Nostalgia can be a potent drug, often muddling our actual memories of an experience in favour of how it made us feel, and such a phenomenon positively fuels a large portion of the game industry. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is an excellent example of this. Players want to recapture that feeling of late-night sleepovers spent at a friend’s house; those halcyon days where games simply left more of an impression, and new releases such as this offer up the opportunity to take a trip down memory lane to those simpler times. Unfortunately, this journey also comes at the cost of potentially shattering that idealized memory you have. Frankly speaking, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition isn’t that great, and though this release certainly has its appeal, its flaws are also painfully apparent.
The story of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is a much simpler one than your standard Final Fantasy fare. Here, you create a character from one of four races and fill in a basic backstory for them before beginning the narrative. Your character hails from the humble village of Tipa, which exists in a land covered by an omnipresent poisonous gas called Miasma that came from a meteor that crashed about a millennium earlier. Each village in this world has a crystal at its centre which keeps the gas at bay, but the resilience of the crystals fades over time and needs to be replenished by collecting a substance called Myrrh from magical trees. Your character is the caravanner who’s been tasked with collecting the Myrrh for your village, which inevitably leads to you having to delve through several dungeons and overcome the challenges within to reach the trees.
For a Final Fantasy game, this plot setup is pretty thin, but it’s a forgivable shortcoming given the obviously heavy focus on multiplayer. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is meant to be played with at least a friend or two, and a deep, cutscene-heavy story like the mainline games feature would quickly bog down any co-op sessions.
Even given the lack of a meaningful narrative at the centre, there are still some fun side plot threads that unfold through secondary characters as you move through the world. For example, one early subplot involves a mysterious Black Knight who’s been mythologized in Lilty culture as a sort of anti-hero character. You hear about him a few times before encountering him yourself in a dramatic moment, and though the subplot doesn’t contribute anything meaningful to the core narrative, it’s things like this which act as nice flavour text for fleshing-out the world around you.
Gameplay drops the standard JRPG trappings of the core series in favour of an ARPG approach, in which you guide your character around a dungeon and whack away at anything that moves. The main hook here, however, is the fact that the dungeons are infested with miasma, and the only way to avoid this is by staying in a safe zone generated by a magical chalice your party has to carry around with you. Somebody must carry the chalice in order for you to progress, but it can be put down if you want an extra set of hands to help out in a fight.
The whole concept of the chalice can introduce some amusing mind games into the gameplay, as the holder retains sole authority over where the party goes. Does the chalice bearer want to go explore that obviously barren corner of the dungeon? Looks like you’re going along for the ride if you don’t want to die. Does the chalice bearer just want to sprint to the end of the dungeon without any focus on picking up goodies? Then so do you.
This fine balance between chaos and harmony forms the crux of the most fun that Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition has to offer, as the best moments emerge when the group is at odds with each other. Amusingly, matters can jump from peace to chaos at the drop of a hat. Case in point: magic spells are largely stripped away from you between dungeons, and you have to obtain them again by picking up orbs that randomly drop from enemies. Your party can be in total agreement about the pace and direction you’re taking through a dungeon, but as soon as a Cure orb drops from that bat you just killed, watch as the gang turns into a wake of vultures that desperately have to get the shiny thing first.
It’s clear that Square wants moments like this to emerge, too, as dropped items have their own physics and can easily be kicked away if you don’t press the grab button fast enough. A civilized and well-ordered group will offer the most effective means of beating a dungeon, then, but it often comes at the cost of the fun factor being drastically reduced.
See, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is a little too simplistic for its own good, and this can often considerably dampen the experience. For example, despite being an RPG, there’s no levelling to be seen here. Instead, you collect artefacts in dungeons that minimally bolster one of your three stats, and you’re allowed to keep one of them upon beating the boss.
Then there’s the combat system itself, which moves at a glacial pace and has very little depth. You have a shortlist of basic commands (such as attack, defend, magic, etc.) you can use, and you simply spam one of them until you or your enemy dies. Casting magic additionally takes extra time, as you have to charge the attack and move a reticle over your target before firing. There’s very little here in the way of strategizing, and fights often become more an exercise in patience than one of skill or interest.
