Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Review

There hasn’t been a Final Fantasy game on a Nintendo system since Final Fantasy VI on the SNES. It’s nice to see Square and Nintendo have become good friends again, but don’t think their collaboration will give you what Playstation owners have been dawdling over for the past few years. This is, more or less, an experiment to prove that the GameCube/GBA connectivity is a good thing. It does some things right… and it does plenty wrong, too. My review is based on playing the game with two players.

You may have come to expect certain things out of your Final Fantasy games. Put all expectations aside, because Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (FFCC for short) is nothing like you think it is. Every year, a caravan sets out to collect myrrh, the substance that keeps you and your home town alive. A year lasts only as long as it takes you to collect three drops of myrrh, and there are an infinite number of years. The game doesn’t end until you complete the last dungeon. FFCC has no direct overworld. It’s a map you move across to enter different dungeons, towns, and random cut-scenes (which are just as annoying as random battles). Dungeons range from the short and linear to the vast and confusing. FFCC has no turn-based fighting system. It’s more reminiscent of a beat-em-up: kill the enemy with brute force and magic. That’s okay, but it gets a little repetitive since you’re limited to a 3-hit combo and a small handful of spells. At the end of every dungeon, you have to fight a substantially intimidating boss in order to collect the myrrh for that area. In a few “years,” more myrrh is available at the same dungeon, but the enemies are stronger. There are 14 dungeons in all, but you don’t have to play every one to beat the game.

Upgrading your character is not handled in the traditional RPG style. You don’t gain experience points and you don’t get to transfer magic from level to level. Instead, at the end of a dungeon, you get to choose from a handful of status-increasing options like +1 Strength or an extra heart container. Unfortunately, you sometimes get screwed and don’t get anything good to pick from. While in-dungeon, you can find designs and material to forge new weapons/armor when you go into town. However, it’s really hard to find someone who can make these things for you. When you do, you usually don’t have the right material, anyway. If you have any hope of beating the final boss, though, you’ll need to spend a lot of extra time leveling up and forging better equipment. Mostly, this time is spent growing bored and frustrated with the game.

There are two parts to this: frustration and stress. I rarely say a game is stressful, but FFCC is very much so. This stress comes from trying to work with another player. Because FFCC relies so much on teamwork, it can be really aggravating to get two (or three or four) people to cooperate on one focused goal. You all have your own idea on where to go and what to do, and you always have to compromise since you can’t split up. You must also take into consideration that your teammates might be careless and never pay attention to their life meter. They might be a bunch of show-offs, too, and always want to be the ones who fight rather than heal. They might be greedy and never let you pick up any items or power-ups. Or they could just be really stupid and never help in any way. Make sure you play with someone you can get along with.

The game is frustrating, as well, but this is due to design issues. For one, you have to carry around a chalice of myrrh in order to stay alive, but the chalice slows the group down and confines you to a really small radius. Also, the enemies can be ruthless and give you barely enough leeway to heal yourself before they beat you into the ground. Some dungeons are very confusing, too. You end up spending a lot of time wandering aimlessly around, avoiding those monsters too strong for you while trying to figure out the far-fetched solution to whatever puzzle is present. My brother and I spent almost two hours in a particularly confusing and vague dungeon before we finally gave up, backtracked, and went to a different dungeon.