Crystal Chronicles is a tale of magic, time, and worlds. Well, and the undying loyalty one sibling has for another. Crystals are the source of magic power and are used in peoples' everyday life. There are, however, certain individuals who have been swayed by evil and no longer have the ability to use the crystals. These of course are the hidden people who come out only to take what they want.
Rings of Fate is another RPG brought to life by Square Enix for the Nintendo DS system. The graphics for this title are well-rounded out and has a nice 3D engine without the invisible walls and areas one can get stuck in. All the different areas have their own feel and colors along with their own group of puzzles and even platforming. There is voice acting in this title which at times is sporadic but a nice effort, while the CS are mostly in the same engine as game play. Once or twice you will see a nicer engine used for a scene but only for a second.
The game play for Rings of Fate is an action-orientated RPG. All enemies are fought while still on the map and you can move around and run away or execute a side/back attack. You cannot see all enemies at once for they’ll only pop up when you are in the vicinity of them. Magic use is selected via the touch screen on the right side which you have your standard Fire, Blizzard, Lightning, Cure, Clear, and Raise. You’ll also have potions and ethers to pick from as well. Once you have touched the magic you want to use, you hold down the X button and an icon pops up. Now you have control of a reticle that you move to the area you want to attack or help. Each magic type is stacked up and at first you can only have 10 each, plus some can be used to open doors. Later on you get to buy pockets for them increasing how many you can hold at a time. Seeing that this is an action RPG, using magic can be tricky at first but is essential to winning battles without taking a lot of damage.
The cast and crew in Rings of Fate all have their own abilities, which create not only nice platforming areas but also has you switching characters a lot. Switching people is a simple tap on the left side of the touch screen over the characters icon. One is a melee guru which uses a sword, another has the ability to use towers and magicite (the unused magic balls) to draw on to make solid objects to get to new areas or light candles to open doors etc and uses a staff, another person has double jump to get to higher areas and is the bow user, and the last can roll around in an urn to squeeze in tight areas who’s weapon of choice is a spoon and can stun enemies with it. All of these party members are used through out your campaign and none are side lined.
The ethers in this game replenish SP which is your ‘Special Power’ and you activate that by the R trigger. For the sword and bow user you are brought into a charged attack mode where all you need to do is touch the enemy you want to hit and off they go, while the staff user has the ability to use those towers I talked about before. When close to one of them you can switch to him and hit R trigger and look around. You may see a dashed-out box and you then trace from the tower to the block and it forms into a solid mass for you to hop on. Finally the spoon ally can make magic with the R trigger. In order for this to happen though, you need to find crystals that spurt out elements and once found you set up your urn and the elements are automatically taken into the urn. From here you use the touch screen to select 3 elements and you can choose from red, blue, green, and yellow. Three of each will give you the attack and cure magic while a mixture of them will result in a raise or clear. Once you pick out the 3 elements, you need to stir the pot to a certain degree shown on the screen then hold it at that temp by stirring faster or slower for a few seconds. Once done you have your magic and you drag it to the side of the pot and out it comes for you to put into your inventory, or you can pick it up to put on a statue to open a door.
The world map is kind of small and you only see a card with a picture and name of the area. You can save in the world map and it's how you get to your house to the castle and back again along with new areas that come as the story progresses. You can even go back once you get your full party so you can get items you weren’t able to seeing that you didn’t have a particular ability in your first run through the area. Some of the areas include the standard cave, forest, snowy mountain, but also include a run-down underground magic tower run-off of water, an undead land, and even the past. As a reward, once beaten you can play again and there will be a new dungeon to explore even.
At the end of each area of course is a boss fight. These are the harder creatures of the land yet they share something in common: A red crystal on their body which is the weak point. A good stratagy along with well-placed magic can help you out. Blizz will freeze them in place for a few seconds, Thunder will shock them into not being able to attack, and Fire will give prolonged damage. Those apply to lesser monsters as well but really try to use magic on bosses. They have their own set of attacks to learn and plan around, and all should be good.
The game has an end to it sadly and only ran me 13 hours to beat. You can play again with all your items, equipment, and level you finished your first play through on. The enemies are much harder and drop some better items and there is even new and better gear to be had along with a new dungeon. It’s a short but sweet game and is typical Square Enix fashion in story and characters. FFCC is a great filler for waiting on some of there other titles.
Alex S. from Link-Cable writes: "The Final Fantasy series is one of gaming’s most revered franchises with many of its games finding themselves near the top of ‘best games of all time’ lists and simply uttering the words ‘Final Fantasy’ usually evokes images of epic quests and world class polish. But not all of the games to bear the name have been worthy of praise. Some, in fact are terrible, unplayable, ugly and obnoxious games that make you wonder how Square Enix ever approved them. So for this week’s Top 10 we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel and counting down the Top 10 Worst Final Fantasy Games."
Addition of FFXIII Lightning Returns and Crystal Bearers make your list redundant.
Though I appreciate the lack of FFX-2.
And I agree with the rest.
Wait on further thought, the inclusion FFVIII would be nice. Terrible writing, terrible story, terrible gameplay and terrible translation. And therefore a terrible game.
Since when is After Years or Lightning Returns bad?
This article is garbage, the absolute worst FF, Final Fantasy XIII is nowhere to be seen.
Also, why include a game that doesn't even exist anymore? FFXIV 1.0 is long gone...
Lightning avatar and mad about Lightning Returns being on the list!? https://www.youtube.com/wat...
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Graham Russell: "Generally, when you’re looking to play a game with friends, it’s much easier to do it on a home console. With portables, each player usually needs a system, and most need a copy of the game (and maybe some funky cables, if you go back enough). Generally, people haven’t bothered to take advantage of the technology. Of course, if you’re a crazy person like me, that’s more of an incentive than a barrier."
We recently featured an article about five unannounced 3DS games that we would like to see Nintendo reveal in 2012. Following up on that idea, here are six games that would fit well on the 3DS in 2012, each coming from a third-party developer that has already pledged support for the handheld. Let the speculation begin on GameRabies!
I would like something from Platinum games...maybe God Hand 2 3D or just God hand 3D :)
then new No more heroes 3DS
new Sin & Punishment 3DS
new Madworld 3DS
new Silent Hill 3DS
Kororinpa 3DS & Bomberman 3DS & Omega 5 (damn you Konami, for now)..