It’s easy to see why this is the case, as the initial release was more aimed at children and those looking for a simple-to-pick-up co-op game. Thus, keeping a level playing field and offering easily accessible gameplay was necessary to ensure that everyone would be able to approach it. The tradeoff, however, is a release that doesn’t have a lot of staying power, even when playing in groups.
Sure, it’s fun to goof around with the chalice and bicker over item drops, but it only takes a few hours for the sense of repetition to take hold and kill one’s enjoyment. Lack of significant character progression means that you’re not too invested in playing for long amounts of time and a lack of gameplay diversity from dungeon to dungeon leads to them all taking on a sort of homogenous feeling. Such problems are only intensified, then, if you only play solo.
We feel it’s also important to address the elephant in the room, which is the utterly inane way in which co-op is handled for this co-op focused game. The original release is infamous for requiring participants to each have a Game Boy Advance and link cable, and this remaster is similarly odd in how it approaches multiplayer. Split-screen or same-screen multiplayer isn’t available, because reasons, and you can’t even do local wireless with another Switch nearby. If you want to play with a friend, they either need to have the (free) phone version which can play through most of the content, or you need to connect with them over Wi-Fi using a friend code system that, no joke, changes one of your codes every thirty minutes. Also, there’s no voice chat; you’re instead relegated to using an external app or a series of pre-made messages to communicate with a friend who isn’t nearby.
Now, online matchmaking and cross-platform play do all but guarantee you’ll always have someone to play with if you have a decent internet connection, but the fact that this comes at the cost of a convenient means of local multiplayer basically negates the benefits. It’s fine enough to play this with randoms online, but the real magic of the experience is only realized through having friends nearby to play it with you. Online multiplayer is a nice addition, yes, but not one that justifies the limitations it seemingly imposed on the development staff.
The weirdest thing about the needlessly convoluted multiplayer is that there’s nothing in the game design itself that necessitates each player having their own screen, other than perhaps the minor issue of making others wait while an inventory is open. Even this issue has been neatly sidestepped by other modern co-op games, however, which makes Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition feel downright antiquated for a newly released game. Sure, it’s simple enough to set up a co-op game once you figure it out, but the extra steps involved only serve to further discourage going through the trouble. Unless you and your friend(s) really want to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition, it’s much easier to pick from the cavalcade of other excellent co-op games for Switch which are much easier to just play.
Perhaps that’s the heart of the biggest problem with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition, which is simply that the game itself isn’t fun enough moment to moment to justify bothering with it. The mechanics and gameplay are so watered down that it’s a veritable bore to play at length when alone, and the hokiness of multiplayer coupled with the simplistic mechanics make it difficult to want to play over other, better games when you have a friend over.
Thus, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition occupies that weird middle ground of being damningly mediocre. It can be great fun to goof off with a friend or two, and it can – in short bursts – even be mildly entertaining when playing alone, but neither of these scenarios have enough staying power to engender a desire to keep coming back to play it again. It’s the sort of game you only play a handful of times before thinking “eh” and playing something else instead.
Those of you that are enamoured with the gameplay or are simply baited hard by the nostalgia will be pleased to learn that there is a fair amount of new content on offer. The headlining feature is that Square added thirteen late-game dungeons, which remix existing designs and throw in some extra powerful monsters and new gear types to incentivize taking the plunge. On top of this, new voice-overs have been recorded and the assets have received an overall HD facelift. By and large, this is mostly the same game that it’s been since seventeen years ago, but the new tweaks and additions do help to bring it more in line with modern releases.
There’s no mistaking Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition for a title developed today, as the geometry on models and the relatively flat environments betray that this release was developed for much humbler hardware than is standard in modern times. Even so, the new textures do a great job of adding in some nice details to the environments, and detailed shadows and lighting help to make each locale feel a little bit more real than before. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition will never stand as a graphical showcase of the Switch, then, but it executes its art style well enough to be satisfactory. Moreover, we never encountered any slowdown or performance issues either, although it would be worrisome if this somehow couldn’t handle the 30FPS target.
Conclusion
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is the kind of game that will unfortunately only appeal to a relatively limited demographic. Enjoyable co-op chaos with your friends is the main draw here, but the lack of same screen or even local Switch multiplayer substantially hobbles that appeal. Couple that with simplistic gameplay that fails to provide you with much of a hook to stay with it long term, and you’re left with a rather middling experience that doesn’t do much to incite strong feelings one way or another.
