Customer Reviews

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this game when I finally realized it wasn't turn based as are the Final Fantasy games I had played previously. I didn't know how I would like it, but decided to gamble. I hate multiplayer games, so this review is only for the single player experience. I really like this game, and have spent many hours playing through it. The controls are a bit tough, but I got used to how to control the game pretty quickly. What I liked most about the game is that it is similar to zelda where you go into a dungeon (or temple, ruins, etc.) and fight monsters and solve puzzles to move from room to room, with a big boss fight at the end. The story line in my opinion was fun, though I guess not the best ever. I didn't think it was quite as horrible as some people are saying. This is actually one of my favorite games I have for my DS, and I am now going to buy the first crystal chronicles game for the DS, ring of fates.

I've have been looking for a cooperative multiplayer game that is family-friendly for quite a while. My kids are all in elementary school, so an E rating is much preferred. Cooperative is also a must because there is enough sibling rivalry without a chosen form of entertainment making it worse. Plus I have a soft spot for role-playing games. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time is the latest game in our search.

The FF:CC series has made strides in this category but is far from perfect. The first game (on Gamecube) was fun but required so much investment in gameboys and connection cords that assembling a decent party was expensive and rare. Plus, everyone had to stay on screen and trying to have a preschool daughter understand that concept only resulted in her frequent death and tears.

FF:CC Ring of Fates was an improvement. It was expensive despite waiting for the costs to decrease enough to outfit the entire family. The portability on Nintendo DS was a big help for those long car trips. And the ability to pick up players was essential for getting my daughter through the difficult jumps and problematic camera angle. However, magic wielding was a hassle and solo adventuring ho-hum.

That brings us to FF:CC Echoes of Time. It is a notable improvement on Ring of Fates for both single and multiplayer formats. However, there are definite pros and cons to this game. Having shelled out for a copy of both the Wii and DS versions, I would 100% recommend the Nintendo DS over the Wii unless you just don't have access to one. The graphics and the juggling of screens on the Wii is irritating.

Game Features:
COOPERATIVE MULTIPLAYER--the game industry just doesn't make enough of these types of games (in the non-zombie/mutant/soldier killing style). Puzzles are much easier with more hands and minds. And the bosses go down faster. Plus people can actually specialize with multiplayer.

FF:CC Echoes brings home the money for multiplayer co-op. It's easy to start a party at any save point (usually at the start of every quest section, just prior to a boss fight or in the main town). The drop-in, drop-out function works smoothly. You can have parties with local wireless for people in the same room or work over Wi-Fi for friends or strangers.

Parties can be 2-4 players with any DS hosting as long as everyone has a copy of the game. Unfortunately, there can be a bothersome lag when visiting someone over Wi-Fi. I haven't checked over Wi-Fi more locally, but when I partied with a friend halfway across the country, the lag bordered on unplayable for timing jumps. There are still competitive mini-quests for fun. And the squabbles over dropped items/money hasn't been fully eliminated.

If you don't know anyone with the game, you can create and gear your own party of non-player characters. Unfortunately, they're very dense, getting lost, jumping into lava, not healing you. Their only redeeming features is that they make killing faster and they don't steal your loot.

GEAR/ITEMS: FF:CC has a good system for leveling up players, gear or magic. It seems like someone or something bumps up at least once in every room. Materials can be crafted into better gear. A few materials can be purchased or won in the mini-games.

Every town seems to have a stage where you can primp and posture and admire yourself close-up. Or make your party members admire you since it enlarges on their screen too.

There are ways to customize gear and recycle old gear to improve new ones. The game also has a gear "storage" system if you grow attached to something and want to use it for another character. One of my sons loves to squeeze every last attribute out of an item, so this aspect of the game will keep him happy for some time to come.

