Fantastic Neo Dimension review

I thought I was fed up with RPG heroes with dead parents and broken memories. I’m done with save crystals, world maps, and feisty princesses with magical powers. What is this? The very existence of the world is in danger because an antique and all-powerful being felt a little depressed? Spare me.

However, it’s stiff to maintain such dated clichés in relation to Fantasian. The game’s producer and primary storyteller is none other than Final Fantasy legend Hironobu Sakaguchi, who has been making RPGs for so long that he practically invented some of these tropes, or at least knew someone who did. Plus, this retro approach to storytelling provides fantastic focus and never spends any more time than absolutely necessary on a high-energy prison break sequence or a dramatic monologue from the latest all-powerful god. The game wants to take me on a grand adventure filled with magic and monsters, transporting me from one place to another before I have a chance to think too stiff about why I’m currently fighting a haunted gondola or a really furious sun.

The places I go to are as established as they come – a dusty town, a shining city, strange mechanical nooks full of danger – but they all feel completely recent thanks to the game’s unique visual style.

Here, the locations I visit are not created from 3D renderings or detailed pixel art, but from photographs of real, handmade dioramas. The effect is so stunning that I often ended up walking around to see more of the craftsmanship that went into these sets, the places where each miniature glass bottle and folded sheet was made and then placed by hand. There are obvious paint marks on the rocky outcrops, curved corners of miniature rugs, and a host of other wonderful imperfections that bring these scenes to life in a way that no amount of ray-traced polygons could ever match. At a time when a hundred CEOs insist that faceless AI mush is the future of “creativity,” this proud human touch is a very welcome respite.

In the tradition of RPGs, wandering through these eerie spaces leads to random battles with everything from mechanical snakes to adorable little giant mice, and Fantasian once again has a novel up its sleeve that turns the ordinary into the extraordinary: the Dimengeon Machine.

Picture 1 With 5

Once turned on, this handy little device will automatically vacuum up any type of enemy I’ve previously fought, allowing me to grab a distant treasure chest or head to the nearest save point without being disturbed. The entertaining thing is that these enemies are stored rather than destroyed, and the machine has to be manually emptied from time to time in one large-scale battle, unless I want to suddenly face a potentially deadly bag of 30 monsters in one painful go when will overflow. It’s a brilliant combination of reward and risk that allows me to avoid fights when I’m tired or in a hurry, while still allowing me to engage in work at a more convenient time. Unique items seem to tip these longer battles in my favor, from uncomplicated attack buffs and status clears to the chance to take an extra turn.

And unlike the random battles in many RPGs, whenever I decide to fight Fantasian’s menagerie of monsters, I always have to take them seriously. The game may be cute in cutscenes, but it’s always unforgiving when the swords come out.

Learning to master the unique manual aiming system is key. In this case, attacks aren’t a uncomplicated choice between hitting one enemy or an equivalent row of them at a time – they can cut through a coarse line if I aim them at the right angle, or even nimbly curve around a defensive blocker to hit the brittle wizard behind them.

Using the analog stick to aim instead of jabbing your finger at the touchscreen feels so natural that, aside from the odd inclusion of a battery meter in the game’s menu, it’s simple to believe that the game was always made with PCs in mind, and plays as if it were just another RPG set in on my SSD. The only frail point is the lack of graphic options, reduced to resolution, FPS (up to 120) and the ability to choose between “low” and “high” detail settings. Although, given that most of the time I’m looking at a photo that has several tiny 3D characters in it, maintaining visual consistency between these elements is more vital than actually improving shadow detail.

I’m usually too busy hacking one of Fantasian’s many, many bosses to notice the little details anyway. Some people change their stance mid-fight, making them more vulnerable to attacks. Some have weapons or body parts that I should target and destroy before they operate them to destroy my entire team. There’s even action-style timing here, the right move at the wrong moment, perhaps blocked entirely by a spinning barrier or stiff shell, or landing not as stiff as it would have been if it had hit the softest parts of the body.

This concept really takes off in the second half of the game, with mixed results. I appreciate that I am forced to operate every spell, skill, and item at my disposal rather than saving them for an imaginary “next time” that will never come. Debuffs, barriers, and turn-altering tactics are absolutely crucial life-saving techniques in Fantasian, and it’s incredibly satisfying to eliminate everything the boss tries to throw at me.

However, as the game goes on, it becomes more and more complicated, and many of these epic encounters start to depend on how I position my characters before the battle, rather than how astute I am once I get into it. Equipping the right kind of status-removing or elemental-resistance gems could be the difference between being hit with a painful blow or an irreversible one, and if I didn’t already have the right gear in my team, my only real option was to wait until I died so I could play around with everyone’s gear after reloading. Some enemies are incredibly frail to a specific elemental attack that I may not have currently unlocked, and I can’t do anything about it until I fight it, fail, and then return to an earlier checkpoint to access the tree character’s broad abilities and reallocate your points to counter the latest problem.

Despite these setbacks, the pleasure is usually worth the pain and I always leave the session exhausted but ecstatic. These late-game challenges are just one of the problems to overcome in a game full of fresh takes on senior ideas, and I admire Fantasian for daring to be a turn-based RPG with real teeth – one that makes it almost impossible to outdo… match or beat my troubles.