Fantasian Neo Dimension review: Playing the numbers game

Fantasian Neo Dimension is the latest Apple Arcade escapee, following the likes of Grindstone and TMNT: Splintered Fate (free Sonic Dream Team next!). When it originally launched in 2021, Fantasian was notable for being a new fully-fledged JRPG from Mistwalker (Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey) following years of more stereotypical mobile game efforts. This new version is in turn notable due to Square Enix’s involvement as publisher, effectively bringing “the father of Final Fantasy” Hironobu Sakaguchi back to the company he helped put on the map. Fantasian is also likely the final full game soundtrack from Nobuo Uematsu, an equally legendary figure in Square’s foundational history.

While Fantasian certainly has tremendous credentials, it was ultimately a rather niche game even within its own genre. The whole Apple Arcade thing didn’t help, but aside from that Fantasian also struggled to secure an audience due to an awkward, two-part release strategy and difficulty concerns that filtered out many potential fans. Neo Dimension is being offered as a more complete package, with both parts of Fantasian joined seamlessly together, a new difficulty option, and some production bonuses such as voice acting and optional battle music from various, recent Final Fantasy titles.

A new dimension, kind of

It’s awesome to have Fantasian widely available on multiple platforms, without the constraints of an esoteric subscription service getting in the way. It’s a distinct adventure in its own right, combining a lot of tried and true tropes one would expect from a Sakaguchi production with a novel visual style, genre-bending setting, unique combat mechanics and, of course, a focus on challenge we haven’t really seen in JRPGs since games like Final Fantasy 4. All these factors together make Fantasian stand out, although the new additions and slight compromise with difficulty don't magically evolve it into something the original wasn’t.

The best part of Fantasian is unchanged from the original, but it didn’t need any adjustment to remain impressive. Mistwalker evokes PS1-era JRPGs visually here, when Final Fantasy in particular broke the genre into the mainstream thanks to pre-rendered backgrounds and fixed camera angles providing an air of blockbuster production values. The twist Fantasian introduces is, rather than the backgrounds being drawn, they’re actually a collection of physically-built, miniature dioramas photographed in high-resolution.

The end result is similar to the pre-rendered backgrounds of classics like Final Fantasy 7, but with a different feel that steers around the edges of uncanny valley without falling in. The visuals produce an air of unreality that has a physical edge to it, enhancing the fantastical and multidimensional setting in a way you can subtly feel as you run around the maps. Unfortunately playing on Switch means some frame rate drops (more during cutscenes than gameplay) and the controls weirdly don't adjust to camera changes, but the visual treats (especially on an OLED model) outweigh the small snaggles. The success here does a lot of heavy lifting for a story that often feels either disjointed or boilerplate depending on what’s happening in the plot.

Good idea, bad idea

The storytelling not amounting to much feels like a bigger bummer than I expected, considering I don’t expect much from games so deliberately old school. That’s because Mistwalker also evokes its own history at times in visual novel-like segments clearly nodding back to similar moments in Lost Odyssey. The only problem is those parts of Lost Odyssey were written by a bonafide novelist (Kiyoshi Shigematsu) and went super hard in their prose in a way that blew people away. Fantasian feels pedestrian in comparison, even when it’s trying its hardest. There is one particularly cute vignette penned by Uematsu (and awkwardly credited as such in-game), but even that reads more like normal video game stuff than the kind of authorial flexing that made this gimmick work the first time.

There’s a similar dichotomy in Fantasian’s combat design. There’s a lot of thought and planning put into how all the mechanics work, and you can tell just by participating. For one, there’s a fun emphasis on aiming, with skills having different kinds of Area of Effect properties. Some skills are single target, some hit circular areas of different sizes, and some pierce in a straight line. Most magic, however, pierces but the trajectory can be adjusted, allowing you to “bank” shots on curves that allow you to hit around or behind enemies serving more like obstacles than combatants. Because of all this, you’re always thinking about how everyone is positioned in a fight.

Each character also has specific roles or abilities, split up either by elemental properties or things like buffs or other bespoke mechanics such as a heavy damage-dealer who hurts himself. You’re often forced to use certain characters for long stretches of time in the first half, or for specific quests in the second half. Then, when you have access to everyone, you have an organic, widened sense of knowledge for your own tool set. This all pays off, theoretically, in boss fights. Bosses are often puzzle-like, in that there are intended solutions for these showdowns in part or in whole, ranging from specific vulnerabilities to challenges introduced by individual attacks that require specific answers.

