Hironobu Sakaguchi might have released his final (no pun intended) game in Apple Arcade’s Fantasian.
“I am Nearing the End of My Video Game Development Career”
According to a recent Washington Post Interview, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Creator of Final Fantasy (and other great RPGs) feels that Fantasian could be his final game. Sakaguchi is fond of older (1990s) turn based JRPGs (that he, himself, helped to pioneer and evolve).
With Fantasian, the legendary game creator decided to go back to his roots after having replayed Final Fantasy VI a few years ago. Fantasian is a love letter to a large segment of old school Final Fantasy fans that have complained about Final Fantasy’s recent entries.
To many of these gamers, the new FF games feel like they are ‘Final Fantasy’ in name only, as they have long lost their ‘soul’ and original feel. Sakaguchi isn’t oblivious to this, and instead of reinventing the wheel, Fantasian is a project that harkens back to what the creator did best.
“It (replaying Final Fantasy VI) reminded me how much I really like this style of gameplay, and I wanted to go back to my roots. Let’s be honest, I’m nearing the end of my video game development career. So I thought, ‘I’m going to try to develop something in a style I know really, really well and personally like to play.’ ” – Hironobu Sakaguchi
I believe that many Final Fantasy fans out there would echo Sakaguchi’s thoughts, Fantasian’s final (second) part is now available Apple Arcade, thus completing what might have been Sakaguchi’s (and Nobuo Uematsu’s) final game.
Will Fantasian Arrive To Consoles at Some Point?
The Nintendo Switch would be a perfect fit for this game, but given how involved Apple was in the game’s creation, it is difficult gauge whether Apple will ever allow the game to be ported to other platforms.
Fantasian is one of Apple Arcade’s killer apps, and Apple wants you to subscribe to its service. Fantasian currently holds an 80 Metacritic rating. This is a good score for a game that clearly wants to appeal to the FF crowd that still swears by Final Fantasy VI.
Tales of Arise Arrives this Week
In 4 days (September 10) the latest Tales entry, Tales of Arise, arrives on Consoles (PS, and Xbox), and PC. We wrote down a big preview of the game (based on its demo) a few weeks ago, and for the most part were left impressed by the game’s visuals, and combat.
Along with Final Fantasy, and Dragon Quest, the Tales series is one of the longest running Japanese Role-Playing Game franchises that receives consistent (and numerous) main entries on home consoles. Tales of Arise modernizes the series’ visuals by utilizing the Unreal 4 engine. Epic’s game making toolset has turned into the preferred engine within the JRPG development community (Final Fantasy VII Remake, Dragon Quest XI), so it is good to see that Namco finally caught up with the times.
Mark your Calendars, or Pre-Order, as this one is certain to please Tales and JRPG fans in general when it arrives later this week. If Tales of Arise is successful, it might encourage more AAA development of JRPGs for home consoles.
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