Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles

[Fryguy64]

Has anyone played this game? I picked it up a couple of days ago, and played it with my brother last night. My opinions of it are still out really.

Basically, you either play 1 player with a Control Pad, or multiplayer where each player hooks up a Game Boy Advance using the GBA/GC cable. I've only played multiplayer, so I'll rant about that for now.

The focal point is the chalice. The chalice creates a safe field of play during battles with which to move, and venturing outside of the circle causes damage. One player must carry the chalice from place to place, and can either drop it and join a battle or leave it to the teammates to engage in battles. Sadly, the chalice holder moves at about half the speed of the other players, so teammates have to move in short jolts.

Battles are actually very irritating. It'd be a lot easier if this was a typical turn-based battle affair, instead of a Kingdom Hearts style brawl. Because there's no freedom of movement, you can't do much at all. All of your attacks (except for overly weak ones) take too long to charge, and if you are touched by an enemy (and there's usually more than one on screen at once) then you lose the charge.

Not having a nice easy way to save means that if one player has to leave for any reason, you can't get back to the field and save your game without dying. You can also only add new players on the map, so if you are being slaughtered by a boss enemy, you can't just join in with an ally, but have to reset the entire dungeon in order to do so.

Negative stuff aside, it's fun working out what to take into battle, and who should get what magic balls. Sharing out the stat boosters after a boss battle proved more heated than it should have been. It's also very pretty, but I wouldn't expect anything less from Square Enix. However, overall it's a let down so far. Maybe it'll pick up - I hope it's not TOO long... I'm not able to play with my brother forever!

[Hiker of Games]

The game isn't really fun until you have three players. I say three because four players is too hard to keep withhin the chalice area, three is the ideal team.

[FoetusExMachina]

Masamune said:

The game isn't really fun until you have three players. I say three because four players is too hard to keep withhin the chalice area, three is the ideal team.

The game really shines with three players. The "fun-ness" of the game goes like this: 3 players > 4 players > 2 players > 1 player. I really wish there were some way of enabling or finding a chalice-carrying moogle for the multiplayer mode. They could have enabled it for multiplayer once you complete some sidequest or after you've beaten the game before and started a new file. Of course, controlling the moogle would be a somewhat difficult task given the number of buttons the GBA has, but I'm sure Square could have worked something out.

[Hiker of Games]

My thoughts exactly.

I wish that those miasma stream walkthrough areas could have been skipped too. I hope the next FF:CC is improved.

[Solid Snake]

I really hate the idea of needing Gameboy Advances and Link-cables for Multi-player.

[Fryguy64]

Well, I'm thinking it sounds like it's being used well for Four Swords Adventures, but I can honestly say it's not worth the hassle for FF:CC. The fact that in order to actually do anything on the GBA you are basically paralyzed on the GC, forcing your friends (if you have them) to defend you while you shuffle menus and maps about.

For such a simple game, it's horribly complicated, don't you think?

[Hiker of Games]

If you want to pluck out an item to heal your ally in the middle of the battle, you are definitely playing the WRONG game.

[Solid Snake]

You're right Masa, but they should just make it optional or something.