FFCC... Not FRCC... FFCC....

Today is the official release day of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. Since I have been anticipating this release now for some time, I had, obviously, preordered. So... I was lucky enough to get it yesterday. ^_^

So Here are my first impressions of the game:
The graphics are so like FFXI that it's obvious they stole a whole bunch of their art assets from the FFXI development team. However, because I like FFXI, the fact that you start off in a place that could be exchanged with the city of Windurst without anyone noticing is fine with me. The characters are all chibi. Even your parents are chibi. Everyone is chibi. Not that that's a problem, but instead of conveying the impending doom kind of feel I'm used to from the FF games, this one is more upbeat, which I guess is well suited for the Game Cube console, as it tends to favor the younger audiences.

Copyright Square Enix, Co LTD. Used without permission

The game lets you play as any of four tribes. From left to right they are: Clavat, Lilti, Selkie, and Yuke. Tribes are basically races, except there's two human types. The two human tribes (clavat and selkie) both look like they're only made of one gender, but as it turns out, they have both a male and female form. They're just bishonen (and bishojo for the clavats?) As it turns out, each race gets a minor strong point, but because of the flow of gameplay, it doesn't matter much. Each group has one of several different models, each slightly, but not significantly different than the others.

The gameplay is definitely different than what I'm used to from an FF. Think for along the lines of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy and you're getting warmer. It's all real time. You wander though dungeons and fight monsters, collect treasure and gil, and fight bosses. However, it comes with a twist. You're handicapped by the Crystal Chalice. You cannot move any farther than a fixed radius from the chalice or you'll take damage. And to move it someone has to pick it up and carry it. While doing so they can do nothing else. However, this is right along the line of the games main premise, teamwork. There isn't didly squat you can do if you don't use teamwork. Higher level spells, moving about, fighting bosses, it all has to be done with some kind of cooperation.

But real fast, let's visit an import part of any FF game: The plot. In FFCC, the world is filled with Miasama. What is miasama? Don't know. How is the world full of it? Also don't know. Is it bad for people? You bet'cha it is. Short term exposure to miasama has been know to cause death in 100% of all adventurers tested. The laboratory animals seemed to be unaffected. But what does this mean to you. It means that people cannot wander out into the world without protection, but the animals, and more importantly, the monsters are free to roam. So... How does civilization persist? You guessed it, Crystals. Like? Iron crystals? No. Like amethyst crystals? No. Like quartz crystals? Nope. Like crystal crystals. The crystals magically stave off the evil of the miasama and keep civilization safe. But what would an FF game be if the cities weren't in peril. And like all FF games, the monsters are just a small nuisance as compared to the real problem. And what is that? The crystals need a power source. But electricity, heat, and sound are too mundane for a crystal to work. No... The crystals are powered by Myrrh, a very rare liquid (oil?) that is found on the leaves of a myrrh tree. So... You just grow one of these trees in town and boom you have it? Nope. For some idiotic reason, the people of this crazy little world never thought about cultivating the trees in a place where they can be reached. No... That would be too obvious. Instead they have to go and find the trees and bring back the myrrh. So, you go out, find the tree, and bring back the myrrh? Heck no! Turns out that each tree only produces a small drop. You need 4 drops to recharge a crystal, and the crystal has to be charged once a year. So you find the trees that are close to you and harvest the myrrh, then come back next year and get some more? Nope. Turns out that these stupid trees only produce myrrh every two years, so you have to go find up to 8 trees, (and I would assume more or this would be a terribly easy game.) You collect the myrrh in a special bucket *ehem* I mean "chalice" that provides the protection to you and your party while you are away from the town's crystal.

So, now that we have covered the basics of he plot let's get into FFCC's special new feature: The GC-GBA interface. Unlike any game before, FFCC takes advantage of the GC-GBA link cable to use the GBA as a bit of an extended controller with an additional display. While playing FFCC you can connect up to four Game Boy Advanced units up to your game cube, and each will have access to all of the special features of the game using the GBA's screen. With the push of a button (Select to be exact) you can switch between controlling you character on the screen, and controlling your character's equipment and map on the GBA. The interface is a bit difficult to figure out at first, but once you learn how it works, you are able to seamlessly transition between the action on screen and the menu. This is very useful because it avoids having to wait for each player to do their thing while you wonder around a dungeon. The computer will automatically steer you while in menu mode to keep you within reach of the chalice. However, beyond that, while you use the menu you are nothing but a lump of flesh, waiting to be slaughtered by the dozens of monsters teeming in every corner. But this is only a minor setback, because most of the time you just use the R and L buttons to select your "command" which you configure in the Command menu, and everything goes from there. Thinking of the command menu... Your character starts off with 4 command menu slots. A command menu slot is a place where you can equip a healing item, or a piece of magicite that will let you cast a spell. Anything placed in this slot can then be used quickly by selecting it with R and L and then pressing A. 2 of your 4 initial slots are locked to "Attack" and "Defend". However, it is possible to get more user configurable slots so you can cast more spells, or have more healing items on hand.

Magic... Ah, what would an FF game be without magic. But in this game, you cast spells using a similar method to FFVII, by equipping them as items. In FFVII you had materia, but in FFCC the item is magicite. Now, to be perfectly honest, I'm not really a big fan of the magic system in FFCC. The way it works is that you equip the desired magicite, (which drops from monsters and treasure chests) into a command menu slot. Then back in the main mode, you press and hold the A button to charge up. After a small amount of time (which feels like an eternity in combat) a targeting cursor pops up, which you place over your enemy and let go of A. The problem is that if something hits you between when you press A and when you let go, the spell will be interrupted. Now, up to this point we're looking at a pretty reasonable magic system. But then we come to the problem: you drop all your magicite any time you leave the zone. This means that you have to collect your spells all over again in every zone you enter. But there's a redeeming quality of the system, the "Fusion" process. If two players in multiplayer mode cast a spell at the same time with their cursors overlapping, sometimes the spells will stack and form a new one. For example, Fire + Fire = Fira, and Fire + Blizzard = Gravity. And sometimes, if your timing is JUST right, you can pull off a special effect, like Firaga.

All in all I have to say that I like the game. I feel kind of slighted by the plot's unbelievable simplicity, but overall I think it's definitely worth playing... And paying for the 4 game link cables, since you can't play multi player using the standard controller...

Damn... Too much typing...

Mood: Anxious