So as he worked on the second part of Fantasian, he has thought frequently about the family-themed parallels between that and Final Fantasy 6. He brings up his family often as we chat, at one point telling me that his daughter is getting married in October. Speaking to IGN over Zoom ahead of the launch of Fantasian's second half, Sakaguchi is warm and easygoing, laughing often and complimenting my cat when she interrupts the call (her name is Robo, after a character in Chrono Trigger, which he was a designer on). “This idea of bringing new life into the world and what that means and the kind of gravity that it has." Mistwalker’s engineers clearly need to spend some time on optimization."I wanted to have a scene in Final Fantasy 6 where there's a child who's born,” he tells me. ![]() It should run smoother on Apple’s latest iPhone, one of the most powerful handsets on the planet. Fantasian is a pretty game, but it’s not that pretty. I played using an iPhone 12, one of Apple’s most powerful mobile devices, and cinematic sequences with lots of action frequently resulted in frame chug. It’s manageable, but I’d really like to see this problem fixed with a patch.Ī slightly bigger issue is performance. This is clearly an issue with the fact that the game was designed first and foremost for touch screens. It made for a pleasantly console-like experience, save that quick changes in camera angles required me to stop pressing the thumbstick while moving in order to reorient direction. In my case, I played the bulk of the game using an Xbox controller, my phone’s screen mirrored on a TV using Apple Air Play. Like any game, Fantasian isn’t perfect, but its problems are mostly technical rather than creative. These miniatures also look great viewed as 3D maps, making it easy to figure out where you are and where you need to go. These areas have a distinct vibe, almost like dioramas, amplified by a camera focus plane effect we’ve seen previously in games like Octopath Traveler and 3D Dot Game Heroes. But Sakaguchi and company, never content to simply regurgitate, have added some modern sparkle to both presentation and play.ĭozens of the locations we explore began as intricately sculpted real-world miniatures before being scanned into the game, where they received digital augmentation. Should mobile gamers consider upgrading to iPhone 12?įor some folks (like me) this homage to the sort of games I played in university is all I’d have needed to commit to jumping in headfirst.Bravely Default II review: Fun old-school JRPG isn't quite as brave as its name suggests.This Canadian company is taking aim at the $150-billion-plus global video-game industry. ![]() Article content Recommended from Editorial ![]() This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. ![]() From its orthodox structure - players are put in control of a party of heroes who explore towns, dungeons, and an overworld map, with turn-based battle occurring at random intervals - to its sci-fi-cum-fantasy vibe, which includes grand airships, imaginative monsters, and even glowing save crystals, anyone who played a turn-of-the-century Japanese role-playing game is going to experience some welcome nostalgia here - especially when Uematsu’s signature battle music and themes kick in. That includes Fantasian, which has turned out to be a wonderful throwback to the duo’s glory days at Square.Ĭreated exclusively for Apple Arcade, the Cupertino computer giant’s subscription game service for iOS devices, Fantasian draws clear inspiration from mid-numbered Final Fantasy games. This creative pair eventually moved on from the seminal series to which they gave birth, but they continue to collaborate on games produced by Mistwalker, a studio founded by Sakaguchi in 2004.
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