Ever since Hironobu Sakaguchi left Squaresoft to become Square Enix, the company has never been the same. The most noticeable changes were felt in the company’s flagship JRPG series, Final fantasy. Since Sakaguchi’s departure, each entry has lacked his guiding vision and input, causing the franchise to lose its identity and become generic Square Enix products.
Where was Final fantasy‘s sacred line? It could have been in Sakaguchi the whole time. He founded Mistwalker and produced two of some of the last AAA JPRGs of their time. Anyone who played Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey in the late 2000s would argue that they felt more like Final fantasy games than reality Final Fantasy XIII released around the same time.
After nostalgic waxing while streaming Final Fantasy VISakaguchi returned to making epic JRPGs Fantastic on Apple Arcade in 2021. Like most games on Apple, it didn’t reach its target audience, but now it has received an improved port for all platforms. Can Sakaguchi make an epic JRPG with miniatures? Is this Nobuo Uematsu’s swan song? Discover it in our Fantastic Neo Dimension judgement!
FANTASIC Neo-Dimension
Developer: Mistwalker
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: Windows PCApple Arcade (as FANTASIAN), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (review)
Release date: December 5, 2024
Price: $49.99
The moment Fantastic Neo Dimension starts, you feel like you are in good hands. Leo, the main character, is introduced in a bombastic action scene and wakes up with amnesia, surrounded by a mechanical metropolis. The camera pulls back to reveal the epic scale of the industrial nightmare as Uematsu’s music swells and the title fades away.
Leo ends up in the machine world without any idea what he is doing or how he got there. All he knows is that he is talented with a knife, and there are a few droids to help him. The player will be as confused as they are and find themselves in a strange world and a compelling mystery to discover.
After a tense introductory sequence, Leo finds himself in the remote town of En. It isn’t long before the mystery surrounding his identity expands and he meets characters who already know him. He becomes a bodyguard for Kina, a mysterious girl with a flair for detecting evil and a cute short dress.
Kina’s past is one of the many questions in Fantasian and it motivates her to go out into the world with Leo. As they discover their fate, they discover the truth behind a mechanical parasite infecting the world, and a powerful entity known as Vam the Malevolent.
The “mechteria” (bacteria+machine) harvest energy from the people of Vibra. This reads like a metaphor for technology taking over our lives. The infected become listless, hollowed out shells of their former selves, driving the wildlife insane with rage.
Mechteria’s true purpose ties in with what makes something convincing Final fantasy-ish story. Its explanation is both surreal and completely logical in a metaphysical way that only Sakaguchi can create work. Without revealing too much, the stakes are very high and the fate of two worlds is at stake.
Many RPGs may rely on the “amnesiac protagonist” as a lazy shorthand to make the hero a blank slate for easy exposition. Fantastic Neo Dimension reinterprets the cliché and uses it to create intrigue. Leo may have lost his memory, but he has a lot of personality. The story relies on the inequality of amnesia as a crucial plot point and adds to Leo’s story as it progresses.
During the adventure, Leo meets many characters, a few of which become party members. Kina will win the hearts of gamers. She is an amalgam of Terra and Aerith Final Fantasy VI And VII as evidenced by her flair for healing, staves, sacred magic, and desire to find her place in the world.
Cheryl is a wonderfully sassy and decent princess with a tsundere streak who isn’t afraid to get into trouble. She turned out to be my favorite character because of her gothic-esque dress and because she was the funniest character in the game. Her attack stats are among the highest, but due to her graceful body, she can barely take a hit. Speaking of beauty and the beast… she is both.
There are more likable and well-written characters to join the party, like Prickle, the warm-hearted robot who was inspired by Robo from Chrono trigger. There’s the affable, burly Captain Zinikir, who is more than an airship captain, and the enigmatic Tan who uses a vicious dog-like creature to attack, like Shadow from Final Fantasy VI.
The pace is fantastic. There isn’t an overly structured template for how the story unfolds, which makes the game exciting. Players are drawn into the setting as they are invited to delve deeper into its mysteries. The first part is fairly linear, but gradually opens up, and Leo can teleport to previously visited locations.
Teleporting and fast travel aren’t just useful quality-of-life features Fantastic; they play an important role in the plot. The story revolves around Leo’s ability to bypass Vibra and travel to the robot world in the blink of an eye. It’s a feature that won’t always be available, and warrants writing when it’s taken away.
