Fantasian Neo Dimension Nintendo Switch Port and Xbox Series X Impressions – New Features, Visuals, Load Times, and More
Fantasian Neo Dimension from Mistwalker and Square Enix has finally arrived on consoles and PC following its debut on Apple Arcade a few years ago. When I first played it back in 2021 on my iPhone and iPad, given Apple's involvement, I never thought it would be ported beyond maybe PC. To see it not only arrive on consoles, but also get some additional features, has been great. Ahead of today's release, I've been playing Fantasian Neo Dimension on both Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X to write about how it feels on both consoles. I likely will update this when I get my PS5 physical edition and have tested it there, but for now I wanted to cover how Fantasian Neo Dimension feels on Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and how both compare to the Apple Arcade version.
When I first played Fantasian on Apple Arcade, I ran into a few minor performance issues. Barring that, it played well and looked excellent. There are some instances where the camera zooming into specific diorama portions looked blurry or where certain effects feel out of place, but it was a polished game on the devices I tried it on. I revisited it a year ago on a MacBook Air with M1 chip and also my iPhone 15 Pro. Fantasian on Apple Arcade was capped at 60fps and basically ran almost perfectly even on slightly older devices. When Fantasian Neo Dimension was announced, I was curious to see how the game would scale across the board. I also re-downloaded Fantasian on my old iPad Air 2 as a point of comparison for load times and performance.
Fantasian Neo Dimension new features
Before getting into performance, load times, and visual differences, Fantasian Neo Dimension has a few useful features over the original Apple Arcade game. These are a new easier difficulty option (hard mode here is the Apple Arcade's difficulty), a battle music selector with Final Fantasy music, and voice acting (both English and Japanese). It is unclear if any of these will be patched into the Apple Arcade original.
Fantasian Neo Dimension – Nintendo Switch load times
I'm going to cut to the chase here and highlight the biggest issue Fantasian Neo Dimension has on Nintendo Switch right now: the load times. Some games taking longer to load specific things on Nintendo's hybrid system isn't a new phenomenon, but every little transition in Fantasian Neo Dimension has a longer than expected loading screen here. This all adds up in a game with multiple battles and screen transitions.
Fantasian on Apple Arcade didn't have issues on this front unless you played on the oldest supported devices. For some perspective, Fantasian on an iPad Air 2 (2014 model) takes about 9 seconds to load the first story battle and 8 seconds for the next few battles. The Nintendo Switch version played on my Nintendo Switch OLED model takes about 8 seconds for the same first encounter. Even for random battles, the Switch took at least 6-7 seconds at minimum compared to 3 seconds or less for the Xbox Series X version. The latter basically matches the Apple Arcade original on my iPhone 15 Pro. Fantasian Neo Dimension also adds a small loading indicator to the battle screen transition or any transition in between locations. The Apple Arcade original just had the transition without any loading indicator. This change is good as Fantasian on older Apple devices sometimes felt like it was frozen when it just had a lengthy loading transition.
In the first town, going in and out of any shop or building sees a short 1-2 second transition in the Apple Arcade original on my iPhone. On Switch, even this can take up to 5 seconds. These add up, and when coupled with some performance issues on Switch, I wish we saw a better conversion here for Nintendo's hybrid console. The Xbox Series X version on the other hand matches the Apple Arcade game on my iPhone 15 Pro when it comes to loading in and out of any shops or buildings.
After a few hours of playing, I wanted to make sure these load times were not because of any potential SD card issues. I reinstalled the game on the internal memory on my Nintendo Switch OLED and retested it on not only my old saves, but also on a brand new file. I had the same results sadly. I hope potential patches can address this, but as of this writing, the Switch port of Fantasian Neo Dimension leaves a lot to be desired.
Fantasian Neo Dimension – visual and performance upgrades over Apple Arcade
Fantasian on Apple Arcade offered two frame rate options (30fps and 60fps) and two graphics quality options (low and high). On Xbox Series X and PS5, Square Enix has also confirmed 4K support, and Fantasian Neo Dimension looks gorgeous on Xbox Series X for the most part. There are some areas where the zoomed in camera reveals some lower quality textures in the scans. I also noticed some UI elements haven't been updated for higher resolution displays. These looked fine on the small screen playing on iPhone, but they stick out on my TV like the save point. Barring that, I have no major complaints with how Fantasian Neo Dimension plays and looks on Xbox Series X. Fantasian itself looked great on modern Apple devices, but seeing the Xbox Series X version of Fantasian Neo Dimension on my 1440p monitor is great.
Moving over to Nintendo Switch, Fantasian Neo Dimension made a great first impression with a 60fps target and it looking crisp in handheld mode. Things went downhill quickly thanks to the load times which I covered above, but the frame rate target isn't met in most locations. You see this in the first town where the frame rate fluctuates a bit. When roaming around on the world map, the frame rate is also not consistent. The performance issues on Switch are not a deal-breaker given the hardware and how some games using the same engine perform, but the load times definitely are. Fantasian Neo Dimension could've done with some post-processing for the main models on Switch as well because you can visibly see a lot of jagged edges and some shimmering, but again, none of these are as much of an issue as the load times.
The Switch port aside from the load times and some performance issues is better than I expected with its 60fps target (that is held up well in many areas) and with how good it looks in handheld mode. Despite being designed for Apple Arcade, Fantasian Neo Dimension's aesthetic shines at much higher resolutions on Xbox Series X and also on the Switch's OLED screen.
Is it worth getting Fantasian Neo Dimension on console if you already played it on Apple Arcade?
If you want to replay Fantasian, Fantasian Neo Dimension is easily the best version of Mistwalker's RPG. I adored the original and was always planning to replay it, but if you don't care about the voice acting and easier difficulty, there isn't much of note here to warrant a double dip. For newcomers to Fantasian, Fantasian Neo Dimension is an essential RPG, and one I recommend. I was hoping for a bigger visual upgrade in parts and some of the graphical quirks the original had to be addressed, but Fantasian Neo Dimension is the definitive version of an excellent RPG.