Newly remastered graphics and extra content certainly sweeten the deal, but we’d advise you take a good look at why you’re interested in this game before jumping in. If you intend on mostly playing solo, we’d firmly advise you to pass and instead look to the litany of other excellent solo RPGs on the Switch, many of which are in the Final Fantasy series. If you intend on getting a new multiplayer game to play with your mates, we’d give this a light recommendation and encourage you to evaluate how much playtime you really think this will offer. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is far from being the worst co-op focused game on the Switch, but it’s far from the best, too, leaving it somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Comments 112
My younger brother rented this, once, we were kids. I played a little bit of it and thought it was okay. Not shocked this isn't getting a glowing review.
Looking forward to Square blaming the Switch for poor sales.
I have enough spare GBAs and link cables to make the GameCube original the definitive version for me. I’ll pass. This game is best played in local co-op, anyway.
No couch co-op killed this for me. I want to play it with my kids and my friends in my house... not having to buy multiple copies of the game and have multiple systems.
Square Enix can rectify the mishandling of this release by delivering the iOS port of Chrono Trigger to the Switch.
@OmegaDestroyer that would be odd since this is multiplatform.
Edit: On brand, but still odd.
Considering every piece of news about this over the months seemed to be negative so I never built any interest in picking it up in the first place. I've played very little of the original so I have no nostalgia for it.
@IronMan30
......I forgot that it was.
Useless without couch co-op. Somehow they made it even more complicated than the link cable fiasco.
I just beat a save file I had for this from 2004 that I’d been revisiting every once in a while. Needless to say, it never fully gripped me. It was supposed to be my first ever FF game since I only had GameCube at that point. It’s beautiful, and the music is memorable to this day, but it’s hard to recommend. Playing it solo didn’t exactly help either.
I gave up after all the changes to multiplayer, specially region lock.
Wow that's a bit harsh in my opinion. This was my go to game back in the day and I really looking forward to tomorrow to play this all over again!
Square Enix has no excuse for not having couch multiplayer. Effing Diablo III has 4-player couch multiplayer with single joycons.
@OmegaDestroyer fair enough. SE would still blame Switch, though. Lol
@Magician Can't wait for the inevitable "whoosh." That was funny.
@Pojos98 That's amazing dedication!
I remember this being on a list of bad decisions made during the GameCube era. People were SO hurt and disappointed! At this point, I never thought I’d see the day when a full Final Fantasy game would be on a Nintendo system again.
@Magician Yeah no... on steam we fought for a proper version of the game, and we got it. I woukd rather that port then those garbage UI's from the IOS version.
If Phantasy Star Online could manage 4-player split-screen in 2003 there is no reason an update of this can't either.
I quite enjoyed playing the original in solo though, if only because the game was utterly gorgeous and still one of the best-looking games on the GameCube. I also liked the whimsical nature of the world (and the sexy irish narrator)
But to get anything close to a decent co-op experience I need to buy it on Switch and Xbox One which is a pricey one.
Its a shame Square didn't do an anthology set and bundle it with My Life as a King, My LIfe as a Dark Lord and Crystal Bearer.
Huge FF fan but this has never interested me. I like my single player games far more and not being able to play locally is a big no no!
I really wanted to get this game Day One, but all the info tidbits revealed only days before the release date have effectively killed my interest in this. It's a shame, I was really looking forward to giving this a chance, but if Squeenix isn't willing to do it for this game, they can't really expect the customers to do the same.
Square has done their finest to undermine and undercut the success of this game. Truly disappointing to watch the hype for this game slowly fizzle from its first reveal. Had hoped to see a remaster of the whole Crystal Chronicles series, but I think that's unlikely at this point seeing reviews like this.
this game has been always weak one ...but just lazy US players made it something special, even it was not worth it at all
@TG16_IS_BAE nah, I’m just lazy but I also really wanted to finish it. I’ve done that with a few games. If the progress is still saved, why not finish it haha
Lol. Called it. Let it burn down to ashes.
Yeah, all the limitations to multiplayer options will absolutely prevent me from getting this one. Maybe when it's cheaper somewhere down the line but definitely not a launch purchase for me.
