It’s very hard to innovate in JRPGs. astray too much from old school turn based action and a bunch of nerds get mad, but faithfully recreate an older game and get called derivative all your life.
Yet with FANTASIAN Neo Dimension, you get a game that honest-to-goodness tries. I’d played the original FANTASIAN back when it was only on Apple Arcade: its a beautiful game by none other than Hironobu Sakaguchi himself, set against the backdrops of some truly indulgent miniature work.
Now that the game is playable on consoles, I gotta say the jump from touchscreen to pad is pretty smooth. Attacks and skills have their button prompts, while choosing which skill per se still requires some menu navigation- you know; the kind JRPG fans live for.
Fantasian Neo Dimension Tests Your Ability To Draw Straight Lines
Still, if you’re new to FANTASIAN get ready for some genuinely fun twists to gameplay. Enemy positioning matters, as your attacks can be plotted against a line to hit as many mooks as possible.
Of course, there’s more to it than just that- the boss at the end of the TGS demo even had two enemies switch positions, with one of them actively shielding the other from a princess with attitude and her army of spectral dragoons.
To me that’s the magic of FANTASIAN- back in the day we all wanted to argue about sprites in RPGs not affecting their stats, but FANTASIAN Neo Dimension actually having these things indicate boss phases is a genuinely cool concept that I’m glad more people get to experience on their TVs.
Like A Turn Based Musou
If you’re a fan of the line based attacks I highly recommend using the Dimengeon system too- this basically turns off random encounters, but stores every enemy before exploding into a 30-man battle where you’re lining up your skills to do in as many trash mobs as possible. It’s basically a turn based Musou with how much fun it is firing off your biggest skills and grabbing powerups that either buff your attack or give you extra turns.
If you’re hankering for a JRPG that dives headfirst into turn based shenanigans, you’ll owe it to yourself to check out FANTASIAN Neo Dimension when it launches 5th December 2024 for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC. From the fun battles to the gorgeous dioramas, you may even find yourself enjoying it more now that it’s not on the same device you’re using to get ghosted on tinder.
