Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - Echoes of Time
Have you ever wanted to play a portable game on a console?
I always preferred to play games on my console. Maybe it’s just that I’m older, but lying in bed, or on the couch trying to get through a 30 hour RPG on a 3-inch screen just kills me. Especially, when there’s so many great RPGs coming out for portable systems.
In the past there were some great workarounds like the Super Gameboy or the Gamecube GBA player. Even the component outputs for the PSP-2000 are handy. (Though it’s not the most comfortable controller to hold)
But the DS is one of a kind. The dual screens and touch capability make it nearly impossible to have any kind of additional player or video output. Still the DS has some great games that don’t even need the touch screen or the dual screens. Games like Dragon Quest 4, Dragon Quest 5, Final Fantasy 3, Final Fantasy 4, Chrono Trigger, Metal Slug 7, Contra 4, etc. So I guess some games could have console ports.
Enter Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time. If this is the approach developers are going to take to console ports of DS games, even I don’t want to see anymore.
I think this video says it all:
Ok, maybe I should put some words alongside it. Let’s get the obvious thing out of the way. Whoever decided they NEEDED to display both screens at the same time should be fired. Maybe they didn’t want to break up the gameplay by having players switch between screens, or maybe they didn’t want to expose how bad the textures may look at full screen… in any case, it’s horrible to play with.
You can create your own character to play through the campaign. You can also create up to 16 additional teammates, but your party can only contain 4 characters at a time. If you end up getting this game, you’ll want to find 3 other players to create a party with instead. The AI is terrible; don’t rely on them at all. The mostly follow you and stand around, and rarely they’ll attach nearby enemies.
The story is pretty plain. There’s no character development and you don’t really feel like your character is involved in the plot at all.
The nunchuck will move your character around the left screen, while the wiimote allows you to interact with the right screen as if it were a touch screen. You can use the – or + buttons to make either screen larger (and the opposite one smaller), but even at it’s largest it’s not close to full screen and the other is so small it’s impossible to work with.
The game itself is a pretty standard action RPG. The levels have an isometric view, which makes it nearly impossible to walk along narrow ledges. There are plenty of places you can climb up and walk along to get a treasure, but you’re guaranteed to fall of about 10 times before you actually get it.
The combat itself is pretty interesting for an action RPG. You can move, jump and attack like a regular RPG. But you can also jump on enemies or pick up enemies, while you’re on them or while they are in your hand you can hit them with your sword and/or throw them. One neat feature is that you can grab onto flying monsters and hit them while you’re holding on. This is great since you don’t have to keep jumping to get them.
The dungeon setups are pretty interesting. There are some logic puzzles involving moving things around and flipping switches that are required to get through the dungeons. Some of the puzzles are pretty interesting, but it’s not enough to save this game.
So if you really want to play this game PLEASE get the DS version. If you’re not a big RPG fan, you can definitely skip this one altogether. If you want a great multiplayer action RPG, get Secret of Mana (Super Nintendo) from the virtual console. It’s way cheaper and 100x better.
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