Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time

The Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time is a port from the DS so hopefully if you haven’t already played this title you already know what your in for.  The game, surprisingly has some good qualities to offer and I can see why this would be the a good way to get your RPG fix on the DS.  Sorry guys and gals, this isn’t a DS review.  With poor graphics, repetitive gameplay, and tedious yet easy puzzles Echoes of Time falls short of a decent RPG.  The dual screen boxes make it very hard to see written font as you are not able to enlarge either to full screen.  Which got very annoying, quickly.  Finding myself enlarging and shrinking screens to cast spells and switch characters made me angry and frustrated to the point I really just wanted to play something actually anything else.  Something I couldn’t wrap my head around is why I was never able to change camera angles.

As much as this game made the experience very dull and far from exciting I managed to zoom through the game without ever really upgrading or taking the time to actually level any characters or weapons.  It’s important that a game especially a RPG, has extra goodies you can turn to so that you can find boss’s weaknesses and other such amenities.  What is it all really good for if the game doesn’t turn you to it or at least make the game half as challenging enough to push you to search and explore the extra’s more.  I didn’t get this at all from Echo’s of Time, sadly.

I know the Final Fantasy heads are sharpening their short swords and ready to strike me down with Thundaga, but it wasn’t all bad.  Echo’s of Time lay out is all about simplicity.  I can dig this and can appreciate it to a certain extent.  Keeping real time battle as previous Chrystal Chronicles was a smart thing to do.  Not sure If I would be able to keep up with random battles and visually empty dungeons.  Battles are also kept short and simple.  Many dungeons have a lot of pushing blocks and using magic on corresponding switches type of puzzles.

Enemies and allies have always been a strength for the Crystal Chronicles series.  Eye catching art and fun but cute enemies are encountered all over.  New abilities are learned after certain levels along with items that are dropped frequently.  One thing did actually turn me on about Chronicles and that was the amount of gameplay you needed to have before being able to recruit certain allies to your team, the more “advanced allies”.  All of it made me think of past MMORPG’s I had reviewed in the past and how lvl 70′s would never really team up with a lvl 8 “noobs”.  Weapons, armors, and accessories are all obtainable through monster drops. They are also customizable through special shops where you can add gems or even create armor that you currently have the recipe and items too.  Buying and creating new weapons isn’t always the best thing to do as older weapons level up with you and get stronger as you make your way from dungeon to dungeon.   So it becomes your choice to do either or.  Gear from hats to robes are available to make your characters look individually unique as you can actually see these cute little characters dressed up in different clothes and armor.

With much talk of the next up coming Chrystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers I still have high hopes of getting my hands on a good RPG released for the Wii that doesn’t revolve around Mario.  Square Enix, don’t forget about your loyal Nintendo Fans.

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