Same!
Fantasian has me excited, but more out of hope for it elsewhere.
Quick impressions over the past week:
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World of Demons somehow makes the bloated Astral Chain seem svelte by comparison. Itās highly repetitive to the point of boring. Each level is a long series of loosely strung together arena battles, new stages being little more than environment swapped copies of those that came before. The combat isnāt bad but if youāve played other Platinum games youāre likely to have seen it all before here. The twist is that you can unleash Youkai attacks on enemies in addition to a regular sword attack, but those Youkai need to be micromanaged and levelled up, as do your characters and your weapons.
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Clap Hanz Golf is really solid stuff, though itās even more grindy than Minna no Golf 6 on PS3 and Vita. Iām still enjoying it, but at world tour rank 5 Iām still not finding the AI much of a challenge and any new characters I unlock are still listed as being āgreat for novicesā. Iām sure it gets more challenging later but itās a much slower difficulty curve than anything else Iāve played in the series.
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Fantasian is pretty great. Itās a no-nonsense Sakaguchi adventure that has largely been made without paying attention to current trends. Refreshing. But the narrative falls short of what was achieved in Lost Odyssey. Thereās these memory scenes which play out much like that gameās āThousand Years of Dreamsā segments, but they donāt come close to exploring the human element in the same way Lost Odyssey did. Kaim being immortal really made that work. Everything else is solid, though. The diorama environments are more interesting than I expected them to be - the level designers really make use of every centimetre of space, with some interesting and unexpected camerawork, and the battle system is excellent, with one of the best user interfaces Iāve user used in an RPG. I wouldnāt want to play this one with a controller which speaks volumes about the designersā prowess here.
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Taiko no Tatsujin is as youād expect, just that the song list is surprisingly slim. My guess is Namco has been advised to slowly add new music over the course of months/years to keep people subscribing to Arcade.
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I gave up on it. Just too easy and quite boring. Too much time spent tapping on user interface related to the characters, than playing golf!
Going to try a couple more in my month trial. But Iām not hopeful.
Iām about 5 hours into Fantasian and really enjoying it. Itās great to see Sakaguchi just embrace his roots - the dioramas are great, the battle system is snappy and fun and the characters are growing on me.
Itās early yet but the only part Iām lukewarm on is the OST, I havenāt heard a stand out track yet.
Itās a lot of waiting for the real game to begin. If the golf werenāt so compelling Iād have dropped it by now but I still canāt believe that after 12 character unlocks and 4 world tour ranks, the game is still in Novice mode!
Good point about the micromanagement, itās less of an issue once 3 hole events stop appearing at least.
The problem is there are much better golf games worthy of my time.
What did you think of Clap Hanzās other games in comparison to this one?
Apparently the physics of Minna no Golf 6 were simplified from 5, probably due to the move from PS3 to Vita, but I havenāt played much of any of the games other than 6.
Iāve only played the first ones on PSX that they did after they took over Everybodyās Goof from Camelot. Iād have to play them again to recall my thoughts of 20 years ago 
And Iād have to think whether Iāve tried anything on PSP, but definitely not tried any on PS3/4/Vita.
No problem. I might pick up one of the PS1 titles if itās good. I need to properly get stuck in to the PS3 game one day.
I seem to remember I preferred the early Camelot PS1 games.
But Iām up for trying whatever is regarded as the best on PS1.
The 2nd EG game is best on PS1, I put a HUGE amount of time into that one, but I think the 2nd PSP game is probably my favourite in the series that I have played. I havenāt touched the PS4 version but it seems a lot like this new one with the huge amount of grinding required. I canāt get behind Everybodys Golf without the traditional three click swing mechanic, console golf games lost me when analog stick swing and touch screens are involved.
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Your post got me curious and now im gonna do one of those annoying ādid you know gamingā things with something i discovered after looking for a bit.
