The father of Final Fantasy says it’s a “blessing” working with Square Enix and Yoshi-P to rebuild the JRPG he made “thinking it could become my final work”

Hironobu Sakaguchi says Fantasian “has a special place in my heart”

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Hironobu Sakaguchi, best known as the director of the original run of Final Fantasy games, is bringing hismost recent JRPG out of Apple jailwith an upgraded port called Fantasian Neo Dimension later this year. Sakaguchi is reuniting withSquare Enixfor the project, and in a message to fans, he says it’s a great blessing to have the opportunity.

“Fantasian Neo Dimension has had its grand reveal, marking its comeback at Square Enix,” Sakaguchi says in the message posted to the official FantasianTwitter account. “The strength of a digital title is that it can continue existing without deteriorating, and I wanted Fantasian to be an especially long-standing title. I developed Fantasian thinking that it could become my final work before retiring, so it has a special place in my heart. Having the opportunity to rebuild it at Square Enix this way and making it widely known is truly a blessing.”

On hispersonal account, Sakaguchi also posted a photo of himself hanging out with the beloved producer of Final Fantasy 14 and 16, Naoki ‘Yoshi-P’ Yoshida. He notes that they’re working together on Fantasian Neo Dimension while discussing FF14. (The impending launch ofFinal Fantasy 14 Dawntrailsurely means they have a lot to talk about.)

Whether Fantasian actually turns out to be Sakaguchi’s final game remains to be seen. He noted earlier this year thathe was writing a new game, but was playing too much FF14 to give a concrete update on it. Given the vagaries of Japanese translation, it’s possible that this new game was, in fact, the upgraded version of Fantasian, but I guess time will tell how committed Sakaguchi actually is to retirement.

Fantasian Neo Dimension, Sakaguchi says, “is an amalgamation of the souls of the diorama craftsmen, Uematsu compositions, and of course, the game developers. If you’d like, please do give it a try.” The game is set to launch across Switch, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and PC this winter.

Sakaguchi has had plenty of influence over thebest JRPGsever made.

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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He’s been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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