Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final fantasy series, is returning to the world of epic RPGs with Fantasian, an exclusive release of Apple Arcade today. This is worth celebrating. After spending the past decade exploring the world of mobile games with his Mistwalker studio, Fantasian is Sakaguchi’s first narrative RPG since the 2011 Wii title The Last Story. It also looks like any RPG – backgrounds are captured from miniature hand-made backgrounds, giving it a diorama-like aesthetic.
Couple that with a unique battle system that allows you to accumulate a list of enemies to fight at the same time, and Fantasian has the potential to transcend the label of a “mobile RPG”. At the very least, it’s a far cry from the Mistwalker shutter Terra Battle and Terra Wars games on smartphones and more like what Sakaguchi console fans expect. (There’s even music from Final fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu!) Although the studio never reached the peak of Sakaguchi’s time with Square, 2007’s Missing Odyssey on the Xbox 360 and The Last Story were both reminders that he can still create an attractive RPG.
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Speaking from his home in Hawaii, through a translator, Sakaguchi told Engadget that his love for model kits and craftsmanship led him to Fantasian’s unique aesthetic. With Terra Wars, he experimented with bringing the diorama look to the games, but that was a pretty simple strategy title. “While I was looking at these [miniatures] every day, I kept thinking about how cool it would be to explore and dive into this world in a more narrative experience, ”he said.
Mistalker
In addition to the diorama effect, Fantasian it seems to be a traditional RPG. You play as Leo, an amnesiac boy who seeks to recover his memories in a world ruled by machines. Naturally, you will end up immersing yourself in a bigger mystery: why the world is being dominated by a mechanical infection. As an Apple Arcade title, you’ll be able to play it on iPhones, iPads, Macs and even on Apple TV, tracking your progress on all devices.
As for his favorite platform to play, Sakaguchi says he mainly plays on his Mac with a studio monitor, so he can closely inspect the game’s 4K textures. “I think that really highlights a lot of attention to detail, especially the diorama and the handmade nature,” said Sakaguchi.
And while he admits that he would be happy to see others play the game at its highest resolution, he is also intrigued by the touchscreen interfaces, as it is almost as if players are directly touching the handmade backgrounds. “There is a lot of that human touch, so I think it is very synergistic,” he said. In that sense, he would recommend playing on a large-screen iPad. (This is how I plan to spend most of my time with the game.)
Fantasian’s The “Dimengeons” system, an alternative dimension where you can save enemy encounters for a later time, came about almost by accident. While testing the game on a touchscreen, Sakaguchi tells us, he made a character try to reach a treasure chest in a distant area. He watched as they walked through various areas, made the transition between screens, and finally found that it was a rewarding way to explore the game’s environments. “So, instead of being interrupted by random encounters, we wanted to give players the option, if they wanted, to focus on exploring and discovering the game,” he said.
Although you start to be able to store up to 30 enemies, Sakaguchi says that you will eventually be able to store up to 40 or 50 enemies. Of course, you will face an uphill battle if you are powerless and decide to face a large batch of villains at once, so this is a bet that players will have to consider. To help during particularly hectic fights, there is also a system of “tricks” that gives the player powers, such as increased attack power or extra character rounds.
Unfortunately, not all RPGs can be like Time trigger and allow you to avoid some encounters with the enemy entirely. But the Dimengeon system sounds like a useful compromise, especially if you only have a few minutes to play and would rather explore the world than get bogged down in useless fights.
For a typical play-through, Sakaguchi says you can expect both parts of Fantasian to take about 20 hours to complete. (The first part is released today, the second will arrive sometime later.) If you are the type of player who likes to explore every nook and cranny, it can even reach 30 hours of play. You can also expect a slight change in the style of play, with the first part emphasizing a central narrative and characters, while the second will focus on the search.
“The player has a lot of freedom to address which areas and which missions he wants to do,” said Sakaguchi. “We think it would help players take a deep breath after establishing the characters and approaching the second half with a more renewed mind.”
Mistalker
As we approached the end of our chat, I couldn’t help asking Sakaguchi about remaking some of Mistwalker’s previous RPGs, especially The Last Story, which can only be played on a Wii or Wii U. He said earlier that he was not interested in doing this job alone, so I asked if he would be open to a third-party studio to handle it. “Even if we outsource something like that to another studio,” he said, “I think in the end I’d like to make sure I’m checking everything out. I think it would be inevitable. I have to check everything you know, my name will appear on it. “
He also noted that the amount of energy spent on a remake is almost the same as making a new game today. This is particularly true for The Last Story, which was developed in SD for the Wii and would need to have its assets updated to HD or 4K. “As a personal preference, I would like to dedicate that energy and awareness to doing something new and original,” said Sakaguchi.
As someone who appreciated the aesthetics of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within – a critical and commercial failure that cost Square an incredible $ 94 million – I also wondered if Sakaguchi would ever be interested in exploring new narrative paths, perhaps with a streaming series. “I think there are a lot of interesting possibilities with the new streaming industry, as well as just a direct passage from a narrative-driven experience,” he said. “We may be able to almost change the story in real time, looking at user feedback.”
Mistalker
Your description almost sounds like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and other Netflix narrative experiments, but as it progressed, it became even more exclusive: “I think there may be a scenario where developers can almost act like a game master and then release a piece of content to see how viewers are reacting … So you’re almost broadcasting from the perspective of the game master, which is a completely new media style ”.
When asked if he would be interested in exploring a project like this, Sakaguchi laughed and just said, “I think it will be a lot of work.”