@Pojos98 You're good! Just found it humorous.
if square enix didnt make stupid decisions on this game it would of been alot better then its current form.
I've owned this on GC for years for some reason and never bothered with it. I'm glad this review confirmed my suspicions about it.
@mercilessrobot agree no couch coop whats the point. and the online is even more bizare than N efforts
I remember passing on this game when it came to Gamecube cause it sounded mediocre. I was surprised when people were so excited about this remaster and thought maybe I had missed something after all, but this review sure confirms my original impressions of the game. Also, it’s wild to me that I’m old enough that there are adults who have childhood nostalgia for games that came out when I was an adult.
@TG16_IS_BAE working on my F zero GX file now haha. Just nice to wrap up stuff I should have finished when I was a kid haha
@SwitchVogel I still have so many question.
Do you know how the overworld cutscenes (such as the Black Knight) are handled when playing online multiplayer? For example, if I’ve seen a cutscene but my friend hasn’t, will I be forced to watch it again or will he miss out on it? And am I at the mercy of some kind of party leader who can skip all these cutscenes even if I haven't already seen them?
And for that matter, how do the years work? If I’m on Year 3 and my friend is on Year 1? You used to need to change the chalice element in order to pass those miasma tunnels; what if I'm near the end of the game, but my friend hasn't even unlocked a necessary element yet and he's still near the beginning of the game? Can he "warp" to me or am I forced to go back to where he is?
What if I'm ready to beat the game, not just experience wise but story wise, and he isn't? Is it up to him to self-regulate and not rush through if he doesn't want to? What if he's never played it before and doesn't know any better?
Is spell combining any more lenient since we don't have couch co-op? Are the pre-loaded commands super easy to use, so I can send my friend a quick "Firaga!" message and he'll know that I want to do a spell combo? Or do I absolutely need to be on the phone with him for that?
How does picking a family profession work? If I choose to be a blacksmith, can my friend also be a blacksmith? And if so, what happens to our families in Tipa who are now the same profession? Are we still forced to team up with various family professions (merchant, alchemist, blacksmith) in order to unlock the best gear in the game?
So many memories of this game, I think I started 5-6 different playthrough, each one with a different set of people.
Most ended after a dungeon or two, but it was still fun XD
Definitely interested in giving this a shot since I already have a friend ready to departure with me.
When this was first announced, the excitement confuses me because I was about twenty-two when it first released and I remember giving it a rental and hating it. I also remember, even back then, reviews were so-so.
The game sucked then, and it sucks now.
A meh port, I had more fun playing the original on the Dolphin emulator for PC which looks and runs much better than this anyways.
Strange, there’s no option to pre-load the game
@BanjoPickles Right? The only way it was passable was if you owned 4 gbas, 4 link cables, the game, and a gamecube. All of the reviews knocked it because it was awful if you didn't have that exact setup and you know how many people did? Nobody I knew.
Was really excited to play this then Square went ahead and did some dumb things really not interested to play this game anymore.
Never played this, but I would.love Crystal Bearers to make a comeback. I know this is not realistic, but I think it's massively underrated.
Oh well, and that seemed to be the one shinning light in an otherwise mundane mini direct.
@thesilverbrick
Yeah I remember having a blast with my kids playing Four Swords back in the day on Gamecube. My son and I already had Gameboy Advances so I bought the cables and another system for my daughter. Good times!
I played this in the dorm on the GameCube around 2006... it wasn’t even good then.
I'll say the same thing I said about Paper Mario Origami King.
An rpg without leveling is stupid and RNG grinding is only fun if there are lots of cosmetics to gather.
This is money Square Enix could have put on a FFXIV port.
Now that we got another mediocre rehash old port out of the way.
News on the new Bravely Default please
@mercilessrobo
Exactly! Oh, and if you happened to have that set up, which one has to carry the bucket?? Lol! It was a stupid set up, and a pretty poor return for Squaresoft (they weren’t yet Square Enix, were they?) on Nintendo consoles. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was the real return, as far as I’m concerned, and I’d rather have a Switch remake of that gem!
I remember getting this back in my college days. I think I only played it with friends twice and it was just....ok. A score of 6 perfectly suits the game as far as I’m concerned. Bummer tho, I always wanted to love it!