I've been playing for 60 hours, why are you hitting me for 6000 HP???

All this heavy design work is impressive as it rolls in, but there’s a big problem that constantly gets in the way starting about halfway through. A problem that Neo Dimension attempted to alleviate to uneven results, but still struggles with in the end. It’s time to talk about difficulty, something Mistwalker clearly intended as a core piece of Fantasian’s identity. It’s a complex issue, but one that ends up feeling like an unforced error in conversation with everything else that makes Fantasian interesting. To put it simply first, Fantasian just really sucks at math.

Challenge can be tough to get right in a JRPG-style experience, as the space is often defined by customizable systems meant to offer players options. Most RPGs have things like defined strengths and weaknesses, but offer enough freedom for folks to find their own ways around if they prefer a different approach. Fantasian’s puzzle-like approach to bosses and deliberate character tools veer in the opposite direction, seemingly standing firm on having right and wrong answers. Some characters have overlapping tools, giving you a little wiggle room, but at the end of the day there’s a big roadblock in the form of numbers.

Fantasian’s numbers are absurd, frankly. Bosses do a ton of damage with all of their attacks, pretty much shutting off “margin of error” as a concept. If your team isn’t leveled up, equipped the right way, or buffed with perfect timing, you can have half your team wiped out or close to it in one turn. One wrong move or even a miss can instantly put you on the back foot for the rest of the fight, making the rest of the encounter a desperate struggle to crawl out of an HP deficit while still trying to meet the puzzle’s demands. Worse yet, you could be in a fight for ten or more minutes with no idea you’re not truly meeting said demands until your whole party gets wiped out of nowhere. It’s extremely disheartening, making the telegraphed pathways to boss battles feel like death marches in ways even Shin Megami Tensei or SaGa games don’t.

Ice skating uphill

At first, it seems like struggling players can at least grind their way out of trouble. Fantasian’s “Dimengeon” gimmick lets you stockpile random battles to take on in massive batches while letting you navigate in peace, which almost feels similar to how Bravely Default lets you grind on your own terms. But later on I realized it’s one of multiple anti-grinding mechanics that seem to insist random battles are unwanted nuisances. Once your characters hit level 35 you’re hit with a massive EXP penalty for being even slightly overleveled, and you’re also given an option to pay to empty the Dimengeon without fighting. This game really, really doesn't want to let you grind even if you want to. Meanwhile, each area and quest starts to show “recommended” levels, which are often misleading at best. 

With over-levelling out of the question, your remaining option is to play to the house rules, and the deck is almost always stacked against you. Bosses get so out of control that even bespoke strategies start to fade away into what feels like mandated min/max gameplay optimization, with the same rotations of buffs, desperate healing, and praying for RNG to never go awry being the only way to succeed. I’d get absolutely washed by a boss despite recognizing the strategy, then try again after spending a beat staring at the game over screen in despair only to succeed without really changing anything. It was deflating to the point that despite how often I would eventually overcome each roadblock, instead of satisfaction in the way Dark Souls sickos get, I simply lost motivation to continue. This is all on the new “normal” difficulty setting, mind. Based on some old walkthroughs I looked at for the original (now “hard”) tuning, I would’ve probably just given up.

Taking the time to farm elemental resistant accessories, equipment upgrades, and stronger skills, setting up your party loadout just so at a save point, then watching your team get ragdolled anyway all while you’re several levels above what the game says you need completely overshadows the effort put into the careful, puzzle-like design of each boss. Which is a shame, because if those fights weren’t so egregiously overtuned in such an unproductive way, the stuff actually holding up Fantasian’s systems would’ve really shined. The criticism from before clearly had an impact, but even with the adjustments there’s still moments where this game isn’t fun at all to engage with on its given terms. Even everything else, from Uematsu’s thematically apt soundtrack to the super neat diorama visuals, is hard to enjoy when your brain is bogged down by constant dread. Fantasian Neo Dimension has a distinct vibe and a lot of cool ideas, but over-commits to its idea of challenge such that it buries its own nuances under a pile of big numbers.

Fantasian Neo Dimension is available on December 5, 2024 for the PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox Series X|S. A code for the Nintendo Switch version was provided by the publisher for review.

Lucas White

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.