New JRPG from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi coming to Apple Arcade

Final Fantasy fans will be familiar with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the man who created the beloved RPG franchise. While Sakaguchi stepped away from the Squaresoft and the series he forged in the early 2000s, he continued developing games under a new studio, Mistwalker Corp. The master is back at it with a new role-playing game heading for Apple Arcade.

Fatasian is a JRPG that will exclusively hit Apple Arcade from Sakaguchi’s game development studio, Mistwalker Corp. The game follows Leo, an amnesiac who sets out to reclaim his memory. In typical JRPG fashion, Leo and his companions face the end of the world at the hands of unimaginably powerful eldritch horrors that will patiently wait for their turn before attacking the protagonists. The story takes place across multiple dimensions, which appear to be represented by handcrafted diorama-style arenas. Since the story is written by Hironobu Sakaguchi, gamers should expect a last-minute twist that comes out of nowhere.

Also of note is the soundtrack, which is composed by Final Fantasy veteran (and fan favorite) Nobuo Uematsu. Uematsu is known for crafting adrenaline-fueled battle themes and sweeping orchestral scores that perfectly punctuate the emotional atmosphere of scenes.

The battle system looks similar to other turn-based JRPGs. Battles are randomly entered while on the overworld. There looks to be a turn indicator in the bottom corner of the screen (a la Final Fantasy X’s Conditional Turn-based Battle system). Gamers can choose the trajectory of an attack to try and hit multiple enemies at once. Some characters can even curve their weapons or spells to better cover the battle arena. Keeping true to the JRPG style, bosses are huge and their battles are epic.

The most intriguing aspect of the battle system involves something called the “Dimengeon,” a portmanteau of “dimension” and “dungeon.” When walking around on the overworld with the Dimengeon active, previously encountered monsters will no longer appear in encounters; instead, they are cast into the Dimengeon as a holding place. Players can then choose to purge the Dimengeon at a later time, battling all the monsters it holds at once. It’s a unique system that adds some nice flavor.

Fanatasian will launch on Apple Arcade sometime this year. Apple Arcade is Apple’s games subscription service available on iOS 13.0 or later, iPadOS 13.0 or later, tvOS 13.0 or later, and macOS 11.0 or later for US$4.99/month.