Think I'll track down a GameCube copy.
Time has not been kind to this game.
The DS follow up’s are leagues better.
@BanjoPickles Nope Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was Square Enix first game on Nintendo. Squaresoft's final game was Final Fantasy X on PS2 and for Nintendo it was Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The poor quality in Square Enix also make sense too cause a lot of the all-stars team from the original Squaresoft left to join or form Monolith Soft, Brownie Browns, Alpha Dream, and Mistwalker. What's left at Square Enix was Tetsuya Nomura and some of the CEO that Sakaguchi hand pick to succeed him plus all the other folks that they brought in from Enix side of the company. You could really tell they just don't know what to do with Final Fantasy anymore, in one entry it's an MMO, in another it's an action base game, and then another it's a long boring cutscene and that's not including the spinoffs, the main games themselves are crumbling and lack the very magic the first ten FF had incorporated.
Yeahhh... Here's the thing...
The reason I was excited for this game wasn't because of rose tinted glasses I may have had on me. No sir. This game has never not been mediocre, gameplay wise.
I was also not excited because I wanted to relive the moments that I shared with my friends, huddled up on the couch, playing this otherwise gorgeous game, because while gameplay was mediocre, the setting and the feel were and are amazing.
No, the reason I was excited was because I was looking forward to my kids living through that same excitement I had when I first played it. Because my kids are at an age where graphics aren't everything and gameplay can still be simple, as long as it is fun and it is something we can share.
But as we all know, Square Enix decided that this game would best be enjoyed with random strangers from the internet who happen to be online at the same time.
So no, I was perfectly aware of the many flaws this game would have and already had, I accepted these "flaws" since they would be more like boons to my kids and I.
I was really looking forward traveling the world together with my kids. And no, that will not be possible with a mobile phone. They managed to make it more difficult to play this game than the original.
I am not looking forward to fighting alongside the brave Lilty warrior Sephiroth666 and the fearless Clavat Noobkiller69 for just one dungeon before finding other random strangers to fight alongside. No, I was looking forward to creating a village where my kids and I all hailed from, with some other characters thrown in to act as NPCs, and be really happy with the simplicity of the game.
But now? Unless the outrage is clearly felt and they decide to do a Sonic and include couch co-op in an update, I will not buy this.
It's a real bummer GBAs are still bloody expensive, because I only need one or two more. I have all the cables I need and the original game. Added dungeon be damned.
@Panopticon I played a session with Alex for the review period (no idea how that worked, thought there was region lock...), and he was already in year two while I was still in year one. I joined his game, and from what I could tell, we were only making progress on his story, not mine. I had to solo rerun one of the dungeons we cleared together because it didn't register on my file that I'd collected my myrrh.
Spellcasting isn't any more lenient, though part of the messages are a "I'm casting fire magic, ice, thunder, etc." I wouldn't recommend playing without some external communication, the in game stuff is barely enough to communicate.
I'm not sure about the professions, although you can only be in a session with other people in dungeons. Villages are a completely solo thing.
Ouch. As expected given the news coming up to its release. Still think this was a big opportunity missed akin to missing an open goal. Poor implemented
Too bad. I was hoping this would be good.
@LunarFlame17 I dislike this game a lot. Finally I was able to get a collector edition of a FF game.. boy I was wrong with this game. Totally no FF game.. the battles are just weird. Looks like a N64game Quest or something.. also in a circle battleing monsters. Kinda same but with the name FF. So more sales. I played it on gamecube and I sold it quite fast
@SwitchVogel Thank you so much for the response! I can't believe villages are solo only. That was such a huge part of the game, having your different families have different professions so you could work towards having the best gear the game had to offer. I was looking forward to this game and now I think I won't even bother.
@Daniel36 You took the words right out of my mouth. I will gladly shell out for another GBA or two and stick to my GCN disc that's still in perfect condition.
@retro_player_77
That’s why I was really surprised by how much I loved Final Fantasy VIIR. In my opinion, it managed to retain the magic of the original while also being its own thing.
I forget, was Brownie Brown responsible for the World Ends With You? It’s sad that my favorite game released by SE is a game that wasn’t even developed by them.
