Fantasian was created by the veteran Final Fantasy producer Hironobu Sakaguchi's studio Mistwalker, which was formed after Sakaguchi left Square Enix in 2003.  Fantasian was one of the development studio's many attempts to create a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy, joining the likes of Lost Odyssey and The Last Story. Unfortunately, the game was released exclusively for the Apple Arcade platform in 2021, and it never quite managed to take off. Here we are a few years later, and it is finally coming to consoles under the updated title of Fantasian: Neo Dimension. The title was published by Square Enix, bringing the dream team back together. Thankfully, it turns out that Sakaguchi's team hasn't lost its touch, and Fantasian is as delightful as the old-school Final Fantasy games.

As all good RPG tales do, Fantasian begins with your plucky, spiky-haired protagonist Leo waking up with amnesia. He wakes up in the middle of a robot-infested factory that he seems to have been in the middle of blowing up, thus leading to his head injury. With nothing to go on but vague memories and vaguer hints, Leo must venture across the land trying to figure out who he was, why he was there, and what it has to do with a dark god, Vam the Malevolent. Along the way, he'll be joined by princesses, old sea dogs, friendly robots and other delightful RPG mainstays that we've come to know and love.

Fantasian's plot is a back-to-basics RPG story that would fit right at home on the SNES. The characters are simple but likable and charming, the plot twists are occasionally goofy or straightforward, and it opts for distinct and memorable scenes rather than realistic ones. It instantly brought to mind the kind of nostalgia I have for later-SNES and early-PS1 RPGs, and it did so without feeling forced or artificial. It's easy to see the plot and characters being too basic for some, but I enjoyed the atmosphere and didn't mind. It helps that the game is frequently laugh-out-loud funny.

Fantasian's gameplay is as classic as its plot. You and your plucky band of adventurers go from town to town, solving problems, fighting monsters, getting new equipment and living your best JRPG protagonist lives. This isn't a criticism, as the game is aiming for that familiar vibe, and it does so well. It doesn't feel generic because the combat system alone puts the game on another level.

Initially, Fantasian's combat system might look like a standard JRPG combat system, but it handles attacks in a distinctly different way. Almost every single ally attack comes in the form of an aimable projectile. This includes obvious things like fireballs in addition to regular sword slashes and punches. Instead of selecting an enemy, you aim the attack that fires off. Different attacks have different properties, such as piercing multiple foes at once, "curving" so it can go around enemies or hit unusually positioned foes, attacks from above instead of the front, and more.

This means the very basic act of attacking requires more thought because proper use of your skills to hit multiple enemies at once is essential. Sure, you can just shoot in a straight line to hit the boss, but since the attack has a curving property, you can hit the boss and four of his allies. Likewise, your attack has actual travel time, which isn't relevant all the time, but there are certain enemies who move around to hide their weak points. You'll need to prep attacks for the most damage and time them well so the projectile hits while foes are vulnerable.

Fantasian also has a delightful amount of character variety. There's a fairly large cast, and each one tends to have its own distinct gimmicks, but there are some overlapping skills. Leo is a standard protagonist. He has strong and straightforward attacks, and he has an eclectic mix of skills, so he can do a bit of everything. Cheryl the princess is a party nuke who has huge area of effect (AoE) attacks and access to powerful single-target spells. Party tank Zinkr can draw enemy aggro and use it to power up his mighty payback skill. It's straightforward enough.

Each character can also be built multiple ways, and the game frequently encourages players to think of how to build them. Kino, the party's healer, can be built around healing others. She can also become a replacement tank who can protect and auto-heal herself, so she can absorb a ton of damage. Alternately, you can re-spec her as a powerful mage who uses deadly holy magic. You can even mix and match the builds because they're built using skill trees, and you can re-spec at any time. This is important because you're frequently encouraged to not keep someone in one role. Sometimes you need Cheryl to deal massive single-target damage, and other times, you need her to inflict poison and sleep.

All of the above is important because Fantasian is an intense RPG. While the standard foes are not too tough, bosses can categorically wreck your day if you aren't careful. Most bosses have multiple gimmicks that require careful thought and planning. One boss summons allies who power it up with their own attacks. Allow it to get powerful enough, and it will instantly wipe out your party. Another has deadly eyes that can inflict bad status effects or possibly instant death on allies but requires players to find a way to avoid this, either through protective barriers or by casting a Blind spell. Almost every boss has at least one distinct gimmick, and several have more than one.

