Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers isn’t what you would expect out of a traditional Final Fantasy game. It’s not even what you would expect out of a normal Crystal Chronicles game. It’s something different all together, don’t let the name fool you! This doesn’t mean it’s not a good game, it just means, don’t go in expecting a traditional RPG (or an RPG at all for that matter.) If that’s what you expect, prepare to be disappointed.
I keep finding myself comparing this game to Dawn of Mana, in both expectation, and execution. Because in both cases I had been a huge fan of the series, and both these games defied my expectations of them. I wouldn’t call either of these games bad, but it seems to me they are both a little kitschy. (Crystal Bearers less so.) And I don’t blame Crystal bearers in any way for this, it seems as if Square-enix puts a lot of resources into the making of Final Fantasy games, and so it makes sense to put less of those resources into an offshoot. Especially one that is promoting “accessible to gamers of all levels.”
Accessible to gamers of all levels? What about people without hands!? Looks like Square-Enix didn’t think this one all the way through! –Slugtron
As a Final Fantasy fan I was excited about having Wii controls for the first time, but as I said it isn’t what you’d expect. Although it starts out with a bang, I think this is Crystal Bearers strongest suit. There are plenty of moments of high action. Crash landing an airship, Falling off of buildings, being chased by dragons, basically a series of near misses. There were different new mini-games at almost every turn. (Some of them better than others…)The story played into these aspects well. Keeping a cast of characters shrouded in mystery, so that there was plenty going on.
Although, while I felt that the characters were decent enough, I felt the production of the voice acting was a little off. Which wouldn’t have been such a flagrant mess if it weren’t for the models having some very robotic hand gestures. Admittedly this is a very small complaint as I was hardly annoyed by it at all, and the models weren’t bad themselves. I thought they were pretty exceptional when considering Wii games.
What I did find a little “distracting”, was some of the battle music, and when I say “distracting” I actually mean, they would have been better off employing my autistic robot father to blow into a jug for the soundtrack. Despite the poor choice of retard, the battles (and the whole world for that matter.) had a good set of physics. By that I mean that you could telekenetically pick almost anything up and move them with your crystal power. Which I will now explain.
Essentially crystal bearers (Which your main character Layle is) have powers imbued to them from some internal crystal. That make it so they can do “Whacky stuff.” Such as, Picking people up and throwing them. In much simpler terms, your main character has the force. Although there are other crystal bearers with other powers, like pyrokenisis.
Using your crystal bearer powers in game, reminded me of using the gravity gun in Half-Life 2. The only problem is, you only get the gravity gun. Your character can’t as much as throw a punch. (I found that quite odd.) The battles were seldom enough that they remained fun for most the game, but they certainly got repetitive.
One thing that I liked in this game was the city structure. By this I mean they didn’t design the city’s to waste your time. They might have a hundred people in the city, and you can’t talk to any of them. If they aren’t running a shops your interaction with them is maneuvering around them. It made me feel like they were pushing me to the next area, giving the game a brief feel. (Which I think helps immensely.) I think anyone that’s played a Final Fantasy game before knows how much time you can waste talking to everyone in town. In Final Fantasy XII, sometimes I would sit down, shop around town, and by the time I was finished, I would need to stop playing. Although this game doesn’t have a map, and so I found that I would lose a lot of time going in the wrong directions. (You win some, and you lose some.)
Overall, I think this game is marketed more for a younger audience. Possibly a good way to get younger teens to start playing Final Fantasy. Which I think would be great, I know some of the other Final Fantasy games don’t appeal to younger gamers, and this one is pretty big on action, while being very simple to control. It would also introduce them to the entire Crystal Chronicles world, and tell a simple, yet interesting story about it’s foundations.
Also before I wrap up, I would just like to say that this has one of the coolest looking Bahamut’s to date. I don’t know where they got this new idea for the rings on dragons backs (FF10, and FF12), but I hate it, and this game goes to a more traditional style. This is one of the best looking Wii games if nothing else. If you are looking for a game that will tide you over until Final Fantasy XIII comes out, this might help pacify you. But I wouldn’t go out and buy a Wii for it.
I like Bahamut’s back ring. It makes it easy to tell him to go F%$# himself! –Slugtron
You’re disgusting slugtron…
My overall rating is 6 out of 10.
