Fantasian Neo Dimension (Switch) Review

Fantasian Neo Dimension feels like a long-lost PS1-era JRPG, which makes a lot of sense since it’s by the brilliant minds at Mistwalker, aka Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, the grandfathers of the genre.

Fantasian opens (Stop me if you’ve heard this one before) with our hero Leo; an amnesiac pretty boy suffering from crippling migraines, fighting his way through a factory as he’s pursued by a gigantic sentry droid with a massive laser.

Yes, it may be a wee bit Final Fantasy VII, but some tropes are tropes for a reason, and to be fair is it an homage if you’re the one who wrote it in the first place?

Fantasian is the gaming equivalent of a rock-solid greatest-hits album, chocked full of the best parts of Sakaguchi and Umatsu’s oeuvre with a few new bangers thrown in for good measure.

It’s Final Fantasy I-X, by way of Lost Odyssey, with hints of the Last Story, melded with just enough flourishes to make it feel fresh while attempting to tackle some of the genre’s more onerous problems.

After defeating the first boss, one that needs you to disable its laser-firing claws before they wipe out your party, Leo is transported to a small town, where the story begins proper, and after teaming up with the daughter of the local fortune teller sets off on an adventure to reclaim his memories while trying to push back a mechanical blight that is devouring the land.

This is told via a series of short stories, just like Lost Odyssey. It’s essentially an audiobook with lovely visualisations to draw you further into the narrative. Just like Lost Odyssey, they’re some of the best parts of the game. They’re brilliantly written, touching, well-acted, and great to sit and listen to with a cup of tea.

When you’re not learning about our hero’s past, you’re exploring Fantasian’s gorgeous environments. Each is a meticulously handcrafted diorama. Some of the most delightful and palpable pre rendered backgrounds I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing in a JRPG. You can feel the love, care, attention, and sheer craftsmanship. It’s like a DM pulled out all the stops on making the locales for a TTRPG they’d spent the best part of a year writing.

It’s just a shame that the character designs, though classic JRPG fare, are rendered using bog standard graphics rather than a style more fitting to the handcrafted, tactile dioramas they inhabit.

When you’re not exploring the beautifully realised world, you’ll be flinging spells and attacks at waves of foes in Fantasian’s slick turn-based combat. From a distance either looks like your usual turn-based slap feet, but that’s until you realise that you can launch a literal curveball at your enemies with certain spells and attacks that allow you to hit multiple enemies at once or curve their trajectory so you can sling a spell around an enemy that’s blocking, or resistant to the element you’re casting and hit the guy behind them who’s weak to it. It’s a simple, effective, incredibly satisfying system. Especially, when you defeat a large group of enemies with one carefully curved spell.

The best part of combat though is the Dimengeon machine. A brilliant device designed to keep turn-based battles at bay when you’d rather explore and hunt for loot with minimal interruptions.

Once the machine is on every monster you should have faced is sucked into the machine to do battle later (unless it’s a new one then en garde). Initially, it can store up to 30 monsters at once before you have to fight them. But here’s the catch. You have to best every last baddie contained within at once. This creates a fantastic sense of risk Vs reward as the more beasts you battle, the greater the XP, and potential for loot at the end.

The other upside is that it stops grinding being a grind. Rather than constantly being sucked into fights and eeking out a few XP, you can save up some monsters and then battle them at your convenience for a much more sizable slice of experience.

The audio presentation, much like Fantasian’s visuals, is beautiful. Nobuo Uematsu’s delightful score is like a greatest hits album of some of his finest work, remixed into a soundtrack that feels emotive, stirring, and fitting. Weirdly there is the option to replace the score during battles with a selection of random tunes from recent Final Fantasy games though I don’t know why you would want to.

The cast put in solid performances, especially during the memory sections. However, I wouldn’t say any of them stand out particularly.

My only minor grumble is the lack of touch controls on the Switch. This seems weird to me considering the game was originally designed for mobile devices and being able to make minor adjustments to spell positioning with your fingers in handheld mode as well as quickly make your way through the big, bubbly (clearly made for mobile) menus. It’s strange this has been dropped from this particular console edition.

Final thoughts

We’ve truly been spoiled this year for JRPGs. In the last few months alone we’ve had the award-winning Metaphor and Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake. Fantasian Neo Dimension casting off its Apple Arcade shackles and coming to consoles is a brilliant capstone to a strong year for RPGs, and the Asian game industry in general.