FIGHTING/MOVEMENT: Okay, I'll say it right now, I hate the perspective in FF:CC. With the controller, going any direction besides the main 4 can be a pain, especially if you have to time a double jump-ed special attack. There are too many walls you can't see around because the perspective is fixed. My kids seem to have less trouble than I do (and they *are* better players) so maybe it's just me. The fact that one player can pick up another and jump them through the zone has been a lifesaver for the very young (my daughter) and the very old (no comment).

Magic casting is better than Ring of Fates because you have a mana bar and no longer have to collect the mini spell-balls. It's still takes an extra step to change spells, especially on the Wii. I wish the targeting system would lock on a person rather than trying to follow a character around with a ring of colored light. It's a hassle to try to heal a fellow party member when they're running away from monsters.

Overall, the kids are enjoying this game a lot. I will have to probably fork out for another copy so no one is completely left behind. Dungeon crawling has some cute puzzles mixed in with the fighting. Communication with people over Wi-Fi is limited to a set number of sayings, though you can design your own. It's rather cumbersome to search through the menus to say "wait one second" before attacking a monster.

ADVANTAGES: excellent cooperative multiplayer RPG, good balance of puzzles and dungeons, smooth local partying

DISADVANTAGES: horrible perspective, mediocre single player and storyline, dreadful LAG over Wi-Fi (hope it improves; told Super Smash Bros Brawl had a lot of online lag when it first started), expensive to buy for the family

This game could have been really great, but I have to be honest... it isn't anywhere near as fun as it should be. The hype promised Diablo-like multi-player dungeon crawling, and to a certain extent, that is true, but the overall implementation is lacking, especially the controls. For each good thing going for this game, it seems to have at least one equally bad feature that actively impedes my enjoyment.

FIRST THE GOOD STUFF:
+++ GRAPHICS: Fully 3-d graphics with a bright and lush color palette. One of the best graphical showcases on the DS.
+++ SOUND: Quite good, which isn't a surprise since Square-Enix take pride in the music in their games.
+++ MULTI-PLAYER: The multi-player options are solid and connecting to friends is easily done either through local wire-less access or through Wi-Fi internet connections, allowing up to four players to play at once. In this respect, the game is a winner in ways most DS games completely fail. You can invite other players to your game, jumping fairly seamlessly from one-player to multi-player in seconds. More games should do this. I can't emphasize enough how awesome this is. Oh, and you can play with players who own the game on the Wii... a very nice touch but not one that I will likely use. A lot of thought went into the multi-player, and it shows.
+++ LEVELS: Lots of levels and dungeons to explore with a variety of environmental puzzles. None of it is mind-shatteringly amazing, but the level designs are still quite good.


AND THE PROBLEMS...
--- THE CONTROLS: If there is one thing that ruins a game quickly, it is poor controls. The controls in this game are stiff, unresponsive, and unnecessarily complicated. Aiming magical attacks is slow and kind of sloppy. The magic stacking system is important to gameplay and is a really cool idea, but the controls required are actually a little too awkward to ever make it feel natural. Because of this, combat for anyone other than melee characters can feel slow. Additionally, since the game utilizes an isometric 3d perspective for all of the levels, the controls quickly cause hand fatigue because you will spend a lot of time holding the small DS directional pad diagonally. Narrow ledges and platforming jumps are made much more difficult than they should be due to the stiff controls.
--- INVISIBLE WALL SYNDROME: This game suffers from invisible wall syndrome for no good reason. Some areas you can get to easily while others are inexplicably blocked off by an invisible wall. Annoying, but not a deal breaker.
--- COMPUTER AI IS TERRIBLE: Your companions in single-player mode are appallingly stupid regardless of what AI settings you give them. Most of the time they seem to stand there and do nothing like a small squad of abnormally large-headed anime cheerleaders watching their football quarterback getting ganked in the school parking lot by the opposing team while he tries to stack footballs. It's actually easier to just get rid of your team-mates and go it alone.
--- TERRIBLE STORY: I'd describe it, but then I'd have to think about it. Luckily, you can skip any story scenes if you want, so this isn't a deal breaker either. I'll tolerate a bad story if the multi-player delivers good fun.
--- SINGLE PLAYER MODE: The above problems honestly make the single-player mode almost impossible to enjoy for any length of time. A complete shame...

