My life changed when I first played Final Fantasy VII in the late ‘90s. The narrative-focused RPG chronicling the struggle of misfit adventurers on a quest to save the world held my attention like little else. Its slow-burn story told through text boxes on pre-rendered backgrounds, all backed by a soaring melodic score, was unlike any piece of media I encountered before. Before the decade was up, Final Fantasy VIII arrived and delivered more of the same for me. In the early 2000s, however, Final Fantasy changed, and I thought I’d never experience that kind of game for the first time again. That is, until I fired up Fantasian Neo Dimension and was instantly transported back to the late ‘90s.
Read More: Final Fantasy VII: The Kotaku Retro Review
And if you’re like me and have been craving those original PlayStation Final Fantasy vibes, then you absolutely need to give Fantasian a spin.
If you’re only now hearing about Fantasian, there’s probably a good reason for that. Developed by Mistwalker and produced by the father of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Fantasian was originally locked behind Apple Arcade’s iOS and Mac ecosystem when it launched in April of 2021. Like Final Fantasy titles of the late ‘90s on the original PlayStation, it features a fixed camera perspective and 3D character models animated over pre-made backgrounds. It also features a soundtrack written by legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. Three years after its initial release, Fantasian arrives on modern consoles and PC via Neo Dimension, an updated version with spruced-up graphics, difficulty adjustments, some tweaks to the gameplay to adapt its mobile origins, and voice acting.
Read More: How Long Is Fantasian Neo Dimension?
While Fantasian is a video game produced in the 21st century for mobile platforms, it is eerily capable of transporting you back to the simpler times of Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9. This is especially the case if you mute the new voice acting and just let the text boxes do the dialogue and exposition for you (which, with all due respect to the voice talent that went into bringing the characters to life, I think is the better way to play Fantasian).
Unlike FF titles of the late ‘90s, however, the backgrounds in Fantasian weren’t created with computer graphics, but instead were produced with actual physical dioramas that were photographed from multiple angles. Though it gives a distinct, and gorgeous, look to Fantasian, the experience in motion is very similar to old-school FF titles. FF7 in particular always had a hand-crafted look to its backgrounds that contributed to its charm. The world feels intentional, with an eye toward making it feel like a memorable place, inspirationally crafted to transport you to a fantasy realm. Toss in some turn-based combat, random encounters, and a hybrid fantasy/science-fiction narrative about an amnesiac protagonist and, well, if you were a Final Fantasy fan in the late ‘90s, this should all sound very familiar. And speaking of sound, oh boy, will Fantasian sound familiar. Just listen to this battle theme:
And compare it to the melodies in this classic FF jam:
The soundtrack is filled with moments like this, stirring up our memories of the epic adventures of yesteryear through melodies and motifs that sound familiar to ‘90s-era Final Fantasy tunes or just through Uematsu’s signature melodic and compositional styles. It’s some of his finest work.
As someone who always felt that a certain charm was lost when Final Fantasy started changing its overall structure in the early 2000s with Final Fantasy X, Fantasian has successfully filled several late evenings for me with a kind of wild neo-nostalgia that I’ve always wanted to experience, but have never expected from modern games. In its presentation and narrative, Fantasian literally feels like a hidden PSX FF title.
There are a few rough edges here and there, and you can sense the mobile origins of the game from time to time via the UI and the fact that the combat wants you to line up targets in a row in a way that would probably feel more natural on a touch screen. And while the story is perfectly entertaining, it’s not hitting the way FF7’s or FF8’s does. (Then again, it also has to compete with the two decades of nostalgia I’ve built up for Cloud and Squall’s tales.)
But really, those rough spots matter very little as the game nails the overall pacing and tone of storytelling and dialogue that brought late-‘90s Final Fantasy titles to life. I’ve yet to hit the game’s infamous “Part Two,” which I’ve heard comes with a wild difficulty spike (and I’m playing on “Hard” difficulty), but I’ve been spending evenings grinding out my characters in preparation for that…which, honestly, is what I used to do in Final Fantasy 7 anyway.
Fantasian is shaping up to be one of my favorite games of 2024, even though it’s a psuedo-remaster of a 2021 title. It is the kind of game I’ve been aching to play for nearly 25 years. If you’ve been glancing at screenshots since the game’s original release a few years ago, admiring the dioramas and wondering if it could cast the same spell as those late ‘90s PSX Final Fantasy titles, then wonder no more and give Neo Dimension a try.
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