RMG Reviews – Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers

By: Michael Carusi | January 18th, 2010

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear Final Fantasy?  Is it epic battles, attractive cutscenes, or maybe mini-games?  Probably not that last one, but that’s the interesting direction Square-Enix took with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers in an attempt to give the game more of a casual feel; it’s just as well, considering Crystal Bearers is a Wii exclusive title.  How does this new direction fare?

Developer: Square-Enix
Publisher: Square-Enix
Genre: RPG (sort of)
Console(s): Wii

The verdict: An interesting setting and world and some worthwhile ideas aren’t enough to save Crystal Bearers from ever rising about mediocrity stemming from interesting but repetitive mini-games and extremely lackluster combat.

The RPG reserves on the Wii seem woefully dry; it’s just as well, since just about every RPG I’ve seen on the Wii has been a dud.  Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers unfortunately has not done anything to help.  The game makes an interesting attempt to incorporate a casual audience, but all it does is demonstrate that some things do not mix: Namely Final Fantasy and casual audiences.  While the creative world and atmosphere are still here, bad design choices hold it down.

Swapping out magic for science

Crystal Bearers takes place a millennium after the original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.  Magic is outlawed, instead shoved aside by a new age of science.  There still exist individuals who can use magic appropriately known as “Crystal Bearers”, who are ostracized by the public for their abilities.  Enter the Crystal Bearer Layle, an easygoing mercenary caught up in a conspiracy when a routine mission goes awry.  An airship Layle is escorting comes under heavy fire by monsters, and a sequence JRPG clichés has Layle racing to save the world of Crystal Chronicles.

At its most basic summary the plot is typical JRPG fare, but it unfolds in a fairly unique way.  The story dispenses of the usual JRPG character archetypes and the overall narrative is interesting enough to keep most RPG fans playing.  The game’s biggest strength is the world, which drops you off in a bustling city after your airship crash-lands after the introduction.  There are a variety of different settings and terrains with uniquely designed characters along with Final Fantasy classic enemies.  The game almost feels reminiscent of Star Wars, striking a creative balance between whimsical and believable, and little elements like world news updates do a lot to enforce believability.  Everything feels augmented by the graphics, which are some of the most clear and crisp of any game I’ve ever played on the Wii.  Details such as leaves on trees and Layle’s hair give a sense of authenticity to the world and everything feels vibrant.

Conversely, the story and world take several immersion-breaking hits.  The English dialogue is extremely subpar, with characters spouting out unfunny jokes in broken, incomplete sentences that don’t hide the bad lip-synching.  Voice acting itself is even worse; characters make a brave attempt to “get into” their characters, but the result ironically backfires.  There’s a female photographer whose voice sounds like a screeching parrot, and Layle tries to sound like a hotshot but winds up being obnoxious.  Layle just isn’t relatable or likeable, and by the halfway point of the game you’ll likely want to deck him.

Cutscene, mini-game, cutscene

Gameplay gets off to a shaky start, falling into a very common JRPG trap: A lengthy cutscene where you have no control of your character.  Instead, there are a few mini-games that involve shooting at hostiles in midair as you fall from your ship and steering your vessel to safety.  This unfortunately sets the standard for what gameplay will be like and also raises a perplexing issue.  Why am I not allowed to control my character during a fight?  This happens repeatedly throughout the game and features some gameplay elements that should have been incorporated into combat but weren’t.

Gameplay is actually mini-game based, and the two above mini-games are actually examples of what a large chunk of your gameplay will consist of.  Most of them do make solid use of the Wii Motion controls and it’s a dazzling experience to fall through the air shooting at enemy targets, aiming using a cursor.  These combat oriented mini-games are actually a lot of fun and Crystal Bearers could have benefited from more of them, but a lot of mini-games revolve around silly, unnecessary things like ballroom dancing.  For every combat-based one that’s entertaining to partake in, there’s another mini-game that serves no purpose and just feels like padding.  Within  a few hours, the gameplay becomes so oversimplified that there’s no challenge or complexity to work through.

Ambition and shortcomings

Mini-games are admittedly an easier experience than actually controlling Layle due to several serious problems.  The only combat capabilities you have when controlling Layle directly is a gravity manipulating power that lets you pick up items and people and hurl them.  This was actually a really clever idea, but it’s never built upon or expanded.  All you do is go through the exact same motions of picking something up and throwing it; it’s as if the development team forgot about this part of gameplay because they were developing the mini-games.  It’s kind of funny the first time you use your gravity powers to lift up a city guard, but it’s a shame we aren’t allowed more gravity manipulation, since it was the germ of an interesting idea.

In general gameplay feels like the developers had impressive ambitions, but for every step forward they take half a step back.  There are some additions to the game that make it more worthwhile to play, like an achievements list with a whopping 330 tasks.  There’s a fair amount of gameplay to be had with around twenty hours, but again, there’s nothing really to do besides some minor exploration, the same repetitive real-time combat, and frequent mini-games with similar mechanics.

In terms of technology the game runs just fine, which is admittedly admirable during for how attractive it looks on the Wii.  Unfortunately, music doesn’t share the same high status as the graphics.  Most of the songs are obnoxious guitar loops that are too goofy to be taken seriously, and a few of them are a pain to listen to.  There’s no real sense of what the soundtrack wants to be; it’s just a mediocre offering of different types of songs.  I heard something that sounded suspiciously like bagpipes at one point.

Conclusion

I can see some ambition behind Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers but the interesting world and some clever ideas are buried under extremely awkward writing as well as simplistic and repetitive gameplay.  I can’t imagine that this is the final product that the developers envisioned, but as is it’s difficult to recommend to anyone but hardcore Crystal Chronicles fans.