Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers has been a long time coming. The game underwent a massive overhaul, and was only relatively recently shown in its current form. The E3 2009 demo shows what appears to be the start of the game.

It started with a video of the game's main character, Layle (the titular Crystal Bearer) and his co-hort Keiss, flying on a small aircraft discussing their current mission, which is to escort a large airship. Quickly, they found themselves under attack from giant bird-like monsters. Layle jumped off his aircraft, sporting a giant gun, and begins to fall into the midst of these foes.

At this point, a pointer mini-game begins, where you aim with the Wii Remote, and fire with the B trigger. The mission is to shoot down as many of these birds as possible. After a few moments, the segment ends with Layle landing on the deck of a large airship, the ship he had been tasked with protecting.

At that point another video begins where more characters are introduced. The demo is long, and there is a significant amount of story video contained within it. It is best to simply say that after some video you find yourself flying the large airship as it slowly crashes towards Earth. It controls with the Nunchuk, and maneuvers like one would expect an out of control airship to maneuver: slowly. Once the ship crash lands the game once again gives you a score, based in part on how many times you ran into the walls.

After yet another set of movies, Lalye found himself left alone in a city square. It turns out that Lalye can use the pointer and the B trigger to lock onto people, and objects in the environment. Once locked, Layle can fling things about with a flip of the Wii Remote. Wandering around the city square I was able to fling the people of the town about with reckless abandon. Deciding to use my powers for temporary good, I locked onto a stopped city clock, and flicked the remote. This fixed the clock, and I was rewarded with a "completed objective." There seem to be quite a lot of these hidden objectives throughout the game. I saw another, where I removed a boulder from the back of a trapped citizen.

After wandering about the city, I was greeted with yet another cut scene. At its completion Layle has become a fugitive, and is riding a cart trying to escape from guards. In order to escape, I had to grab the guard, and fling them. After a while I escaped my pursuers and was given yet another score.

With that the demo ended.

The lock-on mechanism is alright, it is sometimes difficult to get the lock-on to work. If the target leaves your aim you lose the lock you're trying to establish. It is really annoying. When exploring the town it wasn't easy keeping the camera behind you. You could recenter the camera with the Z button, and move it with the D-Pad, but there is nothing that attempts to keep it behind you without your intervention.

Visually, the game has great style and design. The character models all look unique, and vibrant. The only issue is that the game was blown up on a huge HD TV. That made all the game's edges look really harsh, leaving a negative impression of the overall visual.

Crystal Bearers still needs a lot of work. The story elements that they showed seemed good, and the art style seemed cool. However, the controls and the art need some polish before this game is ready for release. There is a lot of time before it comes out, so I have faith that these issues can be addressed.