Fantastic was originally released in two parts for Apple Arcade, and the seam between the two parts is still visible. In Part 2, new party members appear after the story takes a dramatic turn that feels like F’s World of Ruin seriesfinal Fantasy VI. Players will also have to search for their friends in an open and non-linear style.
Most basic battles won’t pose much of a threat, but bosses will ramp up the tension. Many bosses can be long and grueling battles where victory comes at the skin of your teeth. Some bosses are puzzle-like in design and having too many levels doesn’t make things any easier. You need all the tools, especially consumables.
This is also one of the few JRPGs that allows bad statuses to be a viable strategy against enemies and bosses. Combat moves quickly with quick animations and the trajectory system makes attacking multiple enemies satisfying as the damage values explode on screen.
Thanks to the helpful Final Fantasy X-like queuing system: players receive enough information to make informed and strategic choices. There is never a mistake about whose turn it is and manipulating the turn order also proves to be a smart tactic. Fantastic Neo Dimension has a solid turn-based combat system that is as reliable as possible.
Sometimes the random encounters can be a bit much, so Mistwalker came up with the ingenious Dimengeon. This pocket-sized device allows players to skip and save random encounters, such as rising debt. Eventually the Dimengeon will fill up and gamers will have to fight every saved enemy at once, but the option to fight its contents anytime is always there.
There’s never a reason not to use the Dimengeon, as battles are spaced further apart and Leo and the gang can gain stray buffs when fighting in it. This mechanic is so genius that it should be applied to all future JRPGs with random encounters.
The only signs that Fantastic was a mobile game that lies because of its ugly UI design that smells like a touch screen aesthetic. Everything is organized as if it were a mobile game with flat and minimalist graphics. It doesn’t fit into the maximalist and highly structured, handmade diorama worlds that look and feel tangible.
The backgrounds will impress fans of the PS1 era Final fantasy games. They evoke the same kind of pre-rendered charm that made these backgrounds attractive and picturesque. The only problem with the dioramas is that they don’t always work as intended. Moving between shots makes the camera transition with an artificial movement that gives away the flatness and some foreground elements don’t always stay in the foreground.
Sometimes the dioramas are shot with a shallow depth of field and the effect is not applied to the characters, breaking the illusion that they exist together. Other times, some shots are low resolution, which looks rough during some scenes as the 3D characters are always razor sharp. The use of diorama photography for RPG environments is an inspired choice, but in the future they could use some finesse.
Square Enix has created Final fantasy games since Sakaguchi left Squaresoft. Final fantasy has been struggling with an identity crisis ever since. These are games that cost tens of millions of dollars and have hundreds of employees and countless resources behind them, yet they don’t underperform. The company has been desperately trying to make it Final fantasy in everything, except being true to oneself.
Mistwalker proves that an epic fantasy JRPG can be achieved with a modest budget for the Unity engine and a few dioramas. It turns out they didn’t need all those resources. A confident vision was needed. Fantastic looks, plays, sounds and feels more like anything Final fantasy should be more than anything Square Enix has produced since Sakaguchi left the company.
Fantastic Neo Dimension is the third Mistwalker JRPG that feels like a miss Final fantasy. If you squint, it might look like a fourth PS1 Final fantasy. Nobuo Uematsu’s music will bring the boys home and make this game an honorary title Final fantasy game. It may not be his most epic score, but his signature sound is iconic and giving Fantastic his identity.
One of the additional features in this updated port is the addition of others Final fantasy scores to play during battles. The choices are strange because most of them were not composed by Uematsu or rearranged by anyone else. It’s nice to have during grind sessions, but it feels wrong not to play the music he composed for this game, especially since it might be his last.
Production values have been inherently modest since then Fantastic Neo Dimension was probably made on a shoestring budget, but that doesn’t stop it from aiming for and reaching for the stars. This was a very responsibly made JRPG with an epic vision and scope, with a compelling adventure, mystery and a cast of likable characters. It scratches that very specific itch that is only real Final fantasy can scratch.
FANTASIC Neo-dimension was reviewed on a PS5 using a code from Square Enix. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. FANTASIC Neo-Dimension is now available for PC (via Steam), Apple Arcade, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.