Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series, is returning to the world of epic RPGs with Fantasian, an Apple Arcade exclusive launching today. That’s worth celebrating. After spending the last decade exploring the world of mobile gaming with his studio Mistwalker, Fantasian is Sakaguchi’s first narrative RPG since the 2011 Wii title The Last Story. And it also looks unlike any RPG — the backgrounds are captured from hand-built miniature sets, giving it a diorama-like aesthetic.
Gallery: Fantasian on Apple Arcade | 10 Photos
Gallery: Fantasian on Apple Arcade | 10 Photos
Couple that with a unique battle system, which lets you stack up a backlog of enemies to fight all at once, and Fantasian has the potential to transcend the label of a “mobile RPG.” At the very least, it’s far removed from Mistwalker’s shuttered Terra Battle and Terra Wars games on smartphones, and more like what Sakaguchi’s consoles fans expect. (It even has music from Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu!) While the studio never quite reached the heights of Sakaguchi’s time with Square, 2007’s Lost Odyssey on the Xbox 360 and The Last Story were both reminders that he can still craft a compelling RPG.
Speaking from his Hawaii home, via a translator, Sakaguchi tells Engadget that his love for model kits and crafting things with his hands led to Fantasian’s unique aesthetic. With Terra Wars, he experimented with bringing the diorama look to games, but that was a fairly simple strategy title. "As I was staring at these [miniatures] every day, it got me wondering about how cool it would be to explore and immerse yourself in this world in a more narrative driven experience,” he said.
Aside from the diorama effect, Fantasian appears to be an otherwise traditional RPG. You play as Leo, an amnesiac boy who’s seeking to reclaim his memories in a world ruled by machines. Naturally, you’ll end up diving into a greater mystery: Why the world is being taken over by a mechanical infection. As an Apple Arcade title, you’ll be able to play it on iPhones, iPads, Macs and even the Apple TV, with your progress following across every device.
As for his preferred platform to play the game, Sakaguchi says he mostly plays on his Mac with a studio monitor, so he can closely inspect the game’s 4K textures. “I think that really highlights a lot of attention in detail, especially in the diorama and handcrafted nature,” Sakaguchi said.
And while he admits he’d be happy to see others play the game at its highest resolution, he’s also intrigued by touchscreen interfaces, as it's almost like players are directly touching the hand-built backgrounds. “There's a lot of this human touch, so I think that’s very synergistic,” he said. In that respect, he’d recommend playing on a large-screened iPad. (That’s how I plan to spend most of my time with the game.)
Fantasian’s “Dimengeons” system, an alternate dimension where you can save enemy encounters for a later time, came about almost by accident. While testing the game on a touchscreen, Sakaguchi tells us, he had a character try to reach a treasure chest in a far-off area. He watched as they walked through multiple areas, transitioned between screens, and ultimately found that to be a rewarding way to explore the game’s environments. “So instead of that being interrupted by random encounters, we wanted to give players the option to, if they wanted to, focus on exploration and discovery of the game,” he said.
