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Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates
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Graphics & Sound:
Ever since Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles came out on the Gamecube back in February of 2004, I've been waiting on a sequel. It was our favorite multiplayer game of the time, and it worked well on single player too. After waiting four years on the next one, I was really hoping that I would like it just as much!
Graphically, Ring of Fates looks a lot like the previous incarnation that came out for the Gamecube. It looks quite beautiful on the DS. There are still 4 main races, and they are each completely different from each other. Each person you run into looks different from the last, so you don't get a sense that everyone is the same. Also, when you change your armor and weapons, it will change the appearance of your character on the screen. This does have a drawback, though. When you give them all the same armor, it can be difficult to tell who is who.
The background music is very pleasant. It is calming, typical of RPG games. All the voices are amusing in the cut scenes that have voice acting. I really liked Meeth's childlike voice. Since Lilties look like children even when they are full grown, it fit perfectly. Gnash also had a particularly unique way of speaking that very much fit in with his personality.
The cut scenes did run a little long at times, but I really enjoyed watching the story unfold. Since you can skip them by pressing Start if you really just don't want to see it, I don't see anything wrong with making them as long as they were. It was nice to see a lot of work put into the story. |
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Gameplay:
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates can be played in either Story Mode or Multiplayer Mode. Story Mode is very linear. You are told where to go to next, to continue the story. You have 3 different save slots available, just in case you want to keep multiple copies of your game. If you want to free roam or do specific quests, you choose Multiplayer Mode, even if you're playing by yourself.
In Story Mode, you are playing as Yuri, a Clavat. Now I'm not going to give the story away, so there's really not much I can tell you. I will tell you that Yuri and his twin sister, Chelinka, have to learn to use their abilities together. They are aided in their journey by Alhanalem (or Al for short), Meeth, and Gnash. Al is a Yuke, Meeth is a Lilty, and Gnash is a Selkie. Since each tribe has their own special skills and unique ability, each of these characters brings a new skill to the journey.
The Yuke tribe ability is called "Mage's Needle". You'll find that there are several places that you just cannot cross. For a lot of these, if you look around, you'll see a large crystal on top of a pedestal. When you go into the tribe ability screen (as a Yuke), you'll see hidden boxes appear with an outline around then. Simply draw a line with the stylus from the crystal to the hidden box and it will cause the box or vine or platform to solidify.
The Lilties have some really helpful abilities. Their special skill is travel by urn. You can use this skill to roll your Lilty into areas that just aren't accessible by walking. Their tribe ability is alchemy. A Lilty can take out their pot at special places and create magicite. This can be really useful when you're stuck in a jam and out of Cure Magicite.
Selkies have the special skill of double jump. They're a really good character to have around to jump you to a higher level. Then they can call the party to them so you're all up on top of a cliff or wherever it was you needed to get to. They can target enemies from far away with their tribe ability.
In Multiplayer mode, you can choose to form a party, join a party, or play on your own. You'll have eight different character slots available, so you can have a male and a female of each tribe. Each character has its own save slot. When you save in Multiplayer mode, the game saves for everyone playing in your party also. In Multiplayer Mode, you can choose to Free Play or to take on Quests. All Multiplayer is going to be with people near you across Wi-fi. There is no Online play available.
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Difficulty:
Honestly, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates isn't the world's easiest game to play, at least not the first time through. At the beginning, it is relatively easy to find your way around. But by the later levels, especially ??? (yes, that really is the name of the area), you'll spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get to where you think you need to go. There is a map that you can call up on the touch screen, but it doesn't really tell you much other than the shape of the room. The doors are lit up in blue on the map, but you have no clue what height they're at. I will tell you one easy trick to get to higher places that you can't reach by just jumping, even with the Selkie. Make a stack of magicite balls and then jump from the top of them. Trust me, it'll make your life a lot easier and less frustrating!
As far as fighting monsters goes, I found Ring of Fates to be both easier and yet harder than a lot of games I've played. I just used Yuri as my main fighter all of the time, and killing the monsters, even the bosses, was pretty simple. Unfortunately, my companions seemed to be a lot less smart than I would have liked. If I wasn't careful with where I was standing, they would just stand on hot lava or ice and consequently be burned or frozen, causing me to have to heal them. They also did not attack or use magic nearly as much as I would have liked. Their attack rate was about 1/4 of mine. Luckily, when a character levels, all their stats return to full so I didn't have to heal them quite as much as I would have if that weren't the case.
I found the lack of Save Points to be very difficult to work with. In most cases, it was almost an hour of gameplay before I hit the next point. Granted, you can suspend it by just closing the lid, but that's really not the safest way to go about it. One of these days, they're going to figure out a better system of saving for RPG's on handheld system (I hope). When you do find it though, the Save Point will restore your characters to full health. |
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Game Mechanics:
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates is played by mostly using the buttons with some touch screen work too. Every single button has a purpose, so be ready to learn them all. To move your character around, you use the D-pad. You also move target rings for magic spells around with the D-pad.
The (A) button lets you attack monsters. You'll be using (A) quite a lot in dungeons! It also lets you pick up any items the monsters drop after you kill them. I really wish there had been another button available to pick up items, or maybe you could automatically pick them up when you touched them, because when you're in the middle of several monsters, after you kill one, instead of attacking the next one, you'll pick up the items the first one dropped. I ended up getting hit several times because I was picking something up instead of attacking, but I guess it couldn't be helped.
The (B) button lets you jump. If you're playing as a Selkie, pressing (B) twice will let you double jump. If you want to pick up an object, press (Y). You will carry it around with you until you press (Y) again. You can jump, but not double jump, while you're carrying an item. Be warned though, you can't carry items between rooms. This does mean if you need to find a key to a door, it is definitely somewhere in the room that the door is located in.
The (X) button allows you to cast magic. Hold the (X) button down until the magic spell is charged. You can move the target ring around with the D-pad. If you want to lock the spell on to cast in a few seconds, press the (L) button. Press (L) again to activate the spell. You can pile spells from two or more characters up to create a much more powerful spell. Simply pile the target rings together and activate the spells at the same time. It does take a little practice, but is worth it when you get the hang of it. The (L) button can also be used to summon your companions to where you are. If you want them to follow closely, hold (L) down. The (R) button activates the Tribe Abilities that I mentioned earlier.
I really enjoyed playing Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates. I got two of my co-workers addicted to it in less than five minutes. I do like it at least as much as I did the last one, if not more. It is great as both a single player and a multiplayer game. If you like RPGs or even action games, you should definitely go buy it!
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-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl |
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