Thanks for the review @SwitchVogel
I'm going to go buy Luigi's Mansion 3 now, while it's still on sale for $41.99, and play Gooigi alongside my wife's Luigi and get our multiplayer fix that way.
Not making the actual co-op easily accessible is the reason this will bomb. And I can't imagine no one saw the fans uproar over this. Plenty of time to do.... Something!
I went back and played the original a few months ago, despite not playing it as a child. I just happened to have it in my library from a cousin that gave it to me. And man, I felt the same way. The combat just felt so bad.
Definitely not for me. I very rarely have a need for co-op play in RPGs.
If it comes to gamepass, I would consider trying it out, but not buying for switch unless I try it out and like it. I would mostly want to play couch co-op with my kids, which isn't happening. Bummer
No word about the fantastic soundtrack? The intro song alone always makes me smile when I hear it.
@BanjoPickles I'd be so down for a FFTA remake! But I heard Fae Tactics will come to Switch and that looks a lot like FFTA.
Regardless of everything else....... the Japanese box art is absolutely gorgeous.
I'm fast becoming a Japanese copy collector for my Switch library, which started with Okami and its incredible reversible cover.
Never had much interest in playing this first time around, not interested now. The only Crystal Chronicles game I did play, the one on Wii, was pretty awful.
@SwitchVogel Wait, so let me see if I understand this. Progress is only made on the host save file, not everyone. The home village is only solo content? That sucks.
What about the over world cutscenes? Is that solo as well or can you at least see it with the rest of the caravan players?
I will admit that the multiplayer setup here is lazy, but I feel that your characterization of the battle mechanics as 'overly simplistic' is simply not true.
Each race has certain skills and abilities that allow it to deal and receive damage at different rates. Additionally, the height of your character (determined by your race) determines what kind of hits your character will take (enemies attacks affect different height levels).
Furthermore, each enemy is weak to certain types of attacks and resistant to others. Oftentimes, especially for bosses, the only way to maximize enemy damage is to perform magic attacks that will require you to work together with other players. Additionally, these magic attacks require you to 'release' the magic using a certain timing or rhythm in order to properly combine them to create the most powerful spells.
And so if you were bored or felt that you were just doing the same thing again and again, it's because you weren't knowledgeable of the strategies you could have been using. The game difficulty scales depending on the number of players, and so 3 players is actually more difficult than 2. This is especially true if you don't grind for artifacts and are trying to beat the game within the shortest amount of time.
All that said, I don't blame you for not recognizing the game's complexity, because none of this is actually explicitly revealed to you in-game. You would need to reference online or physical player's guides. I understand the time crunch when it comes to reviews, but a little research could have provided a much more nuanced take on the game.
"Damningly mediocre" — such an astute phrase; too many times I've been playing/watching/reading something that's not bad enough to simply put down, but nor is it good enough that I'm enjoying the drudgery of seeing it through to completion.
As someone who was lucky enough to have experienced it as a four player party, there was a unique charm to each player having their own screen to look at on their GBA and having valuable info down there to help the rest of the team. I don't think it was ever a stellar game anyway, but it offered a way for four friends to play together that no other game offered. When you COULD get enough people and all the hardware necessary to play it in one location, it was a lot of fun.
But without this element of uniqueness though, and with couch coop and direct communication off the books, there really was no reason to bring this back. I'd take the original any day.
@SwitchVogel Just my personal opinion, but I think it would be worthy to update the review and add clarifications about how the game handle multiplayer and players' progress.
For those expecting to play a 'remastered' of the multiplayer game they enjoyed years ago it could be a huge deal breaker if the multiplayer is only a 'join other players in dungeons' and not a full 'join the adventure' which include villages, cutscenes and progression as the original game did.
Definitely it changed my opinion of the game, I was very tempted to buy it after reading the review, but after seeing your comment and clarifications to Panopticon it's more likely that I'll skip it.
Why is SquareEnix wasting any amount of time and money with this when they are supposed to be remaking FF6 with the Octopath traveller engine 🤔
I never finished the GameCube version. It is a beautiful game (I have the soundtrack and I love it), but I hated the controls in solo mode (and I didn't have any friends who also played the game). If the multi-player mode was less of a mess, this would've been a maybe. This will be a pass for me.
