Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Remastered Edition

I remember seeing the original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles in 2004 on a Nintendo Gamecube. It was the return of Square onto a Nintendo system and it was a joy to play with other adventurers in the room. Getting a group together to explore dungeons, take down bosses, and collect material was a group effort that meant good communication and fun times. Now, 16 years later, the game has returned to every possible platform, it has been touched up, remastered in some areas, which we will discuss, and it still maintains purposeful fun of playing with a group of adventurers, but this time online.

If you aren’t familiar with FFCC’s story, it revolves around a world that was damaged nearly to the point of extinction by a meteorite. The rock/(hmmmm) destroyed a life-preserving crystal that made the land and its people thrive. The meteorite smashed the crystal into smaller pieces and scattered them across the land. To boot, the meteorite brought with it a deadly toxin called Miasma that would and could poison anyone who breathed it in. The crystal pieces help to keep Miasma in-check but require myrrh from a special tree to keep the crystals going. The story tasks adventurers with exploring the land for these myrrh-filled trees with urgency to gather as much myrrh as possible, while keeping enemies at bay.

If you think about it, wow, that’s a dark story.

Regardless, the story sets up the gameplay design, requiring people to band together to save the crystals, thus saving the world and its inhabitants. Much like I did in 2004, I like the idea of teamwork to make the Final Fantasy dream work. It really is nice to cooperate with other people to achieve some overarching goal in a game and feel like you’ve achieved something together. It is like the ending of Ocean’s 11 when everyone is staring at the fountain. That type of feeling. That said, the actual gameplay structure is straight from the early 2000s, though sadly not the multiplayer portion of the design. While the good folks at Square Enix have added some interesting elements to the remastered edition, which we will get into in a moment, the game’s multiplayer design is a bit of a mystery.

In the original version of the game, you can hook up a GBA, three controllers, and you’re off on a four-player exploring adventure. You communicate by talking to your friends in the room and you just keep the adventure going through verbal and onscreen teamwork. Back in 2004, it was a rush. In the remastered edition, that has shifted to an online format — online only. Before getting into the nitty-gritty, the multiplayer portion of FFCC doesn’t feature a local player option. I found this out over the weekend when my daughter and I planned to dig into the game and play all day Saturday. Try as we may, the only way to play this game together would have been to buy her a separate PS4 or to get on her Apple iPhone (lord, no). While I’m all for getting her a PS4, her mother would have killed me, and rightfully so. Not having local player coop rips the heart of this game right out of its original intentions. Being able to play this game with my kids would have done wonders for a family stuck inside at home. It would have brought the original excitement that the 2004 game created an entirely new generation of gamers. Sadly, that would not be the case, though I’m still hopeful that an update in the near future might correct that oversight (c’mon, SE!). As it stood on Saturday and as it stands now, FFCC is strictly online only. This is my biggest complaint about this release. The use of friend codes and the ability to cross-play are fine additions, but the lack of local is just a baffling question mark for this remastered release.

On the actual gameplay side of the tracks, the game itself is a grind, which is what it was back in 2004. You will be visiting places over and over again while fighting some of the same enemies over and over in each land. Each land has its own enemy style, but there isn’t much variety to the styles. For example, the third land features a giant snake-scaled landscape that contains flying one-eyed enemies, poisonous plants, and other repeating creatures. These enemies constantly repeat as you explore the land, which makes gathering and exploring more of a grind and a bit unexciting. The exploring will pay off by the end of each land, as you can collect some powerful gear and power-ups that actually make a difference to your character, but the excitement bar is truly set to grind the entire way. Some people love that, I get it, but it doesn’t make for a grand adventure over a long period of time, even with online friends.

The big plus with each place you explore is the boss that comes with the land and how unique those bosses are overall. In true Final Fantasy fashion, you have some over-the-top bosses that bring some fighting styles related to their character types, as well as the land they exist within. For example, a crab in the first land you explore fights with its claws casts magic that is water-related, and moves in/out of your chalice circle (the circle you are allowed to fight enemies within) to make the entire fight tough. If you have ever encountered a real crab on a real beach, then you will see some familiar features (sans the magic — unless they do that…hmmm). Each boss you run into has a unique flavor and fighting style to their arsenal, which makes them a refreshing change of pace when compared to the smaller, repetitive enemies.

Another big positive for this game is the overall world you explore is huge, which brings a bit more variety even within the midst of a grind. You have a lot of neat places to go search through, including dungeons, and the girth of it all might make the adventure worth your time. You get to see plenty of unique levels and find plenty of goodies along the way. You have different elemental types with each land that feature enemies related to that elemental flavor. Having different land designs and creature designs does help with feeling like the game is less repetitive and less of a grind, and it shows the love, care, and thought that went into their design. Is it enough to overcome the repetitive flaws? Probably not, but it’s still something positive to look forward to as you mow down enemies.

Related, when you’re in those lands and battling those creatures, the fighting system is definitely from 2004, well mostly. The majority of fighting is done through a setup system that allows you to put magic, defense, and physical attacks in slots. Each slot holds one type of fighting aspect and is doubly impressive when you fuse two magic moves together to create a powerful move. The fusing system works and is a giant positive when it comes to the fighting system scheme.

That said, to use the above slots during a fight, you have to toggle (in-real time, during battles) L1 to get to the ‘slot’ of your choice. Once there, you can execute it with X (HA! Just got that). Toggling through slots using L1 during a heated battle is a clunky way of doing things. I cannot tell you how many times I went past what I wanted, had to hit R1 to go back only to go past my ‘choice’ again, all while trying to avoid a boss attack. This switch between attacks was frustrating and seemed like too many steps for an RPG when a single macro might have been enough. I thought maybe that I would get used to this method over time, but it was an annoyance throughout the review process. There was a point where I felt okay about it but never comfortable.

The fighting system wasn’t completely a bust, though, as I really did enjoy the upgrading portion of the game. Without fighting and exploring, especially with bosses, I would have never been able to collect items and improve my character. Finding armor, metals/material, and objects, then seeing them upgraded and sported around was cool. It certainly gave me some pride and motivation to keep going in the game. That was the charm of the original, as you wanted to find more items of interest to improve your gameplay, so it made the adventure feel justified (outside of the fact that I wanted to save the world as well).

Beyond the above, there were some noticeable improvements that deserve some love. I did enjoy the upgrades to the presentation. I like the opening singing number, which I didn’t expect (it was hauntingly gorgeous), which started the game off on the right foot. The improvement in visuals also helped to sell the game, though you shouldn’t expect the caliber of detail that Final Fantasy VII received with its remake. The lands and surrounding environments are deliciously visually delightful. They were colorful and shiny, though the characters and creatures were along the lines of last generation textures and models. Regardless, it was certainly a giant leap from the Gamecube days. The additional voiceovers also helped up the presentation value and helped bring some personality to the entire adventure. The most impressive upgrade was the new music from composer Kumi Tanioka, which was nothing short of a beautifully woven tapestry of notes. It was quite nice.

As Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition stands, it is an upgrade from the original, but sometimes for the wrong reason. The lack of local play is an odd decision, considering the original thrived on it, and especially when so much thought and execution was put into the online multiplayer aspect of the title this time around. The fighting system probably won’t win over most fans of the series or of the original 2004 title, but the charm of the original game is still intact through this edition’s exploration and treasure discovery. In the end, this game still contains some fun aspects of its original gaming intentions, but only if you can see through its faults.