I read several professional reviews that sang praises to this game before I decided to make a purchase, and I'll be honest... I feel lied to. Almost none of them mentioned the controls to any degree. There is always the chance that I am just some drooling moron possessing 7 thumbs and a pinkie per hand and am incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, but I've played far more sophisticated games without suffering this much difficulty. If the controls wouldn't have been so frustrating (or if the DS had an analog joystick), I probably could have given this game 3 or possibly even 4 stars just because the multi-player is so well done. As it is, I can only recommend this game if you have other friends that also plan on getting this game for the multi-player.

As someone who primarily played this on single player mode, I didn't find the game to be as bad as other people described! I could see how this game would be a little easier to play if you had multiple people accompanying you, but I had no problem doing the puzzles by myself. The AI was a little annoying at times, but I only wanted my extra party members to primarily fend off annoying enemies, and for that purpose they were fine. While some of the controls were a little difficult, I found that this didn't detract from the game experience as a whole at all.
The story itself was slightly cutesy, but seeing that it's a Square Enix game for a Nintendo system, that didn't surprise me. The graphics were really great on the DS, and the voice acting was decent (which is rare for many video games). I thought the game itself flowed really well and the dungeons were at just the right level of difficulty. I also really appreciated the quests you could go on and how many options there were for weapons, armor, and accessories.
My only complaint was that the game was too short! Before I knew it, I had beaten the game and I felt like I deserved a few more dungeons or a few more enemies to beat down. Though the New Game+ is always a great feature, I wish the game itself lasted a bit longer.

I wanted to like this game. I love the FF franchise, so I pre-ordered this game sight unseen. I figured that the games would be decent at the very least. Now after playing it, I wish I'd waited & gotten a previously used copy.

So here's the good & bad of the game, starting with the good. The style is beautiful. I really liked the character designs & the storyline is pretty decent. I liked that I could create my own character & I liked that there were preset names for any additional party members I made. (I could still make up my own names, though.) There's lots of levels & there's also some chances to get some exp for your players.

Now the bad. No pause function. Yep, that's right. For some bizarre strange reason, Square Enix decided to make a portable game that has NO PAUSE FUNCTION. This ended badly for me on many occasions where I had to put down my game to do necessary errands or whatever- I had to pretty much either pray that I was at a place where I wouldn't get attacked or I had to just turn the game off & restart it later. Oh, and that brings me to another bad point of the game. Save points. You have to go to a specific thing in order to get it to save & there's no such thing as a quick save- if you have to walk away from the game, you have to restart from the last save point. Gee, how nice of Square to not only make a game that can't be paused, but we don't even have to capability to do a quick save & at least pick up where we last left off. That really irritated me because that meant a lot of going over the same steps over & over again. What's the use of having this as a portable game if the game forces you to pretty much sit for hours & hope that you aren't interrupted? (Sheesh, I could've just gotten the wii version with all of this hassle.) While I could've dealt with the no pause thing, the infrequent save points just irked me. I mean, whenever you go into a new dungeon you are unable to save your game until you get to the point just before the big boss. If it was a non-portable system I wouldn't have as much of a problem just leaving it up for a few hours until I could get back to it. But on a portable system? It's a major irritation.