Iād imagine most people know the first Everybodyās Golf was by Camelot, but I didnāt realise one of the Camelot programmers founded Clap Hanz. Masashi Muramoriā¦ and whatās crazier is this guy was a programmer on several Enix golf games in the mid 80ās. Looks like heās been making golf games his entire life!
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Living the dream!
I didnāt know that.
These facts are only annoying if itās something well known. I doubt that this is widely known at all.
Iāve played his first game, World Golf, which is pretty good!
This discussion got me to looking at reviews and reception for those early games in the series. Looks like the first PS2 game is among the tops.
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Thatās good to know. Iāll grab a copy.
I finished part 1 of Fantasian today, which clocked in at around 18 hours.
I was sceptical at first but the game quickly removes the training wheels and continually ramps up the difficulty to the point where I ended up enjoying almost every moment of it after a few hours in.
Itās a really well thought out and well designed game, almost feels like it was made within the development circumstances of the 90s, where projects hadnāt ballooned to huge sizes and small details werenāt being lost as a result. Itās also not deliberately trying to be a nostalgic game like I am Setsuna, Octopath Traveler or a lot of throwback RPGs that miss the point of what made the golden age of the genre in Japan what it was, itās something entirely new but willing to embrace what worked in the past.
The boss battles are a particular highlight, they are regularly challenging and force you to have mastered or understood every ability that you can use. And the gameās always throwing fun ideas around - one boss has a giant bird whose mega attack will eventually push your entire party off a cliff, triggering a game over, if youāre not careful.
I think I mentioned it before but the use of dioramas for the backgrounds is more than just a visual gimmick, but something that helped inform the level design. Each area feels true to its theme, probably the best example is the canal town with its winding pathways and watergates that you can lower/raise to reach new areas.
Iām now really looking forward to the second half of the game, just a shame it wasnāt all released in one go due to the subscription format. Iād be much happier paying money for the game itself, instead I ended up finishing it during the free trial, which just canāt be working out financially for Apple or for the gameās worth. While Iāll be resubscribing to finish the game I wonāt have contributed more than $5 overall to the service, which just doesnāt sit right with me given the gameās quality.
On a related note, the game designers include these talented folk:
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,454755/ - director of Front Mission, Final Fantasy X
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,115740/ - planner on FFVII, FFIX, director of SaGa Scarlet Grace
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,84966/ - director on Eternal Sonata, event planner on Shenmue II, worked on some interesting stuff at Konami too
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,82627/ - director of Super Mario RPG, Hamtaro games, worked on Mario and Luigi, ex-Alphadream
https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,825447/ - ex Alphadream field designer
Full credits here: Fantasian (part one) credits - Album on Imgur
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Nice summary!
Looking forward to the inevitable console port a year or so after completion.
Really interesting credits, didnāt expect that.
Yu Suzukiās new game came out today, titled Air Twister.
Shenmue creator is making Space Harrier with swans for Apple Arcade
There are a few interviews about the web with more information about it, though I wanted to go in blind.
Honestly, my hopes werenāt particularly high just because the art direction is so reminiscent of games you find on Unreal Engine today, though you could point to Segaās own Planet Harriers and see this as a continuation of that style. But Yu Suzuki wasnāt involved with that, as far as I can tell! IGN Japanās gameplay footage also looked a bit slow and pedestrian.
Thankfully the game is quite a lot of fun! At first thereās a much larger emphasis on taking down constantly appearing waves of enemies than dodging scenery, which is initially disappointing, but from stage 3 onward the difficulty ramps up considerably, with some interesting boss encounters and enemy formations that force you to almost always be dodging while shooting.
So far Iāve only made it up to stage 6 - each run puts you back to the very start in true arcade fashion.
This one probably sits alongside Fantasian as a prime example of Apple being happy to greenlight esteemed video game directorsā pitches without any interference. This is an inherently unmarketable game, so itās great to see something like this exist.
At the same time I just wish the art direction fit its fantastical themes a bit better. It has a similar look to the backgrounds of Tetris Effect, but with less inspired lighting.
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