final Fantasy games that can be used in battle, should you feel inclined to cross the streams.
Ultimately Fantasian Neo Dimension may not be as dynamic, flashy, or boisterous as many modern RPGs, and that’s exactly what makes it something that any longtime JRPG fan should check out now that it’s available on all modern platforms. It feels like a gift Sakaguchi has given back to the industry, a reminder of the core spirit behind the genre and his corpus; it’s a lesson on fundamentals, and how to bend them (literally, in the case of the magic), all rendered in the most unique way the industry has seen in many years.
