EDIT:
Oh Nintendo Power gave it an 8/10
A portion of an AssociatedContent review...
In conclusion, you're trading multiplayer gameplay (though other players can help or hinder you at certain points) and customizable characters for a huge sandbox game, IR magic controls, graphical prowess, and a story-driven game. It's quite impressive- very equal in quality to a core Final Fantasy game, in many ways even more entertaining considering the intuitive controls and gameplay elements.
Full review here (thanks Tim!)
Hmm, the Ass Contents review is actually pretty good because the reviewer has played the other CChronicle games. He spends 2 pages telling us about the other games he has played.
Then goes on:
Associated Content review :Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers is a RPG-sandbox game mix that offers an astounding amount of play time and options. You play as Layle, a Clavat with the forbidden abilities of a crystal bearer. In this war-ravaged world, the four races are completely at each others throats and Yukes havebeen knocked almost to extinction due to their magical prowess. Magic and crystals happen to be highly illegal- enough to mark you for death in fact. Now to bring an end to this conflict, Layle the mercenary hero of this tale, has been tossed into the conflict.
Thrown right into the world's problems, you (Layle) have been hired to protect an immense FF-style airship. A sudden assault on the airship pits you against the assailants and their dragon horde. In true epic style, Layle takes to the air and guns down his foes in mid-flight. It's an awesome start, though it lands our hero in quite a bit of trouble.
The Wiimote's IR pointer is used to an amazing extent. All combat and exploration of your surroundings are handled by the pointer. Layle, lacking a weapon, relies totally on his abilities to magically lift, fling, and assail enemies. As you traverse the world you'll discover all sorts of fun little things to point out and toy with. While passing a child with a lost balloon floating away, I snatched it down for her. Passing a sleeping enemy, I pulled it over to a pack of wolf-like beasts and let them have their way with it. Once he was gone, they turned on me- but I handled it with ease. With the pointer magic you'll be flipping switches, making immense jumps, wielding gigantic improve weapons, and so-on.
Breaking the norm of FF games, Crystal Bearers feels much more like Zelda. Focusing less on RPG elements, puzzle-solving and action-platforming takes up much more of your time. The sandbox elements are a great addition- I've spent hours just running around the open-world messing around and finding secrets and extra items. Considering the $50 price tag, you're getting a lot of content for your cash. Believe me, FFCC: CB is a huge game.
The characters are fairly deep, varied, and likeable- with a few exceptions. Belle, a thieving Selkie that you often cross paths with, can be a irritating. Both her voice and treacherous actions make her less 'loveable traitor' more 'obnoxious headache'. Keiss is a very likable guy, often his reactions mirror your own- being the more reasonable, realistic type. Though Keiss supports the Lilty government, he's a trustworthy ally.
The game can be annoying to navigate, but that's partly because of the immense world- with a little fault attribute to the game's map. The graphics are top-notch and highly detailed in a stylized way, but at times there's a lack of charm- though the variety of enemies you encounter will
make up for that. Speaking of the enemies, the monster interaction system is fascinating to behold. Similar to Monster Hunter Tri, different monsters can react differently to one and other.
In conclusion, you're trading multiplayer gameplay (though other players can help or hinder you at certain points) and customizable characters for a huge sandbox game, IR magic controls, graphical prowess, and a story-driven game. It's quite impressive- very equal in quality to a core Final Fantasy game, in many ways even more entertaining considering the intuitive controls and gameplay elements.
I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU ! ! !
KJGKJABJKBKJAHC(*A^&*^&^$^#A^%*&AHCJLBACJKJKABCM<ANC*&%&*^* ! ! !
So far the few battles I have encountered, all you had to do was fling your enemies around.
With ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the Final Fantasy magics available, they had to make a game totally centered around Gravity?!
It is totally interactive and it draws you into it, like an action movie would, but the actual action sequences are very, very simplistic.
What will keep people going (i think) is the multitudinous medals in the game. Interacting with the world in certain ways will get you medals. What they do exactly, I have no idea, but for the FF devoted completionists, this game will last forever.
Many of the action-sequences are scored or time based. Doing well, doing things differently or simply completing them will earn all sorts of medal. For the life of me, I couldn't defeat the Demon Wall and it saved after the battle so I can't go back, so there's at least ONE medal I missed!
