Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final fantasy series, return to the world of epic RPGs with Fantastic, an exclusive Apple Arcade launch. It’s worth celebrating. After exploring the world of mobile gaming with his studio Mistwalker over the past decade, Fantastic is Sakaguchi’s first narrative RPG since the 2011 Wii title The last story. And it also does not look like any RPG – the backgrounds are captured from handmade thumbnail sets, giving it a diorama-like aesthetic.
Connect it to a unique combat system, which allows you to set up a backlog of enemies to fight at the same time Fantastic has the potential to exceed the label of a ‘mobile RPG’. It is at least far removed from Mistwalker’s shutters Terra battle and Terra wars games on smartphones, and more like Sakaguchi’s console fans expect. (It even has music from Final fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu!) while the studio never reached the pinnacle of Sakaguchi’s time with Square in 2007. Lost Odyssey on the Xbox 360 and The last story were both reminders that he can still put together a compelling RPG.
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Speaking from a home in Hawaii, Sakaguchi tells Engadget that his love of model sets and making things with his hands led to Fantasians’ unique aesthetic. With Terra wars, he experimented with bringing the diorama look to games, but it was a fairly simple strategy title. ‘While I was staring at this [miniatures] It made me wonder every day how cool it would be to explore yourself in this world and immerse yourself in a more narrative driven experience, ”he said.
Mistalker
Apart from the diorama effect, Fantastic seems to be an otherwise traditional RPG. You play as Leo, a memory-lost boy who wants to regain his memories in a machine-controlled world. Eventually you dive into a bigger mystery: why the world is taken over by a mechanical infection. As an Apple Arcade title, you can play it on iPhones, iPads, Macs and even Apple TV, with your progress on every device.
Regarding his preferred platform to play the game, Sakaguchi says he mostly plays on his Mac with a studio monitor so he can thoroughly inspect the 4K textures of the game. “I think it emphasizes a lot of attention in detail, especially in the diorama and handmade nature,” Sakaguchi said.
And while he admits he’d be happy to see others play the game at its highest resolution, he’s also interested in the touchscreen interfaces, as it’s almost as if players are directly touching the hand-built wallpapers. “There’s a lot of this human touch, so I think it’s very synergistic,” he said. In that regard, he would recommend playing on a big screen iPad. (This is how I plan to spend most of my time playing.)
Fantasians’ ‘Dimengeons’ system, an alternate dimension where you can save your enemy encounters later, was created almost by accident. While testing the game on a touch screen, Sakaguchi says, he tried to reach a character in a treasure chest in a remote area. He watches them walk through various areas, switching between screens and finally finding that it’s a rewarding way to explore the environments of the game. “Instead of being interrupted by random encounters, we wanted to give players the option to focus, if they wanted, on exploring and discovering the game,” he said.
While you can store up to 30 enemies, Sakaguchi says you will eventually be able to hold up to 40 or 50 enemies. Of course, you will face a tough battle if you are too few and prefer to tackle a lot of bad things at the same time, so this is a gamble that gamers will have to consider. To help during particularly hectic battles, there is also a ‘gimmick’ system that gives the player power-ups, such as increased attack power or extra character rounds.
Unfortunately, not all RPGs can be like this Chrono Trigger and let you avoid some hostile encounters altogether. But the Dimengeon system sounds like a useful compromise, especially if you only have a few minutes to play and would rather explore the world than get caught up in useless battles.
For a typical replay, Sakaguchi says you can expect both parts of Fantastic takes about 20 hours to complete. (The first part will be launched today, the second will come later.) If you are the type of player who likes to explore every nook and cranny, you can even reach 30 hours of play time. You can also expect a slight shift in playing style, with the first part emphasizing a core narrative and characters, while the second becomes a quest.
“The player has a lot of freedom to approach what areas and what tasks he wants to do,” Sakaguchi said. “We thought it would help the players to breathe after they established the characters and tackled the second half with a new mind.”
Mistalker
As we neared the end of our conversation, I could not help but ask Sakaguchi about rebuilding some of Mistwalker’s earlier RPGs, especially The last story, which can only be played on a Wii or Wii U. He had said earlier that he did not want to do the work himself, so I asked if he would be open to a third-party studio to tackle it sooner. ‘Even if we outsource something like that to another studio,’ he said, ‘I think I want to make sure I check everything in the end. I think that would be inevitable. I need to check everything you know my name is going to go on. ‘
He also noted that the amount of energy that goes into a remake is almost the same as making a new game today. This is especially true for The last story, which was developed in SD for the Wii, and needs to upgrade its assets to HD or 4K. “As a personal preference, I want to dedicate the energy and mindshare to making something new and original,” Sakaguchi said.
As someone who has the aesthetic appreciation for Final Fantasy: The Ghosts Inside – a critical and commercial flop that cost Square $ 94 million – I also wondered if Sakaguchi would ever be interested in exploring new narratives, perhaps with a streamline. “I think there are a lot of interesting possibilities in the new streaming industry, apart from a straight gate of a story-driven experience,” he said. “Maybe we can change the story almost in real time by looking at the user’s feedback.”
Mistalker
His description sounds almost like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Netflix’s other narrative experiments, but as he went further, it became even more unique: ‘I think there could be a scenario in which developers could act almost like a game master and then watch a piece of content how viewers react … Then you almost broadcast from the game master’s perspective, which is a completely new media style. ‘
Asked if he would be interested in investigating such a project, Sakaguchi laughed and just said, “I think it’s going to be a lot of work.”