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Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Review

Nintendo and Square have made peace, but is it for the good of all mankind?

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles

By: ConnDestn

            A long time ago in a fantastical world much like the one we live in today, there was a strong and grand alliance between to empires. The empires were known as Nintendo and Square Soft. These two empires together helped turn the Nintendo and Super Nintendo into arguably the greatest consoles of their time with such hits as Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Mario Rpg and many more, but one day an evil cloud covered the lands and all that was peaceful and beautiful between the two empires were no more. It is now many years later and the cloud is no more. For the first time in years the empire known as Square Soft (now Square-Enix) has finally released a new game on Nintendo’s home console and its first for the Game Cube. The game is Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, but is all that was good once more, or do the Chronicles beckon to the years of darkness?

By popular demand and assuming you are still with me after that eerie prologue I bring you my review for Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.

            FF:CC is basically a spin off of the highly popular Final Fantasy series thus the subtitle it has been given in replace of a number denoting its true blood line of Final Fantasy. Whereas all the other FF games were about story/character development and heavy leveling, CC focuses on multiplayer mayhem. CC’s story is quite simple you (and friends if the case may be) have set out as a group of caravanner’s  in search of a substance called myrrh which is used to replenish the power of crystals and clear the poison from the land. The narration during the game done by a woman is quite nice and helps the game remind me of the hobbit. (Not the game but the cartoon and book.) The graphics in CC are nice and help to bring the world to life. The game resembles what a 3-D Secret Of Mana might look like (Though I pray any future SOM”s released stay 2-D) Its not the best the Game Cube has to offer (Soul Calibur 2, Metroid Prime) in terms of visually but its pretty close to the top. Every player starts off by plugging a Game Boy Advance into a port. What’s that, a Game Boy Advance you say? That’s right CC is the first true game to use the GC to GBA connectivity as something much more than just a gimmick, and not only is it very cool and useful, but its necessary. I can see how this may cause a stir amongst gamers. In order to get the complete experience with four players one would have to have 1 GC, 4 Gba’s, and 4 Link cables which does add up gill wise, (Though those who preordered CC received a free link cable) but truthfully the game works better this way. Every player uses his/her Gba to create there character picking from 4 different races, giving it a name, a family trade, and a preset look, and all of this is done using the Gba screen and controls... Once that’s out of the way you start off by navigating small caravan along a map stopping every once in awhile for story parts and getting from one mission to the other. After entering the area every character is required to set up their command list by equipping items and such in their command bar for easier access. The Gba is also used to check stats, money, letters from your family, equipment and much more. After all that is done you set off wondering the area killing monsters, opening passages and finding treasure. Unlike previous FF games there is no leveling in CC. Instead find items called artifacts which do various things like adding +3 magic to you, giving you another heart of life (quite similar to Zelda) to another command slot. These artifacts can be obtained in two ways. The first is by treasure chest within your current area though once you leave the area the artifacts are gone and cannot be saved. The second way is after defeating a boss you are given an option to pick an artifact from a selection. This artifact can be saved and is forever with you after that point. Magic can be found after an enemy is destroyed and anyone can pick it up and use it, but like the artifacts found any magic you find is gone once you leave the level.  Special artifacts like Blizzard ring will let you keep the spell.
Battle is presented in real time much like SOM. By pressing the L button on the Gba you can cycle through a list of commands such as attack, defend, any magic you’ve picked up and put in your command list and any item as well.  In attack mode you can perform a combo by timing your button presses, and if you hold the attack button u can perform a super move called a focus attack. When casting magic you must hold the attack button down then guide your target to the enemy you wish to attack and release. If this is timed correctly with more than one player and spell then you are able to release either a new spell altogether such as combining fire and blizzard for gravity or a beefed up version of the original such as fire and fire to form firaga, or cure and cure for curaga. This can also be done in 1 player mode by spell fusing. Another innovative idea involving multiplayer is that each player is given separate radar for each area. This can be a treasure map, enemy map, enemy stat screen, or area map. This little addition help keep the focus on teamwork.

Another important team work element is the chalice. Every area is filled with poison and in order to survive you must stay within the safe area that the chalice emits. In order to progress someone has to pick up this chalice and carry it while the others stay in its safe zone. Walking outside the chalice eventually causes your character to lose life. (Which I must admit it is fun picking the chalice up and leaving my friends behind to succumb to the poison on the outsideJ) While this chalice adds some strategy it also slows the game down a bit given the chalice carrier is a bit slower than the others, and is not able to fight unless he/she puts down the chalice first. Not so bad in multiplayer mode where you have others to fight for you, but a little annoying when you are alone. As well as teamwork CC also promotes competition. At the start of every area each player is given a special objective that only he/she can see such as “Open treasure chest”, or “Defeat enemies with spell fusion attacks”. Whoever is the most successful at their mission is given first pick for artifacts after the boss. Though everyone gets a pick, when it comes to the rarer artifacts the first picker is the better off. There are also many games that can be played at a mog house such as a caravan racing game that bares a striking resemblance to Mario kart. Unfortunately for the solo player the mini games are for multiplayer only.  Single players can obtain a moogle and do things to them like paint them with different designs or even give then a hair cut. While most of this is fun, CC is really a game meant only for multiplayer; alone it can become quite repetitive and boring. Perhaps if it had a deeper story and longer play time it would have made a great 1 player game as well, but all of its tricks and fancy mechanics were really meant for more people. Truthfully I would most likely not recommend it as a purchase unless you plan on playing a lot of it with friends though if you enjoy games like Diablo a lot and was able to play Phantasy Star Online off line almost as much as on (I only put about 2 hours into PSO offline and 160 online.) then maybe you’ll be just fine with this. It’s not exactly the fantasy we were hoping for on a Nintendo system, but there’s always hope. After all it’s not exactly the final one either.

Rating: 3/5

-ConnDestn