Fantasian is a classic RPG at its core, with plenty of new tricks and a fresh art style to keep it relatable in the age of AAA cinematic experiences. The unique characters are delightful and full of intrigue, the story is engaging, and the visuals speak for themselves. Having multiple options for controls and a unique way of handling random enemy encounters makes this a game suitable for anyone looking to get lost in a fantasy adventure. While it’s not currently complete, if the game’s second half matches even a sliver of its first half in quality, the game will continue to be an absolute must-play title on Apple Arcade.
Fantasian is a declaration of love for both the JRPG genre and the community of RPG fans. The fantasy epic, available exclusively on Apple Arcade, is an absolute jewel that has nothing to envy to the great works of the past: an exciting and magical, long-lived and rewarding adventure, born from the same skilled hands that forged Final Fantasy. For our part, after more than twenty hours spent in the wonderful world of Fantasian, we cannot help but await, with trepidation, the second part of this extraordinary journey which, perhaps, will represent the heartfelt farewell to the career of a visionary author like Sakaguchi.
The father of Final Fantasy creates another masterpiece that transports us back to the golden era of PS1 Final Fantasies.
The handcraft scenarios are pure art, the music composed by Nobuo Uematsu is pure magic and the story and characters have that charm of the finest JRPGs.
For 5€/month (the price of Apple Arcade subscription) It’s a must play for all Apple devices gamers.
Let’s hope It’s only a timed Apple exclusive: this game deserves to be played by everyone (and in Nintendo Switch it would sell like hotcakes).
This is the true Final Fantasy game. To me anything written by Hironobu Sakaguch with music by Nobuo Uematsu is FF Canon, anything SE makes is fanfiction, with the exception of maybe Final Fantasy XIV since it's decent and Yoshi-P actually does a great job directing and it's a nice love letter to the franchise. Otherwise the game itself ramps up in difficulty and even if you grind there's still strategies required for the many bosses throughout the game, and once you're over the level of the monsters you're grinding you get so much less exp so you have to find stronger enemies, making you go out and explore and do many quests throughout the game. Many of these quests have a purpose too.
The music is the best part of the game as well as the battle system and the story with the genius behind it, Sakaguchi himself. It's a unique setting as each land and area is designed with real life dioramas and placed digitally inside the game for you to explore.
This game has so much charm and nostalgia feeling, it'll truly make you feel like you're playing just another FF.
To me, Lost Odyssey is Final Fantasy 13 and Fantasian is Final Fantasy 15. The last story was decent too but it could've been much better to start out a parallel FF franchise, so it just wasn't good enough for that.
Rumor goes that this is once again Sakaguchi's project, but maybe that's his marketing tactics yet again to create another FF big series. If this truly does become his last project, it's definitely a masterpiece to leave us all with. Go try it out. Get apple arcade free for one month trial. Borrow an apple product from a friend if you don't have one, or hopefully one day it'll be released for more than just apple products. It's a must play for sure.
Fantasian is a love letter to the classic JRPG genre and one of its best evolutions ever. Mistwalker succeeds in injecting new life in an (apparently) old shell and makes this game shine both in aesthetics and gameplay.
Fantasian is a very demanding experience, and you really have to be in love with its mechanics to put up with it all. Heaven knows the narrative isn’t going to keep you motivated. Fantasian is an absolute masterpiece in most regards, and yet I find myself struggling to recommend it.
Fantasian draws clear inspiration from mid-numbered Final Fantasy games. From its orthodox structure — players are put in control of a party of heroes who explore towns, dungeons, and an overworld map, with turn-based battle occurring at random intervals — to its sci-fi-cum-fantasy vibe, which includes grand airships, imaginative monsters, and even glowing save crystals, anyone who played a turn-of-the-century Japanese role-playing game is going to experience some welcome nostalgia here — especially when Uematsu’s signature battle music and themes kick in.
Despite the generic plot, Fantasian is a completely serviceable JRPG that checks all the boxes, plays with some interesting new ideas, and has a gorgeous diorama world for players to explore. It doesn't feel like the proper last big hoorah for legendary game developer Hironobu Sakaguchi or composer Nobuo Uematsu (who does a tremendous job with the soundtrack), but it's still a decent, familiar JRPG experience and one of the more interesting games currently available on Apple Arcade.
Much as our heroes are caught between two worlds, Fantasian has one foot in design dogma while the other paddles around cautiously in new ideas. The result is a lengthy and sumptuous genre piece, the equivalent of a good Netflix movie that you probably wouldn’t watch at the cinema. These days, that’s more of a compliment than it used to be.
