This isnвЂ™t especially challenging at first, but the further into the game that you get, the more ruthless the challenge becomes and the more pitch-perfect your strategy needs to be.

In practice, every battle is a puzzle, and youвЂ™re forced to consider the right tools вЂ“ the right party composition and equipmentВ вЂ“ for the job. Even ideas that might be reused in later encounters are never quite the same, and when youвЂ™re offered the opportunity to battle bosses a second time in later sidequests, theyвЂ™re given a new spin to make the encounters feel fresh again. Another requires you to match up your elemental attacks with the color of the knights stationed behind him to prevent the damage coming out from the encounter to be too much to handle.Д®very boss has a gimmick like this, and no two mechanics overstay their welcome. If you attack them, your entire team will take a ton of damage.

One memorable side boss requires players to make use of a certain characterвЂ™s ability to vacuum up mobs into a location that he sets down on the battlefield, so you can attack the boss without running afoul of his explosive friends. Certain bosses will even employ mechanics that will block attacks unless properly aimed and timed. While some melee attacks can pierce, other enemy types can block piercing attacks from passing through them. One of the basic elements of FantasianвЂ™s battle system is that while melee attacks will shout out in a straight line вЂ“ magic can be curved, offering you the ability to bypass groups of enemies. ItвЂ™s more like you need to find the opening to give yourself a chance at victory in the first place, rather than finding a catch-all solution to prevent you from having trouble.Д®ach of the gameвЂ™s boss gimmicks are unique, but many of them take into account timing, positioning, & the trajectory of your attacks. Certain bosses will require very specific strategies using unique party combinations вЂ“ and while itвЂ™s a lot of fun figuring out how the game wants you to tackle a boss, simply knowing the intended solution isnвЂ™t enough to make these battles a cakewalk. While the game eases you into the battle system and how each character plays in the first 15 to 20 hours of the story, the last 30 to 40 hours expect near-perfect execution when it comes to tackling bosses. In this second part of the game, players are given more or less the entire world for them to explore and can tackle a variety of quests in any order. Going through the linear early portion of the game, you wonвЂ™t have too much trouble making it to the clearly World of Ruin-inspired latter half, where players are instead tasked with tackling the challenges at their own pace.

While I played through the game on an Apple TV, one would normally assume that a game exclusive to mostly mobile platforms would have a much more forgiving difficulty curve.Д«ut enough talking around it вЂ“ Fantasian is a very, very difficult RPG. Fantasian is an Apple Arcade exclusive, only playable on Apple devices вЂ“ primarily mobile platforms, like iPhone and iPad. ItвЂ™s a weird situation for a game to be in, and even more baffling considering the platforms that it has released on. The problem, instead, comes from how much of Fantasian might seem to appeal to a wider audience, only for one or two key design philosophies to severely limit who will end up enjoying the title as a whole. How do you tackle a game where aspects of its core design will be poison for a wider audience, even if those decisions arenвЂ™t inherently poorвЂ“ and, in fact, might even be welcomed by a specific type of player? Challenge on its own doesnвЂ™t make a game bad, and I believe thereвЂ™s a space in the industry for RPGs of all types. ThatвЂ™s maybe a bit of an odd start for a review, I must admit, but thatвЂ™s the same challenge IвЂ™ve run headfirst into when attempting to articulate my thoughts on what might well be industry legend Hironobu SakaguchiвЂ™s final project.

I would not recommend playing Fantasian unless you belong to a very specific subset of RPG players. Fantasian is one of the best games IвЂ™ve played all year.

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