If they came out with the My Life as King games, I'd get those day one.
@Pojos98 Which part of it exactly is beautiful? Because it can't be the hideous graphics and terrible character designs...
Isn't the entire point of the game is that it has overly-simplistic controls?!? What is next, Diablo has a Con of "It's a monster-clicking pinata game".
@Deltath I’d say the character design and the graphics are really beautiful. The Title screen is nice too.
What I'm getting from this review is that the writer would have equally disliked the GCN original and if we enjoyed the game on GCN it's probably worth picking up the remaster.
Bizarre game to remaster.
Great review!
Honestly, I really like this game. The couch coop kills it, though. I haven't checked the pricing yet, but I'm probably only buying it if it's either absurdly cheap or patched for multiplayer
They didn't even overhaul the combat system? That was always the fault In the original that made it dull to play and the GBAs a novelty. So many missteps with this release it is unreal, why did Square actually bother? Just do DLC for Octopath or something new.
I'm not a fan of complex RPG's Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi is as complex as I like it.
Hell as a kid I even like FF Mystic Quest as a kid
Sad to see it get such a low score, this game was a gem. Im still gonna get it though, this game is something i desperately need in my switch collection, traded in FFX for this and i dont regret it. Plus if i let only reviews do the judgin for me i wouldnt have played Mighty No. 9 back then lol
@Shade_Koopa Yeah, that's about the size of it. Cutscenes, too, you don't run over the overworld with your friends either. Just dungeons.
This sounds like a reviewer that was disappointed Tropical Freeze wasn't Metroid Prime 4.
@Pojos98 I like the concept art, but the actual implementation on the character models in-game always made me think of poorly rendered nightmarish Precious Moments dolls.
@SwitchVogel Really? There is no way to enjoying the cutscene in co-op mode? That sucks..
No coach coop, no party.
Bring back the Crystal Chronicles, SE! After Crystal Beares, you just can't stop there.
"I played a session with Alex for the review period (no idea how that worked, thought there was region lock...)"
This sounds like you can either play with friends regardless of region, with the region lock only affecting random matchmaking (does that even exist?), or English-speaking regions count as one region. Could someone with the game look into this?
Not one mention of the incredible music.
Sure this game is not for everyone but if you like RPGs and anime like Mushishi or Kino’s Journey then you will probably appreciate this.
@idrawrobots The music was gorgeous! Everything about this game had a wonderful vibe, which is exactly why so many of us are so upset over the botching of its main draw, the couch co-op.
Seriously, Square Enix should read this comment section.
In the interest of fairness, even though I will still not buy this game, I would like to let everyone know that;
THE GAME IS NOT REGION LOCKED
It only is for random matchmaking, but not for your friends list. So if you have friends abroad, you can play with them.
Still couch region locked though.
I got this on the GameCube but never got into it. I'll give it another go when it drops below a tenner in a sale.
@LunarFlame17 I should specify that my brother rented this when I was a teenager. So I guess technically I wasn't a kid in that scenario. He was 9, at the time so that applies more to him. It really was "meh" from what I played.
@IronMan30 Gotcha. I, on the other hand, was definitely an adult when this game came out on Gamecube. Heck, I got married a year before it came out in the US!
@ecco6t9 Which of the DS CC games was your favorite? Thinking about picking up one
was going to go all in on this, but now I'm not so sure. Might have to go with the demo for now.
Might get it if they patch in basic features like local co op.
Well. I bought the game. AND IMMEDIATELY REGRETTED IT! I became aware only too late that to play online multiplayer you need a paid Nintendo subscription! I hope whoever made the decision not to develop couch co-op gets fired. I only ever played the game with family and now that's not happening, I'm going to attempt to get a refund. I love the game but not as a single player.
@Kanbei I personally enjoyed the both of them. Echoes of Time has a bit more polish to it.
@SwitchVogel
Which versions were you using? I've heard from some people they weren't able to find their friends' codes from other regions.
@Manah Both on Switch. I wanted to try the phone app for this review, but it wasn't live before the embargo date. I've heard that this has cross-platform play, but honestly given the mess that multiplayer is in this game and general, I'm not surprised at all that people are having a hard time finding codes.
