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Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers
Wii
These Crystals Don't Shine
3/5 stars
I have never really been ‘into' the Crystal Chronicles spin-off series of Final Fantasy. The fact that all of the games in the series have been multi-player-centric action/adventure titles that require far too much of a hardware commitment in proportion to the amount of fun offered. So when this latest entry in the series, “Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers” (“CB”), was announced to be an entirely single-player experience, I jumped at the chance to see what the Crystal Chronicles were all about. As the only disc-based Final Fantasy experience available for Wii, this game also spurred my interest as an old fan of the once-great RPG franchise. I was curious to see if Square-Enix was capable of making a compelling Final Fantasy experience when the pressure to create mind-blowing visuals was lessened by being on a not-so-cutting-edge platform.
Presentation
Despite the fact that the Wii is not known for its graphical prowess, Square-Enix didn't let that slow them down. Instead of going for something stylized and artistic, the designers kept going with the now-traditional over-the-top graphics the main Final Fantasy series has become known for. The graphics engine looks similar to, but also worse than, the one used in “Final Fantasy 12.” There are jaggies everywhere, which look flat-out awful. There are also occasional low-resolution textures mapped onto surfaces that belie the overall effort that must have gone into the graphic design. Chain-link fences, in particular, look hideous. Despite the technical shortcomings, though, the designs themselves are quite good, overall. The environmental designs are interesting and well thought-out and the mechanical designs for the various airships and other devices that populate the Crystal Chronicles world range from interesting to brilliant. The game world has a much better fantasy/sci-fi blend than certain other entries in the Final Fantasy family. Unfortunately, the character designs don't live-up to the rest of the design, featuring a bunch of annoying-looking teenagers, odd-looking NPCs, and a horse-faced youth for a main character. At least these characters don't dress like their closets exploded.
The music in “CB” is a mixed bag. Some of the tracks are good (if not particularly memorable), but a lot of the more prominent songs are awful. I particularly despise the Rockabilly battle theme that plays during almost every conflict. It's obvious that Square-Enix didn't feel the need to put their first-string composers on this project.
The voice acting is also mixed. Some of the voice actors give admirable performances, like the Lilty princess and high commander. Unfortunately, the worst actors are the ones in the most prominent roles. The main character, Layle, and his best friend, Keiss, give very static and monotone performances with awkward enunciation. It sounds like these two actors read their lines for the first time while doing the one and only take that was eventually used in the game.
Story
The story in “CB” is actually fairly interesting. Considering that Square-Enix hasn't exactly been on top of the world with compelling storytelling lately, I wasn't expecting much, so as the story unfolded in “CB” I was pleasantly surprised.
The narrative begins by introducing our hero, Layle, a homely youth of the Clavat tribe with a shard of crystal embedded in his cheek. Layle is working with the Lilty military as a mercenary, along with his buddy, Keiss, of the Selky tribe. Their current mission to escort a huge passenger airship is interrupted by the sudden appearance of monsters under the command of a mysterious individual who appears to be a member of the long-vanished Yuke tribe. Laye and Keiss, as well as their boss, the high commander of the Lilty army, confront the interloper, only to have the interloper steal all of the crystal shards powering the ship by absorbing them into a mysterious amulet. With its fuel supply gone, the ship begins to crash, with only Layle and the crystal shard in his cheek to save it.
Thus begins a moderately short (it took me about 15 hours to finish the game, and I did quite a bit of wandering around looking for side quests) tale, in which Layle must follow the mysterious Yuke and solve the mystery of the crystal shards. The narrative is incredibly linear up until the last couple hours. It literally forces the player to move Layle in the right direction by preventing backtracking and opening a single avenue for progress. It's a little heavy-handed and mostly unnecessary.
The titular Crystal Bearers are people born with fragments of crystal embedded in their bodies, which grant them magical powers in a world that has come to be ruled by technology (however, almost all of the technology runs on crystal shards as well). Crystal Bearers are the outcasts of society, treated with fear and superstition. As such, I was expecting Layle to be much more angsty than he is. However, instead of agonizing over his situation as a Crystal Bearer, he simply remains aloof to everything. While this personality still doesn't make him likeable, he's at least less annoying than other Final Fantasy anti-heroes. While Layle spends most of the game working alone, he is occasionally joined by Keiss or the questionable female lead, a Selky girl named Belle. Belle is one of the most annoying creatures I have encountered in a Square-Enix game. She does, however, do a good job of portraying the gypsy-like Selkies in all of their irresponsible glory.
