Fantasian review — Beautiful, if not always bold iPhone game

iPhone, iPad (via Apple Arcade); Mistwalker/Apple
This role-playing game by Mistwalker's Hironobu Sakaguchi trades in tropes but has just enough peril to keep it interesting

It's a truism that you can't take more than a few steps in a Japanese role-playing game without triggering a random battle. Each encounter transports you to a separate screen where your party of heroes faces off against critter-like enemies, who rarely put up much of a fight. Historically, game developers have relied on these repetitive and boring battles to pad out adventures.

Fantasian at least does something novel with the concept. Once our hero Leo and his companions acquire a device called the Dimengeon, they no longer trigger random battles as they crisscross the landscape. Instead, enemies are collected by this device, hoovered up like spooks in a Ghostbuster's proton pack, and you choose when you stop to fight them. as a result, exploring is more brisk and fluid.