There are two Kailes inside of me: one that wants desperately to finish writing this and finally go to sleep, and one that wants desperately to finish writing this and go back to playing FANTASIAN, the Apple Arcade-exclusive JRPG from Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Mistwalker Studios, featuring – perhaps for the last time?? – music by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu. While the smart thing for me to do will ultimately be to go to sleep, I couldn’t rest without first playing the very first stage in what I assume will be a pretty long, unique and fulfilling JRPG experience — and of course sharing it with y’all.
I’ve been excited about FANTASIAN since it was teased at the Apple Arcade announcement keynote in March 2019. The very concept behind the game is fascinating: every level in the game is a hand-made diorama, a material object that the characters and enemies are essentially projected onto, their (digital, fantasy) stories playing out on this real-world thing. In the two years since it was announced, we hadn’t heard much about FANTASIAN, until suddenly art went out on New Year’s Eve showing one of the dioramas, the village of En, in detail. Just a couple of weeks ago, Apple announced that FANTASIAN was coming, and now, sooner than I expected to be honest, it is finally here.
I have literally only played what you can see in the video, but I can already tell you that this game is a blast to play with touch controls. You move the Nier-reminiscent protagonist, Leo, around the map by pressing on the screen and putting a pin down where you want them to go; when you’re in battle, a simple touch or flick activates your attacks and skills, and while pressing on the screen, you can even move the action to a trash can in the bottom left corner to negate it and choose something different. There’s no awkward digital direction pad or “analog” stick, and menus don’t clutter the tops and bottoms of the screen.
In fact, everything seems a bit minimalistic, even a little bare-bones on the UI front. That being said, the minimalism brings with it a clarity other JRPGs struggle to achieve (thinking about Bravely Default II and its insistence on dumping 50 different systems on the player at the very beginning of the game). The tutorials are short and make complete sense.
Look, I think if you’re a fan of classic JRPGs, Final Fantasy VII especially, you’re going to love this, and if you already have an Apple device with a subscription to Apple Arcade, you can get this right now. So do it!
Check out this video of the first area, and check back in later for a full review!