Fantasian, the 2021 Apple Arcade exclusive from Final Fantasy creators Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, has popped up on Steam as a playtest. While nothing has been confirmed, the appearance raises the possibility that the game will finally make its way to PC in the near future.
The playtest was spotted on SteamDB (via Resetera user Yoonshik). While it’s a tantalizing prospect for RPG fans, the listing uses some pretty dodgy key art ripped directly from the Apple version with the logos roughly scribbled over:
However, given that the listing isn’t meant to be publicly available, that’s maybe not as big a knock against it as it might otherwise be. In fact, earlier this year, Sakaguchi himself mentioned that the team was interested in developing a PC port of the game and a possible sequel.
Developed by Mistwalker, Fantasian continued the developer’s tradition of producing memorable RPGs. The team is probably best known for its pair of Xbox 360-exclusive RPGs: Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, though it also created The Last Story for Wii and several mobile games.
Fantasian released in two parts, offering a total of about 90 hours of gameplay. It’s a traditional JRPG in many respects, including its amnesiac protagonist and turn-based and party-based combat. Nonetheless, it does introduce a unique mechanic that allows you to skip random encounters and battle all of those enemies skipped later instead. It also makes use of more than 150 handcrafted dioramas as backgrounds to the game’s action.
There’s been no confirmation that Fantasian will escape from Apple Arcade and make it to Steam or other platforms, but hopefully this listing is a sign of things to come.
Published: Aug 2, 2023 07:59 pm