Another demo provided to us at PAX West was for Fantasian: Neo Dimension, which was announced during the June 2024 Nintendo Direct. Long thought to be trapped on Apple devices, Fantasian potentially represents Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi’s final RPG, and so it was with much fanfare that a version of the game was finally coming to consoles and PC. I had an opportunity to play a brief demo of the game in Switch handheld mode during an appointment with Square Enix, and while certain aspects were definitely appealing, others made me more skeptical of this born-mobile title.

Starting from a save file a couple hours into the adventure, I was introduced to the battle system almost immediately, which pit two of my characters against a couple wolf-like foes. There’s a simplicity to the presentation that reminds you of Fantasian’s mobile roots, but at the same time it’s neat how you scroll through your abilities and then your items simply by pressing right on the stick or D-pad. Doing so brings up a vertical list on the right side of the screen for easy access to spells, techniques, and your stock of items. The result is a view of combat that’s less cluttered for sure, and I hope that some of the more advanced attacks and formidable bosses will take advantage of the increased amount of screen space.

As soon as I regained control of my character and started roaming around the hilly landscape, my audible sigh simply could not be suppressed: the controls are downright wonky and just feel awkward. Pressing the stick in a particular direction won’t always take you in said direction, and while I could brute force my way through the bridges I had to pass over, the movement was fairly unsatisfying overall. It’s unfortunate, too, because the diorama-based environments are quite unique to look at, even if there’s a twinge of uncanny valley in seeing your sprite move around them. Another sour note was a random encounter I had with a talking pot creature who asked me to give it particular items and then wail on it, with the promise of a special reward if I finished the job quickly enough. Much to my chagrin, I wasn’t able to deal enough damage before the creature transformed and started smacking my entire party with a giant hand, making short work of my squad. Fortunately, I had the option to just restart the battle, but it was annoying for what might have been an early-game encounter.

I didn’t quite make it to the golem boss waiting at the end of the area, but I was able to try out the “Dimengeon” system, which essentially stores random encounters within a separate dimension until it reaches capacity and you get to fight all of the creatures at once. One of the highlights of Fantasian’s combat is that many of your abilities have either a radius of damage that can hit multiple foes or follow a straight-line path that can hit any enemies on that line. This mechanic is made great use of in the Dimengeon, where enemies litter the screen and need to be dispatched before they can gang up on you. Your attacks and spells can even hit small bonus orbs that enhance your stats or grant extra turns. Just the visual spectacle of seeing the battlefield filled with all sorts of enemies and then the joy of hitting three, four, or five of them with one move makes for an exciting and engaging event, and I’m glad I got to see it in action.

I went into the Fantasian: Neo Dimension demo with fairly high expectations, and I’d say those are more tempered at present. It may be a blessing that the game has yet to be given a solid release date outside of Winter 2024 as this could signal the developers taking more time to improve the controls, for example. That said, as a lifelong Final Fantasy player, I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes on what may be Sakaguchi’s last story–not to be confused with Wii standout The Last Story.