The other bad thing is that the game play is clunky. I know I'm not the most skilled player, but the controls were just clumsy. And that's not even counting my AI players getting in the way. I'd go to pick up something & guess what? My teammate would ever so helpfully block my way, causing me to pick them up rather than the item. Or if I was lucky, the item would land on their head & it meant that I'd have to continuously pick my teammate up & throw them across the room until the item fell off of them. (Ok, so I could've switched over to them & had them pick up the item, but at that point I was so irritated with them that I just wanted to sling them across the room a few times.) Then you've got buttons for several same things- at several points in the game I tried to push blocks & things, only to then have my character jump on top of them. (The button is the same for both.) When I wanted to jump on said blocks, I'd end up pushing them. It was just FRUSTRATING. This isn't even including the times my teammates liked to jump off of cliffs or jump on/into dangerous areas. I'd say that it was like babysitting a pack of 3 year olds, but even toddlers know to stay out of burning hot lava & not to jump on top of a bunch of stationary spikes.

Now when the game isn't irritating the living heck out of me, it wasn't a bad game. It's fun enough to play when it's not ticking you off. Unfortunately it just seems to do that a lot. A heck of a lot. So much so that I thought I'd have more fun taking a hammer to the cartridge. (I didn't, but the temptation was there.)

I really wanted to like this game, but I just got too irritated by it. If you can get a previously played copy of this game, go for it. It's worth playing through once, but it's not worth paying full price for. (If you can get it from a friend, that's the best way of doing it!) I had originally wanted to give this a 3, but after some reflecting I just can't. It wasn't that much fun & there's been far better put out in the FF franchise.

I loved this game. Despite the fact that some of the dungeons are fiendishly annoying- I'm looking at the Graveyard- they manage to redeem themselves. The Graveyard's atmosphere, for example- the music is creepy and slow, and dragging around coffins to make bridges is an interesting touch- offsets the extra labor necessary to kill monsters. Oh, and the boss is awesome.

EoT's music is excellent. As I mentioned before, the Graveyard has a slow, sinister melody playing, while the Town sounds like a place where adventures begin. The Village is charming and simple, and the Tower is ominously doom-laden.

As for the story, I've heard better- but it's still fascinating. I would have liked to see more interaction between Larkeicus and Sherlotta, but it ended quite satisfactorily, in my opinion.

The characters are intriguing and well-developed. I enjoyed the caring-but-mocking attitude of 'Teacher', the Yuke in the Village, and Sherlotta, and the little Lilty Trounli(Am I spelling that right?) has a surprising past despite her self-deprecating nature.

One of my favorite features of the game is outfitting the character. It's a lot of fun collecting scrolls and materials to make awesome items like the Reaper Scythe and the Ninja Getup. I do wish there were more options for the hair- the purple Moogle thing has two options, one of which is your original color. The jewel system-converting your old gear into jewels that grant bonuses, like taking less damage from magic or specific types of attacks, to your current stuff when equipped- makes it a challenge to build the best stuff and fully customize your character as well.

I haven't yet had a chance to play multiplayer, but I'm looking forward to it.

Overall, I loved this game, but some of the useless features like the Scratch Card, which don't tell you what happens with some of their effects, and the lack of save points except for the Town and the endpoint of dungeons dulled it down a bit for me. I do recommend it for anyone looking for a fun game.

Enjoy all the final fantasy games, this one was no different. I loved the graphics and the ease of the game playing. Enjoy the story and the ability to read and listen to the game. Will recommend this game to others.

So here is my updated review after delving about halfway into the game. This is a remarkable little action RPG and a worthy Final Fantasy title. It often brings back memories of Secret of Mana (the music really does it), and Kingdom Hearts (fighting style).

You are a young, nameless (you do get to pick a name), voiceless hero. You have to save the world, starting with saving a friend in need. The story starts kind of silly and sluggish, but definitely picks up pace quite a bit. The story, while not to the epic levels of a main numbered Final Fantasy, is enough to keep one interested, and is pretty serious stuff (unlike FF Tactics A2).

Controls take a bit of getting used to. The stylus is really unnecessary. You control the player with the D-pad and can execute attacks, jump, cast magic, and pick up objects with the ABXY buttons. The L and R are for swapping magic and characters, but this is more easily done by tapping the player or magic you want on the bottom screen with your thumb. Once you get used to it, the controls are quite nice. Just be careful opening the menu. Hit start, not the reset button on the left! (I did once... glad I save often!)

