The final boss, he tells me, is a 40 to 50-minute encounter all on its own. He points to Fantasian’s boss encounters as a particular element he wanted to flesh out further, suggesting that the AI and algorithms for bosses in Part 2 are far more complex and rewarding than Part 1’s. He tells me that while he had a general overview of both parts early on, he “got a little greedy” with what he wanted to add - especially as he began working on Part 2. That challenge was increased somewhat by what Sakaguchi acknowledges was an expansion of scope as he worked on the scenario. We'll see what they say, if the fans really like and crave that diorama feel and look, then perhaps we can revisit it, but I think I definitely underestimated, shall we say, how challenging the pipeline might be." “Before we dove into it, I thought it was going to be a bit more manageable, but of course taking these physical, handcrafted dioramas and really capturing the essence of it, and dropping into a game, which is, of course, mostly digital, it turned out to be a bigger challenge than I think any of us expected. "I think there is something to be said about ignorance being bliss,” he replies with a laugh. Sakaguchi has said in interviews for the game earlier this year that a game development pipeline with dioramas like this “probably shouldn’t exist.” I ask him if, having now completed one, he still feels the same way. So to find what we were looking for and create that photograph, it took us three days to go through all the dioramas." “I asked, ‘Hey, can you get that throne?’ and it took him three days to assemble the whole thing together because he stored them safely and took apart certain parts that don't need to be together when stored. "Ironically, because of the sheer volume, the other day I wanted to take some photos of the King's throne, the throne room,” he says. I think didn't leave anything on the table and there are no regrets with how it turned out. He tells me they’re currently taken apart and stored in a warehouse on the outskirts of Tokyo owned by one of the diorama artists - a convenient solution, but one that also illustrates the sheer scope of the project. I ask Sakaguchi what, precisely, one does with 160 handmade dioramas once they’re done being scanned for use in a game. These dioramas were, naturally, one of the more intensive elements of Fantasian's development, and one of the things Sakaguchi is referencing when he talks about the amount of effort it took. Though in many respects it's a traditional, turn-based RPG, Fantasian is immediately visually striking thanks to its backgrounds, which are composed of nearly 160 handmade dioramas, all 3D scanned to serve as game environments.
It follows the story of a young man who has lost his memories and has been pulled through dimensions. The first part of Fantasian launched earlier this year on Apple Arcade, with Part 2 just announced for release this Friday. "I think didn't leave anything on the table and there are no regrets with how it turned out," he says.
He's said in other interviews (and reiterated during our discussion) that while he's not committing to it being his last game ever, and that he still has ideas of things he would like to create, he would nonetheless be "very satisfied" with Fantasian if it turned out to be "the final cherry on top" of his career. It's understandable that Sakaguchi has been particularly reflective about his personal life and career throughout the development of Fantasian. I would say it's partially age, partially personal experience, but there's a lot of things that you carry going into development like this." "In Fantasian, there's definitely a relationship depicted between a parent and child and there's certain connections that I draw of course from my real-life experiences that, perhaps naturally or perhaps it might be a message that I want to say or subtly put into the story. So as he worked on the second part of Fantasian, he has thought frequently about the family-themed parallels between that and Final Fantasy 6. He brings up his family often as we chat, at one point telling me that his daughter is getting married in October. Speaking to IGN over Zoom ahead of the launch of Fantasian's second half, Sakaguchi is warm and easygoing, laughing often and complimenting my cat when she interrupts the call (her name is Robo, after a character in Chrono Trigger, which he was a designer on).
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