Recently, fellow PGC chum Dan Bloodworth, a few of our friends, and I got together and played some four-player Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. While I did get to play the game at E3 for a bit, I really didn't get to appreciate the game for what it was intended to be. After a good three hours of playing it with friends, however, it's clear to me that this is the game of my dreams.

Starting the game up, we each picked our characters and assigned them to one of eight slots available in our town. It's great, because you can have up to that many people playing on the same file (four at a time, of course), meaning you don't need to leave out friends who want to play your file, because they can always add themselves in later. After deciphering what most of the Japanese text meant, we jumped right into the game. The battling system is in real-time, making things frantic with four people on the screen. It's pretty hard to get confused as to who is who, though, since everyone has a color-coded circle underneath their character.

The game plays more like an adventure type game than an RPG, which works well. Your character has a basic attack with their weapon, as well as a distance attack that must be charged up and aimed before it can be used. There's also a basic defense option, as well as the ability to unleash spells that you've acquired in a given level.

There are only four buttons on the GBA, yet somehow the Square-Enix boys have made it work beautifully. You assign spells or items to one of four slots, two of which are pre-assigned to attack and defend. Using the L and R buttons, you scroll through the ability slots, then use the A button to do whatever that ability is. For example, you can be attacking an enemy, then hit R then A quickly to back flip away from an attack, then switch to a fire spell, charge it up, and attack the foe from a distance. It works surprisingly well for only four buttons, and because it's so simple, anyone can pick it up and play without needing to know what all of the buttons on a 12+ button controller do.

The required use of the GBA is getting a lot of flak from many people, but after playing it, you'll soon be asking yourself why other RPGs aren't using it. The menu system is pure genius. While playing, you'll need to hit Select to access the menus on your little screen. There's a list of each menu category so you can quickly select the menu you need, or you can quickly scroll through them all using the shoulder buttons. The different menus give you map information, show you what items and spells you have, let you assign them to the aforementioned ability slots, tell you your character's stats, etc.

There's a ton of information in these menus, and yet you can still quickly get through them if you need to. This was proven during our little gaming session. In the middle of a boss fight, my three comrades were downed, and there I was, all alone. I had a revival item with me, but it wasn't assigned to an ability slot for quick use. I needed to access my menu, at which time I was a sitting duck (because I couldn't control my character or look at the TV screen), go to the appropriate menu, get the proper item (Phoenix Down), assign it to a slot, then high-tail it to a safe spot away from the boss to cast it, saving the party from utter defeat. Even with everything in Japanese, this was done quickly enough for me to avoid getting wasted. If everything was in English, I probably could have done it even faster. It's amazing how this systems works, and it makes the game that much more incredible.

The communication aspect of this game is what makes it so perfect. While in the game's levels, the GBA screen acts as sort of radar, but in different ways for each person. With four people, there will be a person with the level map, one with the enemy radar, and one with a treasure finder. The fourth person gets the information on whatever enemy he's attacking, including their remaining HP. These screens switch players with every section of a level, so the only way people will know who has what is by actually saying so.

The fact that people are actually telling each other relevant information is what makes this game something special. In a funny sort of way, it's like you're playing the role of the person in the game, and you're talking to each other in the same way that the characters would. The person carrying the level map tells the party where they should go. The person carrying the enemy radar warns of upcoming danger. The person with the treasure finder suggests that the party take a quick detour. The person who can see the enemy's stats can tell the rest of the party how much life the boss has left. Even out of the dungeons, when we were in a town trying to forge new weapons, we were asking each other who had what items and were sharing the items accordingly. I'm sure the heroes in an RPG do that all the time, but the thing was, we were the ones talking to each other, not the characters in the game.

The communication doesn’t end there, though. During a battle, if two or more people can manage to charge up and release a spell in the same location at the same time, it results in a damaging combo spell. That requires timing between the people trying to pull it off. If someone is hurt pretty badly and needs a healing spell, they’ll say “I need to be healed,” and someone with such a spell will come over to help. Of course, the central focus of the gameplay is the magical bucket, which produces a radius in which all members of the party need to stay within. It’s vital for the person carrying the thing to tell everyone where he’s going, or else someone will walk outside of the safety region and be in for some damage. Again, this is all pretty much what we’d be doing if we were the ones needing to go out to get some water droplets to save our town from the evil black mist.

All of this shows just how solid the gameplay is, since even the ridiculously beautiful graphics and sound take a back seat. Personally, I was going to pick this game up based on half-hearted time with the game at E3, but now that I’ve played it the way it was intended, the wait for February is going to be very, very painful indeed.

Quite frankly, anyone with a GBA and GameCube that knows at least one person with a GBA would be a fool to not own this game. In fact, there’s good reason to say that Crystal Chronicles will sell GameCubes in droves. It’s that good.