Fantasian the RPG made its debut on the iOS and is made by Mistwalker and Final Fantasy father Hironobu Sakaguchi. While a fun game, it didn’t get the audience it deserved.

Fast forward to now, and daddy Final Fantasy is back to getting help from his ex-company Square Enix to publish his underappreciated Japanese role-playing game onto other platforms, but with a huge coat of paint and worthy features. Most of us who aren’t loaded enough to own iPhones may have played Fantasian on the mobile device, but this new lease on life for the JRPG means more people can see how charming the game can get.

Yes, the graphics and audio are getting the high-definition treatment, but really, it’s all about how it plays. The gameplay mechanics are what you want out of a JRPG: turn-based combat, powerful spells and skills to use and abuse, and elemental weaknesses to exploit. Your spells can either hit enemies in a line or in an area-of-effect spot, meaning you’ll have to pick the right spells to end your fights quick.

Your dungeons are maze-like and the random battles are aplenty. The kicker in Fantasian is you can use the Dimengion mechanic. Turn this feature on the map, and your random encounters will be skipped and enter your pocket Dimengion dimension. You can skip up to 30 battles, but if you turn off the Dimengion or if it goes past 30, you’ll automatically fight all the trapped enemies in an extended battle inside the pocket dimension. Also, Dimengion battles will have gimmicks that appear on-screen; attack them to gain benefits and buffs like attack power increase or even extra turns so you can kill off the giant giraffe monsters and wizard-like minions all ready to take your head off.

The end boss of the demo is a two-fer fight: one flying demon and one four-legged monstrosity. You need to figure out the mechanics of this fight otherwise it’s pretty much unwinnable; the flying beast counters your attacks and can shift to the back row, while the ground beast can shield up and heal itself and its aerial pal to full health. The trick here is to use the right party member with the right ailment spell to stop their sustaining madness.

Check out our playthrough of the Tokyo Game Show 2024 demo where we dick around one of the earlier stages and fight the aforementioned unique security system monster boss couple. Fantasian Neo Dimension will be out for PC and consoles on 5th December 2024, in a year already flooded with too many JRPGs. At least you’ll get to play this one with old-school Final Fantasy music.