So, the remaster of e Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles came out about a week ago, and I have some thoughts. 

Crystal Chronicles was initially released for the Nintendo GameCube back in 2003, and was generally pretty well received. It’s basically a dungeon crawler where the player has to go around and collect droplets of a magical sap called myrrh, or their village will be taken over by miasma and everyone will die. You could play as one of four different tribes, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. 

The game is fairly unique insofar as it’s a multiplayer Final Fantasy game, and I think that it was probably the first one. There was a bit of a caveat, though: instead of just using multiple GameCube controllers, you and three of your friends had to each have a GameBoy Advance as well as the cables to link them to the GameCube. 

Needless to say, this could get pretty expensive. 

The remaster, which was released for the PS4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android, gets around this with having online multiplayer rather than local, but that has also apparently had some issues. Mostly with the multiplayer being region locked, which has led to some issues trying to get a party together. Apparently, this has also led to the game being removed from all platforms in Australia. 

So, yeah, that’s not really all that good of a look. 

However, I would like to say that this isn’t necessarily a deal breaker for me, since I typically play the game solo anyway. If that’s the experience you’re looking for, it may be worth looking into. I can definitely see how this would be an issue for most players, however. 

Another issue related to the multiplayer is that it’s only available for dungeons, not the rest of the game. This means that unless you want your village to be a ghost town, you’re going to have to roll up to seven other characters in the save file. Again, not something that bugs me personally all that much, but I can see how others may find it annoying. 

Visually the game is absolutely beautiful on the PS4 (the version being reviewed here). The water effects in particular look very good, and if you’re a fan of Final Fantasy IX’s more cartoony aesthetic, you would probably like the look of this game as well. A lot of the monster designs, in particular, were lifted from that game. 

The soundtrack is still probably my favorite one in the series, with a lot of rather Celtic-sounding instrumentation. The opening, Kaze no Ne/Morning Sky remains my favorite opening to any game in the series, and I believe that they also added some new tracks to the soundtrack. 

Gameplay-wise the remastered is basically identical to the original. Basically the attack and defend commands are default, but you need to pick up items called magicite in order to cast spells. These can also be fused together in order to get high-level elemental spells, or status spells like Slow and Stop. These and other items can be added to a command list, which the player cycles through and presses the appropriate button in order to execute the action.

(picture)

The game does add something that the previous version didn’t have, however: voice acting. In the 2003 release, the only voice over was in the form of a narrator describing different dungeons. This narration was provided by Donna Burke in the English-language version of the game, who also performed the opening and ending themes. Personally I’m not a huge fan of some of it, since I find it kind of distracting and kind of wish there was an option to turn it off. 

Some might balk a bit at the $29.99 price tag, since that seems to be a bit much for a remaster of a 17-year-old game. 

Generally, while I am personally enjoying the game, I wouldn’t recommend it for people who are looking for a primarily multiplayer experience. At the very least, I would recommend waiting for a sale if you wanted to check it out for yourself. 

There is a possibility, though, that Square Enix may implement some changes through patching. we are talking about a company that once famously rebuilt an entire MMORPG from the ground up because it wasn’t well received, after all. 

(Hello again, readers! This is the part of the post where I tell you about my Patreon, Ko-Fi, and PayPalpages where you can support the blog if you wish. It’s kind of important to me right now because I will be moving at some point within the next year, and need money for security deposits, fees and what not. Any money sent by Ko-Fi and PayPal, and a portion of my Patreon funds will be going towards that goal. So, if you could give a little, I would be super appreciative. Thanks!)