As someone being exposed to the Crystal Chronicles mythology for the first time, I was a bit confused by the game world at first. While the game's narrative does do a decent job of explaining the world's guiding principle of four tribes of humans governed by four crystals and a war 1000 years in the past that shattered the Yuke crystal and banished that tribe from the world, these story bits are only revealed piecemeal. There is, unfortunately, no explanation as to why the Clavat and Selky tribes look like normal humans while the Lilty tribe look like human/plant hybrids or why the Yuke looks like a suit of ornamental Byzantine armor with nobody in it. It would have been nice, I think, to have an introductory movie or textual prologue to explain the world's mythology all at once. I am, of course, assuming that these mythological events actually happened in or were explained in previous games in the Crystal Chronicles series.
Gameplay
“CB” starts things off on the wrong foot. Within minutes of beginning the game for the first time, “CB” commits the cardinal gameplay sin of forcing the player to complete, not one, but TWO mini-game segments back-to-back before even being allowed to see what the main gameplay engine is like. Going from the very beginning to finally taking control of Layle in the normal gameplay environment takes 30 minutes. Some entire games aren't even that long! These horrible mini-games don't go away, but are liberally sprinkled throughout the entire game, popping up seemingly at random to annoy the player with nonsensical tasks. The worst part about these min-games is that they are unskippable. They all must be completed, and many of them must be completed with a modicum skill in order to get back to the real game.
The main gameplay system, on the other hand, is kind of fun. The controls are kind of fiddly and involve a lot of motion. The only controller option is Wiimote+Nunchuck. The analog stick moves Layle and the Z button on the Nunchuck re-centers the games incredibly obtuse camera. The A button allows Layle to interact with non-combat objects and talk to the few people in the world with speech bubbles over their heads. The meat of the gameplay system comes into play with the “Star Wars” inspired combat system that allows Layle to lock-onto enemies and objects by pointing at them with the Wiimote cursor and holding B, then jerking the Wiimote in any direction to send the object flying through use of a crystal power that closely resembles telekinesis and/or The Force. Hitting the 1 button opens the menu, where Layle can change three pieces of equipment (none of which are weapons!) or check a variety of stats and collectibles. Finally, the d-pad allows the player to control the camera.
As mentioned before, the camera in this game is incredibly difficult to work with. I haven't had this many problems with the camera in a 3D game since the PS1/N64 generation. It never wants to look at things from the right angle, so I found myself either looking at the floor when there was an enemy or object of interest over Layle's head or found myself looking at the ceiling when I needed to keep Layle from falling off a ledge.
As Layle wanders around the world, each area swings between light and darkness on an invisible timer. In the light, areas are populated by humans and cows (which squirt death rays out of their udders when knocked over (WTF?)) as well as a variety of MORE (optional) mini-games that the player can mess around with. In the dark, areas are overcome by a miasma stream that causes monsters to enter the area. By defeating all of the monsters and closing the miasma stream before the timer swings the area back to light, Layle can earn a heart container that increases his maximum life gauge. Accomplishing this task can be more difficult than it sounds, since Layle carries no weapon other than his crystal powers. He must rely on throwing rocks, sticks, garbage, and even the enemies themselves in order to deal damage. I didn't like the shortness of the battle timer, nor did I like the fact that areas can slip back into darkness even after the player has successfully closed their miasma streams. Otherwise, though, “CB” has a fairly enjoyable action/adventure battle system that, with a bit of polish, could have been amazing. Unfortunately, the final battle doesn't use the normal battle system, but is a mini-game somewhat resembling a SHMUP that features some of the worst hit detection I've ever seen. I had no idea that Layle was being injured until it was too late. It took me several tries to win the final battle due to this problem, and it left a sour taste in my mouth at the very end of the game.
Overall
“Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers” is simply an ‘okay' experience. There is some good in the game for those willing to look for it. However, the amount of nonsense and poor decision making that went into the creation of this game is obvious. Old Final Fantasy fans should definitely rent this before considering a purchase.
Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 4/5
Gameplay: 2.5/5
Overall (not an average): 3/5
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