I adore the boss fights in Fantasian. They feel like well-designed challenges that ask players to think about all of the available tools, skills and equipment options. I would often re-spec my characters because of certain requirements in boss fights. It's frequently a requirement to make sure that I could keep buffs and debuffs. There are multiple healing and defense options, status effects, and gimmicks to track, and I was thrilled every time I got into a boss fight.

The only downside is that the fights can be a marathon. They're long fights that can very quickly and easily turn against you if mess up; they can even wipe out your entire team in a single go. I love this sense of danger, but it's very easy to see someone throwing down their controller in frustration. It's also the kind of RPG where you can lock yourself into a functionally unwinnable battle and need to reload and change your gear or adjust your team. It can wreck your day if you think you can coast through fights without considering the character builds.

Even regular fights are made more interesting with the "Dimengeon" (a portmanteau of Dimension and Dungeon) feature. While Fantasian has random fights, you're only forced into a random fight the first time you encounter an enemy type — or rarely against special gimmick foes. After you've fought a foe once, it is "stored" in your Dimengeon. You can hold a limited number of fights, and once that limit is reached, you're forced into a fight against all of the stored enemies at once. You can temporarily disable this feature and fight random battles as they come, but the encounter rate is high enough that it isn't an ideal choice. You can also choose to enter the fights manually when you're ready.

You might wonder why anyone would want to put off random fights against a few enemies only to fight 30 or more later. That's where the AoE and targeting focus comes into play. The enemies in the Dimengeon will spawn in large chunks, so a powerful AoE attack that would hit two enemies in a regular fight will hit five foes. With proper skill usage, you can kill more enemies at once, despite using the same number of attacks. The Dimengeon also spawns special bonus crystals that can give your party bonuses like free attack boosts, extra turns and instant heals.

The Dimengeon is a very satisfying risk/reward mechanic. Yes, you're going to fight much bigger groups of enemies, but it feels really good to do so. The act of having one big and random enemy encounter instead of a dozen small ones feels quite good and engaging. My only real complaint is that the encounter rate is still very high, and the Dimengeon can fill up incredibly quickly in some areas. Technically, you can reset it without fighting, but it's a tedious process that requires backtracking out of the dungeon, so I don't recommend it.

The structure of Fantasian intentionally borrows from Final Fantasy 6. The first half of the game is a linear story where you follow the characters, explore dungeons and gradually get a feel for the structure and plot. In the second half, which begins with a quest referencing the iconic Final Fantasy 6 song "Searching for Friends," the world opens up, and players can explore the various areas in a non-linear way to find party members, gain power-ups, and encounter a wacky variety of side-quests. The structure feels very distinct in a good way, but it means that the early part of the game is a touch too slow-paced. It takes a long time before you can even customize your characters.

If I had one huge complaint about Fantasian, it clearly began as a mobile game, and it never quite escapes that. The interface is slightly awkward to use with a controller because it's intended for something you can tap quickly with a finger. The act of moving around is extremely annoying, as the game uses fixed camera angles that shift as you move. The analog stick movement doesn't compensate as the camera shifts, forcing you to constantly stop and start when the angle changes, or else you'll need to deal with Leo's movement suddenly feeling awkward and muddy. I got used to it, but it was a constant annoyance, as were a lot of the other tiny relics of the mobile game's legacy.

This also applies to the graphics to a certain extent. Fantasian isn't a terrible-looking game, but it's clearly an up-ressed mobile game, with some rather simplistic character models and muddy textures. The environmental design is strong enough, but it's very much a game that was designed to be viewed on a small screen, despite the genuine attempts at gussying it up. The voice acting and music are top-notch. The music by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu is excellent with a lot of memorable songs. You can also replace the battle music with tunes from pretty much every recent Final Fantasy game if you choose. The voice acting does a phenomenal job of carrying the somewhat basic script with a lot of funny performances.

Much like Bravely Default, Fantasian: Neo Dimension is functionally a Final Fantasy title that doesn't bear the Final Fantasy name. It has a very similar tone and atmosphere to the older SNES titles in the franchise, but it has enough modern elements to stand on its own merits. The story can sometimes be simplistic in a very charming way. The game's only flaws are a difficulty level that might be a touch too high for some and the lingering remnants of its mobile release heritage. If you're a fan of older Final Fantasy games, you owe it to yourself to try Fantasian.

Score: 8.5/10