Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles review

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is an epic undertaking. And I’m not talking about the lavish production values, the complex relationship between Nintendo and Square or even the amount of time it takes to complete the quest. I’m talking about the effort it takes to get a decent multiplayer game going.

For those of us spoiled by easy access to the Internet (and if you’re reading this you probably have been at some point), setting up a multiplayer game is usually effortless. To get the most out of Crystal Chronicles requires four GBA systems as well as the link cables to connect them to your GameCube. Not to mention the organisational skills needed to get four of your gaming friends together at the same time, for the same length of time to play a decent session without someone having to leave half way through.

Without at least three players you will be missing out on the most this game has to offer.

You must gather your party before venturing forth…

So what exactly will most of the GameCube-owning world be missing out on? To begin with, the travelling motif of the game suggests that by playing, you will be embarking on a journey. Caravans of adventurers wander into dangerous places…

You move around a simple map, picking towns to visit, or “dungeons” to explore. Which is where the core gameplay lies. And this gameplay is very simple, but keeps its focus on timing and manoeuvring, targeting and avoiding attacks. A lot of the features that one would expect in a normal role-playing game, such as advancement through experience points, are absent completely.

The only character advancement comes from collecting items, which means that sharing loot and building a team becomes paramount. What this means for solo players is that the game is very bare and devoid of little more than some basic combat and wandering around lonely maps. This makes it a sort of kinder and gentler Diablo. But the relative brevity and simplicity of the levels makes you realize that the game is simply about fighting your way from one level to another.

In some sense, it’s the Super Smash Bros. of RPGs, but with much less to collect. This only serves to disappoint if you’re expecting some kind of role-playing game, because apart from the most basic attribute management, Crystal Chronicles can barely be called a role-playing game. Which makes the point of whether this is a good addition to the Final Fantasy series of games almost irrelevant.

It’s party time

Most of the interaction in Crystal Chronicles comes from outside of the game box. What was at first just a lone character running circles around a boss monster turns into a group of four making flanking attacks, providing healing support and making attacks from the rear. The only problem that arises is with how awkward it can become.

The use of Game Boy Advance systems as controls adds little beyond slightly reducing the amount of information that needs to be displayed on the TV. The control pad is a lot more limiting than the Gamecube’s own controller and unless a perfectly balanced set of characters is chosen, the necessary coordination to execute the more complex spells or attacks becomes almost too much of a chore.

Characters levels must also be in sync with each other. There is little chance for two stronger characters to bolster a third weaker one, for example, so the game’s option to introduce new characters from different memory cards becomes less useful than imagined.

Square’s dramatic hook

Crystal Chronicles contradicts itself, in that it is designed to allow each player independence, or the feeling of independence at least, through its control system, but in fact it demands a great deal of devotion to the group. In a strange way, once everyone in your party has committed to getting together and setting up all the controllers required, you feel as if you have to play. That to simply give up, for any reason, would be a wasted effort. It’s almost a sort of emotional blackmail.

Perhaps it’s this emotional blackmail that makes you ignore the beautiful levels, with wonderful use of colour that makes screenshots of the game look like postcards from a fairy tale. Perhaps it’s this emotional blackmail that makes you barely notice the soothing Celtic music and charming narrator’s voiceover.

The Neverending Story

But the beautiful tableaux of levels, despite their picturesque nature, have layouts that are far too simple and scenery that offers little chance for interaction. Each level is simply a battlefield for your characters. Even in the lush environs of the towns, each lavishly decorated house often serves as little more than a vehicle for one or two sentences of incidental plot.

The core gameplay and plot is really down to the group of people who play it. Is the story of a group of disaffected teenagers who might otherwise be getting drunk? Is it the story of a young man and his resentful girlfriend, battling through the last days of their relationship? Is it the story of a parent sharing her love of gaming with her children? Square have tried to give us a chance to tell our own stories through this game, but their rules and prerequisites are often too restricting and the rewards not always enough. But for those who have made the effort, it’s still a story worth listening to for a while.