Learning more about Leo’s past by following the interdimensional exploits of his enigmatic father kept me intrigued, while the tragic backstories Princess Cheryl and the Queendom of Vibra and the mysterious Kina added a powerful emotional hook. “Impressively, Mistwalker has gone to the trouble of producing more than 150 physical models filled with incredible amounts of detail and scanned them into the game.” While the dialogue itself might not be terribly original, the characters prove to be quite likable and grew on me over time. Instead, he uses these tropes to weave an engaging tale about the balance of “chaos” and “order” and the unwitting heroes who get caught in the middle. Fantasian is very traditional in this sense, but therein lies a good deal of its charm.īut Sakaguchi - who penned the game’s story and oversaw the rest of its development - is careful not to rely solely on fanservice. The story places an amnesiac protagonist named Leo at the centre of a multi-dimensional conflict between machines and humans, the gameplay revolves around turn-based combat and random encounters, and you’ll even ride on an extravagant airship early on.Įven more casual players of Sakaguchi’s older games are likely to catch that characters named ‘Sid’ and ‘Garland’ and a ‘Phoenix’ item being used to revive downed party members are not-so-subtle nods to Final Fantasy. Like a long-lost Final FantasyĪt first glance, Fantasian might seem rather derivative. apple.Although a full verdict will have to wait until the Apple Arcade game’s second and final part releases later this year, Sakaguchi has already won over this lifelong fan of the genre. Something unique to the craft of diorama-making that feels other-worldly.” With Sakaguchi’s track record, it’ll at least be unexpected.įantasian is coming soon to Apple Arcade, from £4.99 per month. And when it’s busy… that might change.” Perhaps that may be on his next game: something he says, if he has the opportunity to, would be “a world that no one has ever seen before. But don’t take anything personally – that’s just game development. “I probably would tell you that there will be spans of time when I would leave you to your own devices. Say, if this happened to be my first day as a developer under his stead. To finish? I ask one piece of advice from the godfather of the RPG. “I’ve worked with the director, Kitase, and I think this is a culmination of his work and deserves a lot of praise.” ![]() “I think they really pushed the boundaries and I think that’s the maximum you can do in this day and age,” he says. Sakaguchi has not had much hands-on involvement, because of his development commitments for Fantasian, but he offers me a taste of what he’s played so far. It’s unfortunate, but I do have the hope that one day a few of those that I’m really fond of will materialise as a video game.” One game that stands out perhaps more than any other in his career is Final Fantasy VII, a lionised all-time great that got a full-blown remake in 2020. No regrets, he assures me, “but when you make games, there are so many that end at the concept doc or the deck level. Of course, there are games Sakaguchi never got to make at all. That attention to detail everywhere you look in the world, stringing it together, creates a more wholesome experience, so I think that’s my style of game-making.” And then ‘Will there be something there when I reach the other side?’ And I want it to be ‘Probably, yes’. When you craft intricate worlds in RPGs like this, the player is going to begin to think, ‘Oh, can I go there?’ and I would like to make the answer ‘Yes’. The synergy between these handcrafted materials and the act of touching the screens with your hand, there’s this connection that works really well. “The basics I would say are the same,” he explains when I ask about the differences between creating a console RPG to something for mobile, “but the interface is a huge element of the experience. Combat and exploration aren’t that dissimilar from the norm Sakaguchi helped create. The game has more familiar facets of design, too. “So that was really eye-opening for me as well. ![]() “Seeing these in real life gives you an inspiration that you really can’t achieve by looking at digital environments,” he says. Sakaguchi shows me how the small dividing doors on a beautifully ornate cottage have real, working hinges. Pre-conceptualisation became vital because committing to the build of one of the game’s 150 dioramas was a big step. It’s a process startlingly similar to the efforts of The Lord of the Rings’ Weta Workshop (albeit something unexplored in video games before now), and one that majorly affected Sakaguchi’s approach to game design. ![]() Hironobu Sakaguchi's own Warhammer Space Marine figurineįantasian’s digital world made from real items, with lighting and fog effects and digital characters layered over the top, was something that Sakaguchi felt was “new”.
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