Topic: Final Fantasy: Chrystal Chronicles

[Ocarina Blue]

I actually began writing this as a relpy to DarkSyphor's post, but I wrote for too long. It's only an initial imression, and it presumes you know of some of the concepts in the game - generally the ones mentioned in reviews (such as your family) - but also that you haven't played it hands on yet:

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Who has Cryistal Chronicals

I have Crystal Chronicles. I really shouldn't have bought it. I'm really too bothered to be playing games, but I bought it anyway. Then, once I got it, I felt compelled to force myself to play it for a bit. I don't have a brilliant impression of the game so far - the single player seems pretty boring (I have lots to do: anything slow-paced seems like a waste of time), and I hope it will get more... involving. Playing just really seems too shallow with one player, though it has potential. The beginning areas are too watered down to be really interesting. It would take longer to get used to with 4 players, I suppose, which is why they seemed needlessly long.

Don't have any illusions here: the fighting is completely strategy, 'realtime' has little to do with it, and reflexes nothing. I died a few times before I found that out, and it can get pretty frustrating. There is a particuarly frustrating delay between pressing a button and you character actually carrying out the action (though an exception here is dodging) – you must plan everything out and form tactics for defeating various enemies. The combat system has some really interesting concepts, but the first area just didn't provide enough resources to manipulate them.

The song when I started a new game really didn't excite me at all, though it was only the vocals that put me off. Watching the movie, a hint of nostalgia stirred and I remembered exploring Kokori village for the first time in OoT. This brightened me somewhat, and I soon found the atmosphere to be cute: familiar enough to be natural, but exotic enough to draw me in. It seems like it's just on the threshold of bursting into incredible richness and detail; but my somewhat dulled senses have to stammer around blindly looking for the grail of this detail. The main problem here isn't the graphical style, but what you get to see of the graphical style. The characters are probably the best renders in the game - but you'll only ever see the top of their heads. Perhaps more emphasis should have been placed on the textures that make up the grass, rocks and shrubs of the landscape. The water and rainbow effects are brilliant and almost feel out of place when seen after the somewhat generic gravel and shrubbery.

The music lends itself well to the atmosphere, with subtle and well-developed themes emerging and making themselves familiar. It makes excellent use of unusual beats in particular: using standard classical ones for 'safe' and familiar areas while using folkish and exotic ones for strange and hostile areas.

I would be disappointed with the initial impression given by the game in terms of the detail it provides if it wasn't for one thing: the events. Occasionally something will happen, and a brief cutscene will play, usually detailing (none to subtly) an event or rumour in the world. Although none have yet lead to anything at all, they really give the impression that later in the game, things will coalesce and some great story-arcs will emerge.

Perhaps my main gripe so far is how, well, uninteractive, or how clumsy all interaction with the environment seems. Even your family at this strange is only a vague set of characters tacked on to support a gameplay mechanic; they have no personality, and show no emotion when you first set out or some back to meet them. I'm hoping they will open up somewhat in the letters. Small details like shrubs having a little invisible shield which prevents your character from approaching them, and  the fact that minute plateaus are unreachable without some sort of guiding slope take a lot away from the overall feel of the game, and how it feels it can be played. There's nothing for cool-looking escape scenes from a tough gang of enemies or nifty emergent behaviors to emanate from. When you try to do something, you usually have to go through an un-natural set of tasks before you can get anything done. An example of this is when I found a hole in a cliff. When I approached it and pressed the action button it said something in the likeness of: "There is a hole here, do you want to enter?" No sensory clues as to the purpose of the hole were presented, and yet a 'warning' menu was presented. Nothing. In a game, if I go up to a door and press the action button, I want to go in the door, dammit. It might seem like a minor flaw, but interactivity is the most important part of a game. I guess communication between players is meant to provide most of the interaction, but that's no excuse for a minimal, linear, and on the whole sloppy character/environment interface.

So far, I haven’t really experienced anything too great from this game; although note I’ve only played it for a very short ammount of time. Partly this will be due to how I'm playing the game – you have to learn to read before you can appreciate a good book, and I really haven't experienced anything very similiar to this game before. I guess it's caused a random throe of creativity grip me and have me spin a sweater from a piece of lint – which is what this is - but I percieve my interest in this game to be derived from something greater than just the hype surrounding it.