Difficulty is medium at first but definitely builds up. Puzzles can be challenging (especially the timing puzzles), easy, or just infuriating (the really lame easy yet time consuming ones). There are tons of interesting and challenging side quests to accept from a town moogle. They are very fun and can be played solo with just your main hero or multiplayer (separate quests for each). The rewards are okay, but the challenge makes them fun and worth doing.

Equipment is kind of a toss up. While I love the customization (synthesis) style, It seems that too often you customize a weapon or armor and then the next is ready. You never really have to spend time hunting down the items needed for a particular good because the next batch will be ready to order soon and require different loot. One other thing I like is that you level up the weapons and armors and then can have them made into a crystal which can be fused to a different weapon or armor with a cool effect (such as HP Boost, Attack Boost, etc...). It makes for an interesting system, I just wish they had actually put in less weapons and armor within each category, therefore making it a necessity to get the new gear and forcing you to go hunting for some loot!

Magic system is nice. It takes getting used to but works well. You only have 6 spells: Fire, Ice, Thunder, Cure, Revive, Esuna (Clear). You can stack attack magic for higher level spells (fira, firaga). I like that each attack spell has an effect (burn, freeze, paralyze). This makes using magic a bit more fun and often a necessity. Some enemies will do nasty things if you don't zap them with freeze or paralyze status first! Magic is also used in some of the puzzle solving.

Graphics are slick and pretty. Often the camera can be a nuisance, but other then that, the graphics are stellar. Characters actually change appearance with new gear. Spell effects look nice, enemies are well drawn. Music is rather nice, catchy, but the songs and styles are rather similar to one another. They are really nice and you do get drawn into the setting.

I can foresee the replay value being an issue. Mainly because of the nature of the puzzle solving. I believe there will be higher difficulty settings for New Game + (according to what one NPC said). I will update later.

The most glaring issue is the one player teammate AI. Often it gets annoying when they continually jump off cliffs into fire, therefore taking damage. They often don't seem to want to attack the enemy, while other times they go berserk. And they rarely hit a cure spell unless someone is on the verge of death. So while I gripe, this does add to the difficulty. It is more like having three backups. You will be the main attacker and can switch to the other players with the touch of the bottom screen. This helps, but in the heat of battle you really can't swap out.

Another issue is that drops and gil must be actively picked up to go into inventory. I would have liked to have you just walk over it and collect it. But it's a minor thing. Another minor beef is that when going into the menu to view status or equip, you cannot change characters. You must back out of the menu then actively select a new party leader. At least you can hit -select- while in the shop to switch characters.

Despite the few issues with the game, this is one of the best and most fun DS RPGs I have played. I would highly recommend it to any action RPG fan! A must own for the DS.

This game has some good graphics and a great storyline. It's the typical FF game. If anyone likes Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, then they will love this one.

First off, you can connect with people wireless or WiFi! :D To me, that is pretty cool. This gives you the experience of playing with actual people without having to be in the same room. I personally really loved Crystal Chronicles unlike the majority of the FF fans because the main idea was that you had to play with other people. Once you give the multi-player mode a try, you will see how fun it is.

For the solo players, you can still create your own party. You can switch to any of those characters in you party, but you can only control one at a time. Some parts might be hard to do alone, but I tried it and it is indeed possible. Still fun as a single player, but not as great as playing with others.

The graphics are pretty good for a ds game. Not godly, but pretty good. Kind of reminds you of the Zelda ds games (but better in my opinion).

This is kind of it. I can't say much more without giving away the whole plot. :D

This game plays a little different than other Final Fantasy games. I do like that you fight in real time and not another screen. The game still follows the same role playing adventure of the series, which is what makes it fun and gives you hours of game play.