Since I don't have anyone locally to play games with, I find the lack of local co op a complete non-issue. I don't like reviewers who assume that's a dealbreaker for everyone and lower the score accordingly. It should be mentioned, of course, but that's not going to impact anyone who prefers to play online.
Also, I much prefer reviewers who write in plain english, rather than trying to sound fancy and impressive with purple prose. We're not impressed, just confused as to how you even landed this gig.
@Daniel36 here’s the thing. I have mixed feelings about making the co-op more accessible and on one screen. While part of me would really enjoy being able to easily play with a group of friends in the same room; I also have a great deal of respect at attempting to keep the whole of the original experience in tact as much as possible. Nothing will quite capture the experience of playing with 5 screens.
@ShinobiWolf Reviewers speak for themselves. If it's a non-issue for you, great, you can ignore that part, but it definitely deserves mentioning and if the reviewer thinks it is an issue they are right to say so.
And if you think this article was written in purple prose... You should read more things (I was going to say "books" but something tells me that wouldn't register). That's no purple prose.
@SwitchVogel
I'm assuming UK and US, right? The more I read about this game's multiplayer and what does and doesn't seem to work, the more I'm completely baffled at how messed up a game can be.
@idrawrobots Well, I respect an attempt to keep the experience as close to the original as possible, but that is not what has happened here.
Sure, everyone still has their own screen, but look at all the things that had to go for that to work.
We're no longer a caravan. We're single players who run into other adventurers, from other villages, who happen to enter the same area as us, and we decide to adventure together for the time being.
Which is a fine idea for an MMO, but not what this game was about. This game was about a caravan, a group of adventurers, adventuring together, setting out of their hometown together. Kids who grew up together. A rite of passage story if you will.
And for me, the whole experience most definitely includes the fact that you sit together. That is, in my opinion, just as much an integral part of the game as much as the combat mechanism is.
Without that, I may just as well be watching a Let's Play on YouTube and say I've been playing the game. But I wouldn't be. I would be watching someone else do it.
So yeah, I respect your opinion and I get where you are coming from, but to me, they didn't keep the experience as close to the original as possible.
They were always going to have to make concessions and remove certain elements and I am very much of the mind that they decided to remove the best elements and kept the one element I could personally do without, which is the "own device" gimmick.
And don't get me wrong, I am glad they added in online multiplayer, but not everyone likes online multiplayer. Some people would much rather sit together and play.
I've hardly played any Mario Kart online, and Smash Bros has been 100% couch co op with my kids for me. Even Animal Crossing is mostly couch co op, and that one doesn't even do a real good job at that.
So in short, it's good the option is there, but it really doesn't have to be one or the other.
@ShinobiWolf - While I am glad it doesn't impact you on the multiplayer front, it's most definitely a reason for a lower score. The game simply isn't as fun solo or online as it is couch. Especially solo, it's like playing Monopoly alone. Just not the way it is intended to be, hence the lower score. The game mechanic just aren't that interesting. The game gets its charm from the surroundings, the music, and the feeling of camaraderie you get when playing with friends. This edition basically took that last option out.
@BanjoPickles Brownie Browns were the team that made the Magical Starsigns and Sword of Mana games. They were basically the old Mana team, they left Square Enix but still partner with them from time to time. I believe they became a second party to Nintendo for a while. I don't think they made The World Ends With You, that game was made by a team lead by Tetsuya Nomura. This is why the main character of that game also appeared in the Kingdom Hearts games.
@Anguspuss Your profile pic reminds me pleasantly of the cover of Jawbreaker's first album "Unfun". Good shivers, hee hee.
@TCF Not always, but I’ve assembled a group of four a few times in the recent past. The pandemic situation kind of makes it difficult at the moment.
The changes to how multiplayer works were the biggest issue for me since while nice to have as an option a lot of the aspects which made the original so charming in multiplayer are gone in the remaster such as having all the players part of the same town and all the stuff which happens between the dungeons which added to the feeling of being on a big adventure together, also cow racing.
with a lot of that gone naturally it wont be as good as people remember.
So... Its basically just as bad as the original? Dont get me wrong, i LIKED the game... But when the most fun part is the character creation, you know you've made a bad game. And now they've done it TWICE. Great job, Square-Enix...
I didn't like it back then. I don't like it now.
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