#Fantasian diorama update

This means that while exploring you can collect all the battles that would randomly pop up and save them for later. Early on you get a device that allows you to store enemies that would normally attack you in random battles. The multi hit abilities are especially handy in the games “Dimengeon” battles. The character Kina’s holy ability can shoot in an arc meaning you can curve it to hit front line and back line enemies. Abilities and magic can sometimes hit multiple enemies and even be curved using the touch screen.

#Fantasian diorama update

The battle system similarly adds a few wrinkles to update the classic turn based combat. The game calls to mind the pacing of Final Fantasy VI who’s first half kept you moving through set pieces. There’s enough mystery and characters drip fed across the playing time to keep it from ever feeling like a slog. Fantasian moves fast enough that the tropier aspects of the story don’t bog it down.

Across 6 hours, I’ve already crossed two large towns with enough downtime for me to explore every nook and cranny. Exploration is tight enough to move you across different locations. Battles are tuned to make sure you’re the perfect level to match any boss encounters.

Fantasian doesn’t waste any time making you grind. The pacing is slick, intended to move you along as smoothly as possible. The humor adds a lot of levity and helps keep things from getting too serious.Įven if the story is relatively stock, the team’s experience crafting JRPGs really makes playing the game shine. The story sits firmly within the genre conventions, but there’s enough mystery to keep things interesting. Since it seems to be a threat, how does dethroning and killing god sound? Cue meeting magical allies, traversing across landscapes, and discovering new wrinkles in the mechteria story as Leo reclaims his lost memories. The general population believes this comes from a being called Vam the Malevolent God.

Here is where you learn that the world is being infected with something called “Mechteria” which as you might guess is represented by white mechanical/bacteria looking objects that emit a purple noxious looking gas. Leo battles his way out, hops into a portal, and ends up in the desert town of En. It seems your amnesia set in right as the game starts and that the technology around you might be to blame. You play as Leo, an amnesiac that wakes up in the middle of a futuristic technology facility. Story wise it fits firmly into the template. I’ve mentioned classic a lot so far and those familiar with SNES JRPGs should be intimately familiar with many of the beats in Fantasian. They’ve been the major selling point but the game is a finely tuned RPG that harkens back to the best in the genre. The dioramas that serve as the background for every area are absolutely gorgeous, filled with impeccable attention to detail. Fantasian brings their expertise to mobile, a favorite platform of theirs in recent years, and represents a huge step forward with their visual design. Sakaguchi’s studio Mistwalker has also been creating and refining these throwback RPGs for 15 years and landed cult classics like Lost Odyssey. The fact that it comes from Hironobu Sakaguchi (classic Final Fantasy creator) and with music by Nobuo Uematsu (classic Final Fantasy composer) essentially means you’re shooting fish in a barrel. Fantasian has managed to nail just that bringing me into a new fantasy world and giving a suitably exciting story. It’s difficult for modern JRPGs, especially games that are directly riffing on classic genre staples, to evoke the same sense of wonder as earlier entries.