You can equip items and accessories apparently that will alter your abilities, so I guess it will change things up a little bit, but I haven't gotten up to that yet.
____________________________
The game seems to incorporate an almost NiGHTS, Nightopian-like artificial-intelligence system with the people in the game. Doing good deeds will make them affectionate, will make them "heart" you; doing bad things will make them angry and have the guards attack.
There seems to be a lot of little intricate systems going on in the background of this game, I just don't know if they amount to anything yet (other than just medal opportunities).
phantom_leo said:DAMN YOU MUTHA-FUCKIN' DEMON WALL ! ! !
I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU ! ! !
KJGKJABJKBKJAHC(*A^&*^&^$^#A^%*&AHCJLBACJKJKABCM<ANC*&%&*^* ! ! !
Thanks for the impressions Leo.
From everything I have read there are two aspects to the game, the story which is the main campaign which is 10hrs and very linear but cinematic. And then the open world which you can toy around in for hours. But with no map.
Over the last 24-hours, I've gone from being intrigued, to hating it, to tolerating it...
I STILL don't know how I feel about it.
- It does have a fun spirit to it. The team that made this was trying to come up with some new ideas like: (1) Crumbling a skeleton with your powers and feeding its head to a pack of wolves to distract them from attacking you. (2) Spinning a Bomb at a troop of goblins to have it explode by them, not you. (3) Picking up goblin archers to fire their arrows at their own allies. (4) Throwing goblins at walls or the ground or in the trees and having them get stuck there, eventually earning medals for your efforts. You can just toss enemies around and eventually whittle them down, but being creative is a lot more fun.
- It controls like a 1st generation Wii game. No. Seriously! I think Elebits (Eledees) probably had better beam physics.
- The graphics are very detailed but horridly blurry. What's the point then?
- The camera is unruly, but it's like that in ALL games of this nature. Shouldn't even be a point of discussion anymore.
- Yeah. You can get lost out in the field. If you pay attention to the opening tutorials though, when it explains you have SIGNPOSTS pointing your way to EVERYWHERE you need to go, there's no excuse for the game losing points over THAT either!
- I AB-SO-LUTE-LY LOATHE the whole Selkie, Clavat, Yuke bullshit races that began with FF11... The developer that started that was one of my absolute favorite developers of all time (Ogre Battle 64, Vagrant Story), but I still hate them and all their incarnations of them. From Crystal Chronicles to Tactics to FF12, I wish they would ALL just go the FUCK away! Gimme Black Mages, White Mages, Blue Mages, Dragoons and Paladins ANY day of the week over this CRAP!
- This game has the FUGLIEST, most unlikeable "Cid" ever to appear in a FF game yet. Yuck!
Someone else PLEASE get this game and let me know how YOU feel about it!
At this point, I am utterly confused!
^ Fugliest Cid ev-arrrr!
Separated at birth? v
robio said:That is one ugly ass Cid.
Thanks for the attempt Robio, but even saying he looks like ass doesn't make him any more attractive to me!
I hereby decree: From now on, EVERY videogame character's ass must resemble Nathan Drakes or it will be forever banned from the anals of Phantom_Leo's gaming history!
Sorry Leo, Layle's semen cheek >> Drake's arse
Oh and I like Gorons, Gorons are awesome. Cid looks like a Goron, so he is awesome too.
Dammit. Double post
phantom_leo said:
- I AB-SO-LUTE-LY LOATHE the whole Selkie, Clavat, Yuke bullshit races that began with FF11... The developer that started that was one of my absolute favorite developers of all time (Ogre Battle 64, Vagrant Story), but I still hate them and all their incarnations of them. From Crystal Chronicles to Tactics to FF12, I wish they would ALL just go the FUCK away! Gimme Black Mages, White Mages, Blue Mages, Dragoons and Paladins ANY day of the week over this CRAP!
- This game has the FUGLIEST, most unlikeable "Cid" ever to appear in a FF game yet. Yuck!
I love the races in these CC games. The design is splendid and the variation too.
I would get this game using ebay as a buffer, seriously if you buy a game at full price and its so bad you need to sell it, you can get 85% of your money back within a month.