Summary
Apple Arcade exclusiveFantasianmight be on its way to Steam, according to some newly emerged evidence. The first part ofFantasianlaunched on Apple Arcadein April 2021, some four months ahead of its full-fledged release.
The latest game from the JRPG veterans at Mistwalker debuted to fan adoration and critical acclaim, with manyreviewers praisingFantasianfor its intuitive combat mechanics and an enormous variety of boss fights. The second part of the game, in particular, received widespread praise for its memorable locations and challenging enemy encounters which required players to fully master the game’s combat.
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And though Mistwalker never gave any indication that its unique JRPG will ever be available on non-Apple devices, the company might already be working on a PC port ofFantasian. Namely, SteamDB recently scraped an apparent Steam listing of the game that still isn’t live as of August 2, but already includes someFantasianpromo materials, including its logo and a handful of gameplay screenshots. The data also indicates that Mistwalker will soon start testing the PC port of its latest JRPG, as the name of the newly scraped Steam listing mentions a “playtest.”
Seeing howFantasianis still touted as one ofthe best Apple Arcade gamesever made, this turn of events is likely to excite many JRPG fans who don’t own an iOS device. The game itself embraces many storytelling tropes associated with its genre, but also puts some notable twists on a variety of JRPG gameplay conventions. One of its most notable contributions to the genre is the Dimengeon system which allows players to collect random enemy encounters before clearing them out all at once. This particular mechanic allows for largely uninterrupted exploration segments while making random encounters more rewarding, thus preventing minor battles from getting in the way of other gameplay elements.
Fantasianalso boasts an original soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu, best known as the long-time composer of theFinal Fantasyseries. And though the game was developed specifically for iOS devices, it shipped with support for physical gamepads and also offered intuitive one-touch controls that could translate well to a keyboard-and-mouse control scheme. A PC port ofFantasianwould mark a notable first for Mistwalker, seeing how the Japanese studio has never released a PC game in its 19-year history.
ShouldFantasiantruly leave mobile devices, it won’t be the first game to do so in recent times. Namely,PS5 and Xbox gamers just received their ownZelda-liketitle in the form ofOceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm, a former Apple Arcade exclusive that hit PC and current-generation consoles on August 2.
