Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates Review - DS

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles was an experiment too interesting to abandon. The ambitious GameCube game came at the tail end of Nintendo's failed push for connectivity and required players to jump through all kinds of hardware hoops to get a game going. Remember the ill-fated Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance Cable? Thank Sephiroth you don't. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates streamlines the multiplayer process on the DS, but it's still not the perfect solution. Using local wireless a quartet of friends sitting in the same room can hook up and grind through a series of dungeons, grubbing for loot, and bashing the odd boss monster along the way. You can't hook up online, so players that have a tough time getting four butts on the same couch will still miss out on the big fights. Luckily, Square Enix has those loners covered.

You Killed My Father, Prepare To Die

Solo players are the only folk who experience the full Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fate story and that’s a good thing. With free time at a premium, it’s hard enough to get four people to show up to the same crib and agree to play the same game, let alone sit through cut scenes and dialog sequences. All that fun is reserved for solitary play. This distribution of narrative works just fine. Groups get straight to the fighting, occasionally pestering the king for a quest or two. Mavericks are treated to an ultra-heavy story about a pair of twins, just barely out of their diapers, who see their father killed by some evil creep. What follows is a coming-of-age story that, while a little trite at this point, hits all the right notes. New characters and skills are introduced piecemeal, slowly giving the player more options and a better feel for the game's crystal-centric setting – a place overrun with monsters corrupted by evil red gems. This beats miasma any day.

Kicking the Bucket

The world of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles was overrun with a killer haze that could only be survived by carrying a protective “crystal chalice” everywhere you went. Luckily, the dreaded bucket is no more. The rest of the game's combat feels familiar. Casters hold down a button and then guide a reticule over the target of their spell. Other players can buff this magic by timing their conjurations to go off in the same place at the same time. It's this kind of cooperation that really underlines the need for multiple players to be in the same room while playing. Despite all these refinements and changes Final Fantasy Chronicles: Ring of Fate doesn't totally streamlined. New skills and spell swapping that depend on the touch screen seem to demand a third hand. There's just too much to manage and to few limbs to handle them.

I Got the Loot, Steve!

We really ought to be grateful. Square Enix could have rehashed the original Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, but instead they went back to the drawing board coming up with a new story, fresh characters, and a bunch of nifty features that take advantage of the Nintendo DS. A by-the-numbers re-release this is not. The game has voice acting for Pete's sake! And some of it isn't half bad. In a cynical, but fully knowing move, the game appeals to the loot scrounge in all of us. Dungeons are stuffed with treasures, material, and crafting patterns. Just as Diablo recreated the sheer joy of finding fifty bucks on the sidewalk, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates rinds and nails a perfect loot-rinse-repeat rhythm. If anything, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates raises the bar for the kind of experience handheld gamers can expect. This may not mean an end to quickie ports that take advantage of our adoration for the Final Fantasy franchise, but it is a sure sign that Square Enix is genuinely trying to make their second-tier games that much better.

Review by: Gus Mastrapa