Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales
May. 30th, 2013 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroShirma was reading stories to her chocobo friends, when Croma brought by a new book. Unfortunately, that book was Bebuzzu, the magical tome of darkness, and it trapped all of their friends in chocobo cards. As Shirma's best chocobo pal, you need to solve the problems in the magic picture books and rescue your friends from the chocobo cards they're trapped in. Along the way, there's likely to be some re-lighting of crystals, help from a guy named Cid, a fight against a god, and discovering the power of friendship, because hey, this has "Final Fantasy" in the title, right?
This is a stylus-based minigame collection, reminiscient of the Cooking Mama series in a bunch of ways. I might even go so far as to call it a Mama game with a Final Fantasy skin, as Final Fantasy creatures, classes and in-jokes abound. (And yes, it has more plot than "do tasks that Mama tells you," but not by much. Explore, play minigames to solve puzzles and save your friends, pretend to be surprised by the shocking twist, save the world.)
There are 16 picture books scattered around, each with a story and a minigame (usually with several variations) inside of it. Similar to Retro Games Challenge, you need to beat certain accomplishments for each game to unlock all of the associated secrets and continue the plot. (Unlike it, you usually don't have to do everything.)
"Picture book" is also the theme to the art style, as the minigames all look like paper cutout pop-up books. It works reasonably well and you can generally tell what everything is supposed to be, though occasionally the hitboxes for your chocobo or enemies are unclear. ("Chocobo" is the theme to the music. They found a lot of ways to use variations of the classic chocobo theme.)
I actually found it irritating which minigame goals were optional secrets versus the ones you were "supposed" to complete in order to continue the game. I had a bunch of points where I got through a rather frustrating goal only to have that be the one that continued the plot--it's like the creators were saying, "Yeah, we figured everyone could get that one."
As you could guess, then, some of the minigames I was really good at; and others ("Flaming Frenzy" comes to mind, as does "Scurry Down the Stalk") I just squeaked through. "Underwater Escapades" nearly stopped me completely. Honestly, I think the high bars to clear to continue the story are bad design--if you hit a game that you really dislike or really suck at, it locks you out of all of the games that come after it. (But unlike, say, an action game, your ability to do well at an earlier minigame has no bearing on your ability to do well on a later one.) A better design would be to make the more easily beatable lower levels (which usually produce cards or other prizes) the story-critical ones, then completionists can go back and beat the higher levels.
There are also "microgames", which have fewer variations and are completely optional. Each has a silver and gold point threshold, and two prizes you can win. These are typically unlocked by doing well at unrelated minigames.
The major sidequest is the Pop-Up Duel card game (which is only kinda a "side" quest, as it's used for boss battles). You collect cards with monsters on them and use them for dueling. Completing the extra minigames and the non-story-critical secret goals in the books typically rewards you with cards. While there's definitely strategy to the card duels (how you build your deck, which cards you play given what you know about the opponent's hand and crystals), there's also a significant element of luck. I played through the same duel twice with the same deck and same strategy, once losing badly, the other time winning without taking a hit. Also, though there's a rarity value to the cards, there don't seem to be many that are specifically "game breakers", or even that are significantly more powerful than the rest without carrying a drawback. You don't need the best cards to win duels, but you can't waltz in with a great deck and curb-stomp your opponent, either.
Overall: If you generally like stylus-based minigame collections, this is a good-but-not-amazing example of the genre. If you like classic Final Fantasy tropes in your framing story, more's the better.
This is a stylus-based minigame collection, reminiscient of the Cooking Mama series in a bunch of ways. I might even go so far as to call it a Mama game with a Final Fantasy skin, as Final Fantasy creatures, classes and in-jokes abound. (And yes, it has more plot than "do tasks that Mama tells you," but not by much. Explore, play minigames to solve puzzles and save your friends, pretend to be surprised by the shocking twist, save the world.)
There are 16 picture books scattered around, each with a story and a minigame (usually with several variations) inside of it. Similar to Retro Games Challenge, you need to beat certain accomplishments for each game to unlock all of the associated secrets and continue the plot. (Unlike it, you usually don't have to do everything.)
"Picture book" is also the theme to the art style, as the minigames all look like paper cutout pop-up books. It works reasonably well and you can generally tell what everything is supposed to be, though occasionally the hitboxes for your chocobo or enemies are unclear. ("Chocobo" is the theme to the music. They found a lot of ways to use variations of the classic chocobo theme.)
I actually found it irritating which minigame goals were optional secrets versus the ones you were "supposed" to complete in order to continue the game. I had a bunch of points where I got through a rather frustrating goal only to have that be the one that continued the plot--it's like the creators were saying, "Yeah, we figured everyone could get that one."
As you could guess, then, some of the minigames I was really good at; and others ("Flaming Frenzy" comes to mind, as does "Scurry Down the Stalk") I just squeaked through. "Underwater Escapades" nearly stopped me completely. Honestly, I think the high bars to clear to continue the story are bad design--if you hit a game that you really dislike or really suck at, it locks you out of all of the games that come after it. (But unlike, say, an action game, your ability to do well at an earlier minigame has no bearing on your ability to do well on a later one.) A better design would be to make the more easily beatable lower levels (which usually produce cards or other prizes) the story-critical ones, then completionists can go back and beat the higher levels.
There are also "microgames", which have fewer variations and are completely optional. Each has a silver and gold point threshold, and two prizes you can win. These are typically unlocked by doing well at unrelated minigames.
The major sidequest is the Pop-Up Duel card game (which is only kinda a "side" quest, as it's used for boss battles). You collect cards with monsters on them and use them for dueling. Completing the extra minigames and the non-story-critical secret goals in the books typically rewards you with cards. While there's definitely strategy to the card duels (how you build your deck, which cards you play given what you know about the opponent's hand and crystals), there's also a significant element of luck. I played through the same duel twice with the same deck and same strategy, once losing badly, the other time winning without taking a hit. Also, though there's a rarity value to the cards, there don't seem to be many that are specifically "game breakers", or even that are significantly more powerful than the rest without carrying a drawback. You don't need the best cards to win duels, but you can't waltz in with a great deck and curb-stomp your opponent, either.
Overall: If you generally like stylus-based minigame collections, this is a good-but-not-amazing example of the genre. If you like classic Final Fantasy tropes in your framing story, more's the better.
