What does a cat have to do with this?

Game play: It is the same formula as the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series, and plays almost exactly like Ring of Fates, but with a few differences that make it worth playing, from its predecessor.

To start off you get to choose one of four tribes; Clavat, Selkie, Lilty, and Yuke. The Clavats are your basic sword fighter character who specialize in melee combat, mainly using a Sword and a Axe. A Selkie is a ranged specialist good at picking off enemies from a distance and also specializes at using a Paddle (that's right a paddle). The Selkie character is really useful for puzzles because they have the unique Double Jump ability that none of the other tribes have. Next you have a Lilty which as the name implies are little, but they are not to be Underestimated due to their size. They specialize in the use of Spears and Hammers, these little power houses don't have as many combo attacks as the Clavat early on; they easily make up for it with their strength. Last but not least you have the Yuke; these odd looking characters specialize in the use of Stave's and are easily the best magic casters in the game

These Yukes are some strange characters...

The controls are simple move around with the D-pad, Attack with A, Jump with B, Pick items and people up with Y, and Cast magic with X. The shoulder buttons don't play as much of a role, but are used to summon you A.I. allies back to you and lock magic rings which are both assigned to L. Throughout the game regardless of which tribe you choose you will find yourself mashing the attack button a lot to hack your way through the short, simple, but enjoyable dungeons. When you cast a spell from your selection of Fire, Thunder, Blizzard, Cure, Raise, or Clear magics a ring will appear for you to direct where to cast it. You can lock these rings by pressing the L shoulder button and the ring will stay there so you can put other spells on top of it to make it stronger or have different effects. For example if you put a Thunder and Clear you will get Haste which increases your movement/attack speed for a short time.

The Multiplayer is what mostly makes this game most fun playing. Whether with a few friends online or just at a buddy's house it is at its best with others. It gives you a chat option that lets you choose from certain categories of phrases or take the time to type what you really what to say. The quick phrases will pop-up on occasion in little speech bubbles on the bottom of the touch screen allowing you to say things like "I fell", "Hurry up!", "I'm Coming!", and others. It is not the most efficient communication system, but it works in the end. You will find yourself vying for materials that you use to create the next level of weapons and Armor, but will find it irritating when trying to pick up a huge group of items dropped by a boss you may find that the only loot you pick up is one of your allies. When you have no buddies to play with, you have the option of putting A.I. into your party. The A.I. is kind of stupid and can be useless when performing puzzles or just fighting enemies. They will often get stuck somewhere because they didn't jump on something at the right time or jump on it all, but that is where the L button comes in. You can transport them to wherever you are at anytime, and you can effectively take control of them just by tapping their picture on the bottom screen.

The Game Offers Nice Visuals For a DS

The minor differences I mentioned that make it more worth playing than Ring Of Fates is that they eliminated the need for finding separate pieces of magicite with it just costing MP; which I prefer. Another point worth mentioning is that they got rid of the pesky tribe abilities that you would have to press R to activate which made the Lilty pretty much useless since their tribe ability was not good at all. Also everybody can use all the weapons even if their tribe doesn't specialize in it; it is just a good idea to use your specialized weapon(s) because you get more attacks and abilities.

Visual: The Visuals are just what you can expect from a DS game, colorful and cartoonish graphics. I think that these graphics set the mood for just a plain old fun time and are quite easy on the eyes. The texture is fairly blocky, but not to the point were you can see any detail at all, but is definitely good for an handheld . There is still detail in the game, but not like any of the console games we will be reviewing. These graphics aren't a masterpiece of art but what can you really expect from the DS?

Audio: The audio sounds good and isn't broken up at all so you can hear everything clearly. The voice overs in the cut scenes are actually really well done and are clear. You can hear everything nicely from the grunts of your character to the sound of an enemy dying to the evil cackle of the antagonist.

Conclusion: This is a really good handheld multi player game that I would recommend to people who are into dungeon crawling games and people who have friends who are looking for the next game to play together. I really enjoyed playing this game with my friends it was definatly worth it. The Visuals were actually very fun to look at and the Audio was clear so you could hear everything you needed. So if you are looking for a game to play with other people that is fun and enjoyable I would strongly recommend Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes Of Time.

This has been Matthew Smith and hope you all have as good of a time with this game as I did.

And we will see you - on the other side!