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amazon Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered reviews
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered – In 2003, Square Enix released Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for the Gamecube, and was the “pioneer” game for using the Game Boy Advance machine as a controller to control the character in mode team play.
Of course, not every house had 4 Game Boy Advances and 4 dedicated wires (included with the Gamecube), so the number of people who understood the sophistication and enjoyed this game at that time was not much.
Recently, Square Enix, probably wanting the game to be remembered exactly the way it should have been, has released a graphical upgrade of the game called Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered, with its co-gameplay. On-site teams are replaced by online team play.
So, what was the result?
If you’re eager to buy Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered in hopes of enjoying a thrilling story like Final Fantasy VII, or more tearful like Final Fantasy X, or Squall and Rinoa’s romance in Final Fantasy VIII you will be severely disappointed.
The plot of this game … is blurred, lack of vitality, lack of appeal and does not cause any excitement for players to explore.
You play as a guy from Tipa village, a village in a world surrounded by a poisonous gas called “Miasma” coming from a piece of meteorite falling to Earth.
In order not to be drowned in the Miasma, each village will have to use a special gem to repel this toxic gas.
But every year the gems gradually lose their effectiveness, and your task is to find a Myrrh to find a dewdrop “myrrh” to purify and revive the magic jewel.
With each passing year, the player must set out to find a new Myrrh tree, and gradually the difficulty of the trip increases until the player… defeats the last boss.
Exactly!
That’s all, there’s almost nothing called “character development” or “extra storyline”, you just go collect some myrrh, bring it back to the village, next year find some more myrrh, return to the village … Then at the end of the game you find out how to “handle” the Miasma permanently by defeating the final boss, and … the game ends.
On the way is random (the writer does not know if it is really random, or there is a mechanism, but whatever the mechanism, the game … does not tell the player), you will encounter adventurers from other villages (each village has a gem so every village has to send people to find myrrh) to learn more about the world situation.
However, these encounters are both random and practically nothing of value, or open a new side story.
In short, gradually Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered will feel like you are… working for a salary, and you will soon be wondering “is it time to go to work …?”
NOTE: These are single-player comments!
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered uses real-time action combat, where the player character controls the ability to move, dodge, use magic and attack enemies.
However, this “old life” real-time action mechanism of the game has barely been upgraded or “retouched” in the upgraded version, and the result is a battle system … sleepy.
In combat (singleplayer) you will be accompanied by a Moogle named Stiltskin – and only Stiltskin accompanies you from start to finish – with the only task, is to carry the magic cup to help you not be suffocated by Miasma.
Above the writer said “arbitrary move” right?
No, the place you can run is limited by the scope of the jade cup, so many times the player will be “stuck” unable to go fast and have to wait for Stiltskin to pick up the jade cup to protect.
The menu system of this game is pretty funny – you can attach arbitrary commands to empty boxes, but if you want to “rewind” between commands you have to “rewind” through … all the commands in between, hotkeys cannot be assigned to immediately executed press commands.
This makes combat quite stubborn when it is difficult for the player to switch between battle states such as Attack or Defense quickly.
Therefore, to fight effectively, often players will choose to close the enemy, slash two or three times … run, wait for the enemy to finish attacking, and then rush back to attack.
And so the player is actually “stuck” between two equally bad choices: one trying to turn the skills around quickly and fighting like a true warrior, and the other, playing “guerilla” … from beginning to end of the game.
There is no experience bar, no “training” monsters to level up, increase stats, you can only increase stats after completing a cave.
At this point, you can… choose to increase 1 (and only 1) stats from the treasures called Artifact that you gained during your passage through the cave, like +1 attack, +1 magic, etc
This means that if you want to “training” the stats, you only have to “training” the caves, and with the combat system mentioned above, it’s hard to imagine the “pain” the player must bear to “training”.
To use magic, you will have to collect Magicite stones that randomly drop after defeating a monster, and these Magicites will be attached to the command boxes.
A rare interesting point is that you can “hybrid” between two spells into a stronger spell-like Fire and Blizzard combined into Gravity.
However, the downside is that these Magicites will… disappear immediately upon the end of the exploration, and in the next cave you’ll have to… training them all over again if you want to use magic!
Of course, you can “lucky” to training a permanent Magicite ring, but training can be very time-consuming and still can not drop the item you want.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube was built with a focus on local co-op, but to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered, perhaps aimed towards cross-platform playability (cross-play), Square Enix decided to completely abandon the “spot” part and instead use the part of team play completely using the Internet.
It’s good in theory but in practice, this multiplayer system, to be blunt, does not work.
The writer tried to connect many times to find a team to fight in a few caves, but the time I could not connect with anyone, the time I just connected, did not do anything … it collapsed, and after many times struggling, the writer has accepted … lost and to play alone.
Perhaps the multiplayer experience will be different from single-player, maybe new gameplay will be opened up, but as long as those things lie behind a messy system, it’s hard for the good to reach the player.
One of the rare bonus of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered is music.
Immediately after pressing the new game, you will be greeted by the song “Sound of the Wind”, which, according to the writer’s experience, is a melodious song that contains a strong will, ready to start a new journey.
Throughout the game, the peaceful, relaxing, joyous music in the world alternating with the intense fighting music will help you relax a little after hours of tedious “training”.
It is quite a pity that the voiceover of the game is not good at all if not dry and lack emotion, sometimes depleting what the music brings.