Nintendo aired its promised June Nintendo Direct overnight, giving us around 40 minutes of new announcements, updates, trailers and releases for the Switch.
One of the more exciting reveals for RPG fans is the news that Fantasian, the previously Apple Arcade-exclusive title from Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon developer, Mistwalker (headed by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi), is finally making its way to consoles as “FANTASIAN Neo Dimension” later this year.
The game was original released in two parts on iOS, macOS and tvOS via Apple Arcade, with the first part dropping in April 2021 and the second part in August 2021. Now, three years later, those playing on Switch (as well as PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and PC) can finally appreciate the game’s lavish visuals made unique by layering 3D models on genuine, handcrafted dioramas transposed into the game using 3D scanning technology.
Aside from the visual point-of-difference, Fantasian also employs some radical design shifts from a typical turn-bsaed RPG, like being able to temporarily skip fights against previously-encountered enemies and then take them all on at once when they’ve banked up too many. Add to all of this a 60-track original soundtrack from Final Fantasy veteran, Nobuo Uematsu, and it’s a game well worth checking out. This new version will also come with new features including English and Japanese voice overs and an additional difficulty option.
Perhaps most interesting is that this new port is being backed by Square Enix, which is surely something of a full circle moment for Sakaguchi and the Mistwalker team.
Check out the Switch reveal trailer for Fantasian below: