A good game held back by numerous issues
The Crystal Chronicles side series in the Final Fantasy franchise has always been quite different from the main series, focusing instead on a multiplayer focused experience than the narrative driven single-player experiences of its siblings. Though that wasn't always the main focus of each installment, as it has begun to lean toward the single-player side of the spectrum instead of its multiplayer focused roots. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (man, that's a long name) continues down this path for the series with an entirely single-player focused game, almost completely ditching the multiplayer component of games past. This direction, while not without its shortcomings. is a good effort overall, delivering an engaging narrative, along with some interesting gameplay mechanics, resulting in a decent, almost Zelda-like adventure for the Wii.
The games puts you in the role of Layle, a crystal bearer (people whom possess various magical abilities) who starts off as some sort of mercenary type guy taking on various jobs, such as escorting airships, for money. While on one such job, however, some odd stuff happen: The airship he's charged with protecting is suddenly attacked by a hoard of monsters, the ship begins to lose power, and, to top it all off, a member of a previously extinct race known as the Yuke appears on the ship. Believed to be the cause of the airship incident, Layle quickly decides to investigate the matter involving the Yuke's appearance, which leads him on a chase that quickly becomes more than he bargained for.From there, the story starts taking a lot of predictable turns. The usual allies become enemies, and enemies become allies among others appear here, making a lot of the plot twists less impactful. Still, that said, the story is engaging and quite entertaining for what it is.
Layle's a good, strong, assertive character, which is a refreshing change from the usual angsty, and sometimes whiny behavior of most Japanese role-playing game protagonists.While the main character may avoid any real annoyances, the gameplay isn't so lucky. For the most part, The Crystal Bearers is similar to that of a Zelda-style game. You'll move about various towns, fields, and caves finding treasure, talking up the locals, and, of course, fighting monsters. Though that second one won't be happening too often, as the game only let's you talk to a few select people instead of letting you talk to everyone in sight. So that detracts from the aforesaid Zelda-like feel, but not by much. The game world has plenty of little secrets hidden in the corners of each location, which are mostly chests containing Gil (the game's currency), or synthesis materials (which can be used to make new accessories that increase various stats). This is good and all, but since you're mostly finding money, it makes exploration less rewarding in some ways. Money is fine and all, but the game could have benefited from having more rare items, or even locations or bosses to discover.'Least then it would be more rewarding to explore
At least combat is rewarding, as whenever you defeat a group of enemies, you're given another part of health. Or, if you've already conquered an area already, a rare item that can be used to create some strong accessories. Either way you get something good out of it, so its well worth fighting every chance you get. The combat itself is interesting. As a crystal bearer, Layle has the power to gravitate toward objects and enemies, or bring them toward him to use as a projectile weapon. This makes just about anything in the environment a weapon. How you use it is by locking onto a item or enemy and then flick the Wii remote in the direction you wish to toss them in. This works well for the most part, and is an interesting and surprisingly fun way of handling combat. Though it's not without its problems. For one thing, the Wii remote, while generally good at registering movements, doesn't always register them correctly. I, for example, had many instances where I flicked the remote off to the side, only to have the game send the object or enemy fly away from me, or toward me. It's very annoying, especially when you need move something in a specific direction.
In addition to that, the way the lock-on is handled -- via an on-screen cursor -- isn't terribly great either, especially during the early parts of the game. See, in order to toss around enemies and objects, you have to first place the cursor on them and hold down B, which you must then keep doing for a second or two while the game locks-on, essentially making you a sitting duck while you wait. This can be fixed with some stat upgrades, but that doesn't make it any less aggravating. And lastly, the enemies, strangely, don't really put up much of a fight. They just walk around you, maybe making the occasional attempt at attacking. It's quite odd, actually. I mean, here's this guy throwing things at 'em, and they aren't even phased by it. They just keep moving about doing whatever. You'd think they'd be more aggressive or something after being hit by various projectiles. Or maybe their just like Layle and aren't easily bothered by things. He always seems to keep his cool under pressure (well, most of the time, anyway), so why not them? Then again, that constant level-headed attitude of his makes him sound like he's speaking in monotone a lot of the time. He has his moments where there actually some emotion in his voice, though, even if they are pretty rare occurrences.
The rest of the characters don't have such problems, thankfully. They all are well voiced (even if one or two of 'em become grating after a while), and deliver their lines well. The game also has some nice, if not an odd mixture of of music types. The game has just about everything from orchestration, rock (I think), maybe heavy metal, and a bunch of others that I don't know. All you need to know is that it sounds excellent. Even if it is a little odd to hear such a wide variety of music for no real reason. The visuals are excellent as well. Everything from the characters to the environments is rendered with superb detail, and fluid animation. Though it's difficult to see all the great care put into it when you're constantly struggling with the camera, which refuses to work especially well in tight, indoor areas. Although... a lot of environments don't look too good upon close inspection. Maybe the camera's bad so that you can avoid seeing that? Either way, a lot of the textures don't look great. They often have a blurred look to 'em that's really ugly to look at. Especially for flat bits of greenery like bushes, and tree leafs among others. Still, the game looks good all things considered.
As for replay value, there is some new game plus content like new and extended cut scenes, and small changes to the various mini-games throughout the game (rail shooting, ball room dancing, stealth and many, many others). The extended cut scenes alone give a good incentive to go through it again, but I have to wonder: why weren't they in there in the first place? Anyway, aside from that, there's also the medals you earn for doing, well, just about anything.Pick up an item: medal! Board a train: medal! Lodge an enemy into the ground: medal! Throw a certain enemy into another... you get the picture. So what's purpose of these things? Nothing. They're just there. There's no rewards for getting them (well, except for a few cases where you get some Gil for helping someone along with the medal), nor is there any real point to 'em. They're just there to give you something to do. Or to tap into your completionist side and get you to get everything in the game. (And, let's face it: We're all a bunch of completionists to a certain extent, so...) That said, it's a not a bad game. Sure, it has plenty of flaws, but if you can put up with them you'll find a fun, decent Zelda-like game that should hold you over until the next Zelda game arrives (which will probably be in the next 10 or 20 years, give or take). Or at the very least it should satisfy those craving more from the Crystal Chronicles series.
