Upcoming Fantasian RPG from the Final Fantasy creator set for release this year

Hironobu Sakaguchi —  the guy who conceived the first design documents for Final Fantasy — has a new RPG on the way known as Fantasian. The game was initially announced years ago alongside Apple Arcade and was featured as part of Apple’s “Meet the Creators” campaign for the service. Now, after 3-years or so in development, it sounds like Fantasian is finally nearing development completion and has its sights set on 2021. Head below for a closer look at the game and the physical dioramas it is being made of. 

Upcoming Fantasian RPG

Fantasian is being developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Mistwalker studio — a team previously responsible for celebrated titles like Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, among others. The game is an RPG “that takes players through a unique world of handcrafted dioramas” with a score composed by none other than Nobuo Uematsu of Final Fantasy fame. 

While we are yet to see a proper trailer for the game or even all that many details, we have seen a couple new images of the both the on-screen action and the gorgeous dioramas it is made of. 

Most recently we saw the actual diorama Mistwalker made its 2021 New Year greeting card with:

And earlier this month we caught glimpse of a more lush forested area, complete with 3D modeled characters, some on-screen UI, and more:

Needless to say, Fantasian looks like it’s going carry a gorgeous handcrafted game world, and considering the pedigree of the creators here, fans of that approach and JRPGs alike are in for a real treat. But creating games like this is hard and it has been quite an uphill battle for Sakaguchi and his team as reported by Kotaku:

Fantasian is a game that shouldn’t exist. Every day is a challenge, creating gaming worlds by hand. We are building dioramas, photographing them, and adding 3D characters. I’m a little scared of how many sets we are going to have to build in the end.

Fantasian is set for release on Apple Arcade, which means it won’t be inundated with micro transactions and the like. And it sounds like it is set for release “soon,” or sometime in 2021. 

gadgetnewsonline’ Take

While I for one would have preferred to see a game like this being developed for consoles, or even Nintendo Switch and PC machines, there’s no denying the potential here. While only time will tell if an Apple Arcade game like this will really move the needle among gamers, all of the key elements of a game that should are certainly in place here.