Sunday, June 3, 2012

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers (Wii)

Final Fantasy:Crystal Chronicles:Crystal Bearers is great.  It's probably my favorite game for the Wii.  I haven't played a lot for the system, only having borrowed one for about a month now, but FFCCCB is just terrific.  Shame about the clumsy clumsy title.

The first 30 minutes are the high-water mark.  You're introduced too new and fantastic things one after another.  You're skydiving, your driving the airship Titantic, you've got a chase on Chocobo-back.  The characters all speak in this weird non-sense like the dialog was translated literally successively into 6 languages so that any wit or theatrics has been sucked out.

I don't care because the world is constantly giving you all this flavor text that scrolls along the bottom of the screen.  It's not buried in menus and it's not intrusive.  The world feels alive with tons of people walking around.  Then you ride a train, and the train actually travels from point A to point B. 

Every new area is another stunning visual marvel.  You have a crashed pirate ship bathed in a blood red sunset.  Stunning autumn leaves falling upon a Japanese hot spring.  Farmland that stretches to the horizon.  Then you're platforming through a strange netherworld riding Zhu.

The game is about picking up things and throwing them.  Unlike Solatorobo, it's fun if clumsy.  The monsters that populate the world are there, and you could get through the game without killing any of them (probably.)  You want to fight them because destroying a whole field of monsters gives you another health bar.  This doesn't matter in the short term, but you are going to wish you had more health when it comes to the final boss.

The system is deeper than that.  You can throw wine at enemies to get them drunk.  You throw enemy skeletons at enemy wolves and they run up to wag their tail at you.  None of it is necessary, but all of it is welcomed loving detail.  The game keeps track of this with an astoundingly long list of possible achievements.  Discovering an achievement gives you a hint for 4 other achievements.  I didn't dig into that list because it felt like a rabbit of hole of time consumption, but I did welcome how much the game encouraged you to experiment.

And this game is an experiment because it's a game by Akitoshi Kawazu.  I think it is anyways.  There aren't closing credits.  A splash screen thanks you for playing, signed by Kawazu. 

The main character never forgets he has super powers which is pretty awesome.  You also turn into Silver Surfer for the final boss. 

This game constantly  wowed me with amazing environments.  It makes up for Fragile Dreams: Farwell Ruins of the Moon having a few stunning locations, and then asking me to spend 5 hours in sewers. Don't play Fragile Dreams.  Watch this trailer.  Then play Crystal Bearers.  It's a day at Disney Land the video game!


No comments:

Post a Comment