Publisher: Nintendo
Ages: ten and up.
Parental
Advisory:
roleplay battles
With lots of entertaining dungeon crawling and multi-player action, Nintendo's Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is an excellent roleplay game. It requires players to own and use Game Boy Advances to participate in its multi-player game, but the unusual approach has its advantages.
It seems that a deadly miasma has swallowed the world. While the touch of the miasma is fatal and has claimed lots of lives, there is a way to hold it at bay. Someone discovered that crystals can protect from villages and cities from the miasma, however, the power of these crystals have to be annually replenished by seeking and using a compound called myrrh.
Myrrh can't be found just anywhere. The task of searching for and bringing home myrrh falls on groups of young men and women who are sent off each year by every town. The game presents the tale of one such "crystal caravan." Players become part of a crystal caravan that seeks myrrh trees and collects myrrh in a chalice to protect the village for another year.
The game features the usual character-building features that you would expect in a roleplay game, but skill attributes are initially based on the tribe that a character is from, and not on class. Throughout, characters attack and defend, use items and perform magic.
Players set out with a party, move across the map, enter and explore dungeons, challenge boss monsters and gain myrrh. In the single-play game, a moogle character accompanies players and carries the myrrh chalice (container).
The game features a fun multi-player mode. Interestingly, each player has to use a Game Boy Advance that's connected to the GameCube with a Game Boy Advance cable. A Game Boy Advance (GBA) is used in place of the Nintendo GameCube controller and gamers can't play the multi-player game using a GameCube Controller. In the entertaining and compelling multi-player games, players work together to solve puzzles and can combine attacks and create magic blasts.
While it seems odd for the game to require players to use GBAs and not GameCube controllers to play its multi-player game, GBAs allow players to manage their characters without filling the main screen with their own, individual menus. Also, at times, players view different information on their GBAs that encourages them to work together. While the hardware requirements sound like an underhanded scheme to sell more GBAs and cables, the GBA approach has its merits.
The game looks great with its attractive environments and well done animation and characters. The game features lots of battles, which you would expect in a roleplay game, and the violence is relatively bloodless.
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles will appeal to those who enjoy roleplay games and want to play with their friends in a fun, cooperative multi-player experience. But before players can partake in the game's fun multi-player mode, they do have to own or purchase the requisite hardware, which can become expensive.
2/17/04 www.daytrum.com Editorial Staff
