Fantasian Neo Dimension (Switch) review: A stunning handcrafted world held back by its mobile roots

When Fantasian first launched on Apple Arcade in 2022, it was celebrated as an inventive JRPG tailored for mobile devices. Its standout features – hand-crafted dioramas, an engaging combat system, and a score by Nobuo Uematsu – set it apart as a true blue AAA mobile games. Yet, it wasn’t without its flaws, particularly in its story and character development, which felt a touch too shallow for the genre’s lofty narrative expectations. Now in 2024, Fantasian Neo Dimension attempts to bring the experience to consoles and PC with higher-resolution visuals, voice acting, and a promise of being a definitive edition. Thanks to local distributor Bandai Namco, I played the Switch version and found that while its artistry and core gameplay remain captivating, the transition from mobile to larger platforms exposes the game’s limitations more than it enhances them.

At its core, Fantasian Neo Dimension is a love letter to classic JRPGs, a genre that Hironobu Sakaguchi (he gave the world Final Fantasy) has helped shape over the decades. The story follows Leo, a young protagonist drawn into a conflict with gods, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. It’s a narrative structure steeped in JRPG tradition, and Sakaguchi doesn’t shy away from playing to established tropes. However, while there’s a comforting familiarity with the setup, the narrative rarely takes risks or digs deeper than the surface. The characters, while charming at first blush, struggle to break free from archetypal moulds. This issue is only amplified by the game’s episodic structure, carried over from the original Apple Arcade versionl. The shift between acts feels abrupt, leaving character relationships and arcs dangling just as they start to take shape. By the time the party reaches its endgame stride, the lack of meaningful development makes the interactions feel hollow.

Where Fantasian continues to shine is in its visual identity. The use of dioramas, painstakingly crafted and photographed before being digitally integrated into the game, gives the game a very unique look and feel. Each environment, whether it’s a bustling village shop or a tranquil forest clearing, exudes charm that only dioramas and miniature models could. The meticulous details, from the texture of a bush to the cluttered interiors of a tiny inn, lend the game a visual warmth that not many titles can match – at least not in recent memory. The new release enhances these dioramas with higher-resolution scans, making them look crisper than ever. On a device like Nintendo Switch, the results are stunning. But as the screen size grows as I play it on my 65-inch television, so too do the cracks. While the dioramas scale beautifully, other elements like the UI and certain graphical assets haven’t received the same level of care, resulting in jagged edges and an inconsistent presentation. It’s a reminder of the game’s mobile origins and a detail that detracts from the overall polish.

The combat system, one of Fantasian’s defining features, remains as innovative as ever. Eschewing standard turn-based mechanics, battles require players to think spatially, aiming attacks in arcs, lines, or areas to hit multiple enemies at once. It’s a system that rewards precision and strategy, but its roots in touch-screen controls are unmistakable. On a mobile device, it was easy to fine-tune your attacks with a swipe of a finger. On a controller, however, this level of precision becomes harder to achieve. The absence of a cursor-emulation system, a staple in many modern games, feels like a missed opportunity. These quirks, while not game-breaking, can make the gameplay feel less seamless than it should.

The Dimengeon system, designed to let players “bank” random encounters and deal with them later, exemplifies the game’s mobile DNA. On a phone, this feature was a clever solution to conserve battery life and accommodate quick, pick-up-and-play sessions. It works brilliantly on the Switch too, with its mobile nature allowing commuters squeezing in short bursts of play. But those playing on the PlayStation 5 or PC could feel at odds with the longer play sessions typically associated with home gaming.

One of the most significant additions in Neo Dimension is voice acting, which replaces the text-only dialogue of the original. It’s an enhancement that brings mixed results. While the voice acting adds personality and flair to the characters, the pacing of scenes – designed for silent reading – often feels out of sync with the spoken delivery. This creates an awkward rhythm in conversations, as if the dialogue is playing catch-up with the text boxes. The voice acting also competes with Uematsu’s evocative score, which previously carried much of the emotional weight in key scenes. Now, the music occasionally feels overshadowed, a change that might not sit well with fans of the original. Thankfully, players have the option to disable voice acting entirely, allowing them to preserve the original experience if they prefer.

Square Enix has positioned this release as an “enhanced” version, but the enhancements feel more like small tweaks than transformative changes. The improved diorama scans and added voice acting are appreciated, but the game’s deeper issues remain unaddressed. The shallow characterisation, episodic narrative structure, and disjointed pacing are all carried over from the original, limiting its appeal to players hoping for a more polished or expanded experience. Even the newly added easier difficulty mode, while welcome for newcomers, does little to reframe the overall design.

Ultimately, Fantasian Neo Dimension feels less like a reinvention and more like a reminder of what made the original on Apple Arcade both captivating and flawed. Its dioramas remain unparalleled, its combat still engaging despite the control hiccups, and its soundtrack continues to evoke the magic of classic JRPGs. Yet, for all its strengths, it’s hard to ignore how much of its mobile-first design persists, often to the detriment of its new platforms. For those who missed it the first time, this is still an easy recommendation, a visually stunning and mechanically unique RPG worth exploring. But for returning players, the lack of substantial updates makes it hard to justify another journey through Leo’s world. While Neo Dimension gives Fantasian a bigger stage, it doesn’t do enough to make the performance feel new. It’s still a mobile game at heart, just one that’s now blown up to fit a larger screen.

Fantasian Neo Dimensions is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch (reviewed here) and PC.

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