Much like the jewels you find in the game itself, I'm extremely glad I stumbled upon this JRPG diamond. Beautiful visuals and such an amazing soundtrack that I listen to by itself. The story is fantastic so far as well despite the continual critics fussing about a few worn-out tropes. Fantasian got me back into liking RPGs and I'm stoked for the second part!
Fantasian is one of the best jrpg's ive played in years, which is not saying too much since i havent enjoyed barely any jrpg post 2010 or so. But i've had so much fun with this game and i wish i could rate it higher.
Pros:
-Fun exploration and so much to do, Part 2 is amazing.
-Many side quests, upgrades and bunch of customizations for many characters
-Its very long and to me thats a good thing when its done with quality.
-Has a very classic rpg feel to it with many surprises.
-Challenging game that makes you think, i love many aspects of the strategies you have to figure out and you really have to think and its so much fun to have a good strategy be successful in a boss fight. I mean you better because there's not too much else this game offers but the battles.
-Amazing and rewarding battle system that really opens up after 25 hours.
-Environment and graphics are really well done.
Cons:
- Missions not displaying the appropriate level, easy to be stuck for hours on a lv50 mission while even being on lv55, doesnt matter sometimes, its very random
-Instead of 40 challenging bosses you have 4000 mandatory crazy **** game is so hard that i dont think i wanna bring myself to play it ever again, and i love difficult games.
- No respecter of my time - Whole game is an endless random encounter which leads to the boss fight and every boss drags on for so long and after 30min he has that tedious killmove and you think "Ah i shouldve brought that item or changed to that skill in the grid" Which is fine if the battle isnt so insanely long and you learn it always at the end of the fight. I feel like many of those bosses should be optional but they are 90% mandatory, even the "sidequests" which many are actually mandatory in order to open some gate etc.
-Its only on apple and it crashes sometimes, also saves are stored on Apple, i hope if add it on different consoles there will be cloud save transfer. So much time investment and i heard people lose their saves because Apple is unstable save cloud wise.
-The characters and story is really, really bad - I mean the characters themselves are pretty cool but they have zero chemistry and they dont really interact with each other.
-Sakaguchi made Final Fantasy and having a typical anime story with a boy surrounded by 2 girls that are obsessed with him was disappointing to say the least but it wasnt terrible, i just expected way more because his stories are my favorite of all time.
-I wish the game had more towns instead of grinding places.
Conclusion:
All in all having Uematsu and Sakaguchi finally joining forces again is amazing and i've been loving the game, the musical score is good, nothing crazy compared to Nobou's FF masterpieces but still pretty good.
I love the surprises in this game and the creativity that the game exudes, its rare for a game to be this exciting for 60+ hours, i just wish the character interactions and story would be more expansive instead of the mandatory endless grind which 80% of the game consists of.
+ First half is great.
+ Music is excellent.
+ Simple but fun combat system.
+ Great progression system.
+ Genius way of handling ‘random battles’
- Serious controller issues when using a controller.
- Exclusive to a platform that most probably won’t bother with.
- Story is a little weak, not Sakaguichi’s best work. Lost Odyssey has a better story.
- Second half becomes a monotonous grind fest that will most likely make you want to drop it half way through. The bosses have way too much HP and everything feels like a super boss instead of an actual legitimate challenge.
The first half was great and is pretty much a 9/10 and I recommend anyone to atleast play that much. The second half has serious pacing and requires hours of grinding just to get anywhere. The second half tries too hard to be too hard for its own good and it shows. Right now, if you own any apple device it’s probably worth picking up, just be aware of what happens in the second half will probably turn you off unless you’re that much into hard RPG’s that you don’t care. Some may like the challenge but I felt it was too off putting and a shame considering how good the first half was.
If you don’t own an Apple device, is it really worth investing in one just to play this game? No. Maybe wait, see if it ever comes to PC or another platform, though it probably won’t but it’s just not worth the price of admission. Don’t look at my score and think it’s a garbage game, the first half is really fantastic but the second half sinks it. I have to review it as a package since there is no section for ‘part 2’ and it’s all one game now.
Sakaguchi and Uematsu need to stop with this crapple exclusive mobile garbage and start making proper multiplatform JRPGs on console and PC.
They can even make an iOS port if they want.
SummaryFrom the creator of Final Fantasy, comes the next breathtaking adventure from industry legend Hironobu Sakaguchi. Fantasian is an exciting, new RPG set against a spectacular backdrop made from over 150 handmade dioramas that blends physical environments and 3D characters. The tale begins in a realm governed by machines. Within this multi...