New thread, yay! HOLY SHIT I NEED THIS GAME, it's such a fresh effort from Square:

The video quality in that Youtube video is poor, but the game definitely looks a lot better than I thought it might be.  It also looks very different from standard Square Enix, which is a plus.  This makes me a lot more interested in the game than I was before, but why did they have to schedule the release date for December 26th of all days?

Watch it on the JP website (where it blinks new), it's better quality there.

Hooweee is the soundtrack bad. The gameplay itself though looks like it could be a lot of fun, and i'll be following reviews quite closely.  
Please though Square Enix: If this game turns out good, please unhook Crystal Chronicles from Final Fantasy and make it its own franchise!

Well its not Stars of Arcadia but damned if its not close.

" Well its not Stars of Arcadia but damned if its not close. "

Some more TGS shaky cam gameplay inside the city. This game needs more coverage, it's coming Dec 26th (wtf?!)...

meh another fail wii game spin off...

I'm not even being facetious when I'm saying that I'm a gajillion times more excited about this than FFXII
 
@sammpoo: You are worse than herpes

Wow, this game just keeps looking better all the time.  This has been steadily traveling from "Meh" to "Must Buy!" for a while now.

Lol @ the ESRB rating, silly as always...

Some female characters wear revealing fantasy outfits and bikinis that expose deep cleavage. During one sequence at the beach, a woman accuses a man of peeping on her in an outhouse changing room (e.g., "How icky of you to watch girls changing!" and "You were peeping?!"). In one mini-game, two women in bikinis try to knock each other off a floating platform using only their hips. Players will also encounter multiple alcohol references during their adventure: wine casks, barrels, and bottles (e.g., "Rainbow Wine") can be found in some locations; a goblin samurai holding a sake-shaped bottle appears to be drunk; and players can visit a winery and uncork kegs and barrels, allowing the wine to pour onto the floor. If players wish to, they may pick up steaming manure and toss it at enemies or the bucolic surroundings.

Well at least they remain consistent with their evaluations. 
 
 Two short snippet videos can be found here: 
 
http://translate.google.fr/translate?hl=fr&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http://www.livewii.fr/news/130897/Final-Fantasy-Crystal-Bearers-en-medias.html

During one sequence at the beach, a woman accuses a man of peeping on her in an outhouse changing room (e.g., "How icky of you to watch girls changing!" and "You were peeping?!").

Just saw those, the second showing the area is beautiful. The trains are ridable too going by screenshots. This game is going to be a joy to explore with that kind of variety and great lively world.

Even more screens!

" @Al3xand3r said:

During one sequence at the beach, a woman accuses a man of peeping on her in an outhouse changing room (e.g., "How icky of you to watch girls changing!" and "You were peeping?!").

Great. A false pervert claim. Japanese game is Japanese, I see. =/ Well, whatever, no stupid anime-inspired broad comedy is going to make this game any less intriguing in my eyes. I still want to know more about how this game plays, because the physics based stuff seems really novel, considering the Wii's control scheme. "

It looks like a very in depth mechanic. You don't get new weapons (but can equip accessories that enhance layle's stats and powers) you can use enemies as such. Grab a cactuar and use needle throw, grab a crossbow goblin and use its crossbow at will, etc. Kinda like Final Fantasy Kirby. On top of that you can just throw shit around, and create reactions based on the enemy properties.  To encourage experimentation it even tracks discovered reactions. There are several seen in the various videos. Then there also are the AI reactions like the wolves having a fascination for bones so they mess with each other if skeletons are around. The boss battle with the demon wall (first and actually optional boss you can skip - and miss the reward I guess) looks ace as you jump and latch on the wall to make the demons attack it for you or something like that. Then you can use layle's powers for all sorts of non-combat actions like a grapple beam to swing as in Metroid Prime 3 and such.  It all looks very in depth with tons of variety, not just a gravity gun wannabe. There's all the variety in environments and how the cut scenes are interactive mini games, like the space harrier sequence in the intro, the piloting of the giant airship to safety, the escape sequence on the chocobo cart, and who knows what other crazy situations that would have been mere cut scenes in a different game. And yay for ridable chocobos too, in a screenshot earlier I think it shows him bumping a cockatrice with a chocobo so maybe you can even damage enemies with it. There's also how interactive the NPCs are, and they have varied actions like the varied environents, like kids playing (soccer, you can join in!), flying kites, whatever else, chocobo riders wandering, making it all look very alive, It's going to be sweet!

Here's one of the videos Linky linked, but in embed form:

It looks like Japanese websites report that a Bon Jovi song will be included in this game. Cool.

 
 A nice touch, Miyamoto should do the same with his games.

I hope I can still play by connecting my Gameboy Advance lol.

" Wow, this game just keeps looking better all the time.  This has been steadily traveling from "Meh" to "Must Buy!" for a while now. "

Huh? I don't think it has classic controller support at all? M+ wouldn't do much, it mostly uses the pointer. All the issue the controls have is the camera control which is done by the d-pad sadly, though I don't know if you can reduce it in action scenes by locking on enemies. They should have done fps style camera control instead, but oh well, that's a design flaw and nothing M+ would fix if they had the same flawed concept. I love all the impressions I read on GAF. I think many will be disapointed because it's not just Final Fantasy + action battles but rather a game with more emphasis on adventure and exploration and finding new little things and reactions and activities to do, with combat being a smaller part of the experience (though they say there tend to be lots of enemies out in the fields and they can be tough, plus there's all the different ways you can use enemies with tons of reactions to discover which should ensure you spend a lot of time experimenting with battles). The story is linear and short but there's a lot more to take in from the sound of it. Kind of what I liked about FFVII, just exploring the whole map and doing side activities at the gold saucer and such, only with many more things to discover. I guess. I can't wait. I don't imagine it topping charts or review scores but I know I'll love it.

 Huh? I don't think it has classic controller support at all?

Famitu Magazine's 7788 tells me the game isn't that great. They usually lick the arse off anything Final Fantasy.

Famitu Magazine's 7788 tells me the game isn't that great. They usually lick the arse off anything Final Fantasy.

Perhaps, but there was this comparably recent interview with the guy in charge (the "I wanted to mix GTA and Final Fantasy" interview) who said that for a long time, this title was designed for the Classic Controller, like Monster Hunter Tri, and that the pointer functionality was added later.

RPGSite:Did you feel forced at all to make use of the Motion Control with the Wii, or did it come naturally?
Toshiyuki Itahana:No, actually at the beginning of creating it, we did not direct to deliberately use the Wii functionalities – we actually told the team the motion sensor and pointer were optional methods of control. It was just lucky that the team felt these were the best methods of control and worked well! 

I enjoyed CC on the GameCube alot and I do not play Final Fantasy games but CC was just a fun RPG especialy when 3 of my friends were playing at the same time. I don't know if I'd enjoy this style of RPG as much anymore as my tastes have changed in the last several years or whenever the first CC was released but the locations and areas looks really varied, colourfull and interesting. From looking at the screenshots you do get the sence of just wanting to explore which is a cool feeling that's rare in most modern games now.