Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Jun. 14th, 2010 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroI bought a Gamecube when everyone else already was buying a Wii, because there were only half a dozen games I had a particular desire to play on it. Primary among those games was Square Enix’s big Gamecube offering, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
Just to get it out of the way: The really strong points to this game are the graphics and the music. It’s freaking beautiful, particularly the sequences at the beginning of each dungeon and the final boss sequence. The BGM doesn’t quite have the catchiness of some of the other games, but it never gets old and compliments the mood of each area well.
The secret to this game appears to be deciding whether you think you're playing a plotless action/adventure game, or whether you're playing an RPG. If you're playing an action/adventure game, you can create up to eight characters and play the same dozen dungeons with them, trying out the different styles until you're bored with the repetitiveness. This would probably take about ten hours, standard for such games. You can play this way without the peripherals (a GBA and link cable), but if you have enough such peripherals, you can play with up to four people, competing for bonus points and attempting to work together to clear dungeons. There's some plot, but not much really, mostly silly vignettes between dungeons.
(I found playing with the GBA as a controller unwieldy and not terribly beneficial, because you lose the ability to pause and go to the submenu like in single-player mode, and the minimap provided on the GBA screen isn’t necessary or particularly convenient to look at. But having it available meant I got another 10 hours out of the game, as below.)
Like many action/adventure games, your health is measured in hearts (4 to start, 8 max) and there's no MP—spellcasting is unlimited, but you have to find a new copy of each spell in each dungeon. There are a few puzzles here and there, but most of the game is following the path and killing everything you meet. Be warned that Rebana Te Ra, one of the last dungeons to become available, was apparently designed with multiplayer in mind, and while you can do it alone and get most of the treasure, it's annoyingly frustrating.
This has the problem of getting a bit repetitive after a while. The different dungeons and bosses aren't really different enough. There aren’t enough quirks to really differentiate desert from swamp from destroyed town. Pretty much every boss has a sequence of, "Kill the minions. Run around the boss to avoid his attack. Smack him with your sword. If you get hit, run away and cast cure. When the minions respawn, repeat."
If you think you're playing an RPG, then you need to expect you'll be going through each dungeon at least twice (probably three times, with selected additional repetitions to find random drops and collect extra stat-boosting artifacts). While FAQs for the game note that you can reach the final dungeon as early as Year 5, you should plan for Year 10 or even Year 12 or it'll be insanely difficult. (This took me about 20 hours total, the latter half of that being after I’d beaten every dungeon once.) You really need a GBA and link cable for this goal, because the game doesn't tell you your bonus point conditions (which determines the artifacts that spawn at the end of a dungeon) otherwise. If you don't know the bonus point goal, you can end up doing a lot of pointless grinding.
The plot also comes in drips and drabs that you won’t really recognize unless you’re looking for them. The bits in Year 5 are when the critical stuff starts to come together, and the few and far between encounters after that (seriously, you go from 12 new memories per year to 4-5) start hammering you with what’s actually going on. Even then, though, the final boss sequence is where Square finally let the writers get involved again. There are five forms to the final boss plus a trivia sequence between them, so make sure you have two hours to do the whole thing in one go.
Overall, it’s a cute game, but the sequels are much better about integrating the story with the gameplay and adding more variety to what you can do. Also, they only require you to own one system and don’t require you to buy a link cable you won’t use again.
Just to get it out of the way: The really strong points to this game are the graphics and the music. It’s freaking beautiful, particularly the sequences at the beginning of each dungeon and the final boss sequence. The BGM doesn’t quite have the catchiness of some of the other games, but it never gets old and compliments the mood of each area well.
The secret to this game appears to be deciding whether you think you're playing a plotless action/adventure game, or whether you're playing an RPG. If you're playing an action/adventure game, you can create up to eight characters and play the same dozen dungeons with them, trying out the different styles until you're bored with the repetitiveness. This would probably take about ten hours, standard for such games. You can play this way without the peripherals (a GBA and link cable), but if you have enough such peripherals, you can play with up to four people, competing for bonus points and attempting to work together to clear dungeons. There's some plot, but not much really, mostly silly vignettes between dungeons.
(I found playing with the GBA as a controller unwieldy and not terribly beneficial, because you lose the ability to pause and go to the submenu like in single-player mode, and the minimap provided on the GBA screen isn’t necessary or particularly convenient to look at. But having it available meant I got another 10 hours out of the game, as below.)
Like many action/adventure games, your health is measured in hearts (4 to start, 8 max) and there's no MP—spellcasting is unlimited, but you have to find a new copy of each spell in each dungeon. There are a few puzzles here and there, but most of the game is following the path and killing everything you meet. Be warned that Rebana Te Ra, one of the last dungeons to become available, was apparently designed with multiplayer in mind, and while you can do it alone and get most of the treasure, it's annoyingly frustrating.
This has the problem of getting a bit repetitive after a while. The different dungeons and bosses aren't really different enough. There aren’t enough quirks to really differentiate desert from swamp from destroyed town. Pretty much every boss has a sequence of, "Kill the minions. Run around the boss to avoid his attack. Smack him with your sword. If you get hit, run away and cast cure. When the minions respawn, repeat."
If you think you're playing an RPG, then you need to expect you'll be going through each dungeon at least twice (probably three times, with selected additional repetitions to find random drops and collect extra stat-boosting artifacts). While FAQs for the game note that you can reach the final dungeon as early as Year 5, you should plan for Year 10 or even Year 12 or it'll be insanely difficult. (This took me about 20 hours total, the latter half of that being after I’d beaten every dungeon once.) You really need a GBA and link cable for this goal, because the game doesn't tell you your bonus point conditions (which determines the artifacts that spawn at the end of a dungeon) otherwise. If you don't know the bonus point goal, you can end up doing a lot of pointless grinding.
The plot also comes in drips and drabs that you won’t really recognize unless you’re looking for them. The bits in Year 5 are when the critical stuff starts to come together, and the few and far between encounters after that (seriously, you go from 12 new memories per year to 4-5) start hammering you with what’s actually going on. Even then, though, the final boss sequence is where Square finally let the writers get involved again. There are five forms to the final boss plus a trivia sequence between them, so make sure you have two hours to do the whole thing in one go.
Overall, it’s a cute game, but the sequels are much better about integrating the story with the gameplay and adding more variety to what you can do. Also, they only require you to own one system and don’t require you to buy a link cable you won’t use again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 06:24 pm (UTC)