Should We Just Pretend Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Never Happened?

[RagnarokHybrid]

Last week's episode of Unskippable reminded me of a game I once thought was really good--Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, to be exact. I truly loved it and, after playing through it again to beat it for the first time (because my fucking memory card forced me to format it), I must say that I truly enjoyed it. Surely, the dungeons got tedious after a while and it started turning into a grind to get all the best items and weapons--but isn't that Final Fantasy at its best?

I wouldn't go so far as to say Crystal Chronicles is teh best gaem EVAR!!!!!1 anywhere near the best FF game (IX still takes that spot by a long shot, for me) but I believe it deserves a bit more recognition. It had a few DS spin-offs, sure, but Crystal Bearers really didn't do it justice. Plus, Crystal Chronicles wasn't included in Dissidia at all. Are we ever going to get a Crystal Chronicles game that returns to its roots and brings in graphical, technological, and game-play updates or should we just pretend FFCC never happened?

On that subject, what are some other games that Square Enix seems to want to forget despite an arguably large fan-base? Threads of Fate comes to mind for me... but, apparently, I'm the only one who cares about that game anymore...

 

[BanicRhys]

I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to forget about Final Fantasy versus 13 and Kingdom Hearts 3.

This iron maiden will happily give you a hug.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

I haven't played Dissidia, but I was under the impression it excluded all of the spin-offs, Tactics, 4 Heroes of Light, etc.

As for forgetting the series entirely, no way, I've never played the original Crystal Chronicles, but the premise intrigues me and Squeenix would be right to try that out on the Wii U.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Oh, god...FF: Crystal Chronicles... I try to pretend I never paid full retail price for that game when it came out. It's one of the few games I hated enough to never complete.

 

[tthor]

I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to forget about Final Fantasy versus 13 and Kingdom Hearts 3.

This iron maiden will happily give you a hug.

wait, did they ever actually come out with kingdom hearts 3 ?

 

[BanicRhys]

I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to forget about Final Fantasy versus 13 and Kingdom Hearts 3.

This iron maiden will happily give you a hug.

wait, did they ever actually come out with kingdom hearts 3 ?

Well, they haven't released it yet.
Or really said anything about it.

 

[KeyMaster45]

I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to forget about Final Fantasy versus 13 and Kingdom Hearts 3.

This iron maiden will happily give you a hug.

wait, did they ever actually come out with kingdom hearts 3 ?

Well, they haven't released it yet.

They haven't even started production on it because the combat team and creative director for the KH series is tied up making 13 versus. The creative director has even said that the last thing he wants to think about is making KH3 right now, and that he probably won't start work on it until a fair amount of time has passed after wrapping up versus (if they ever release versus that is)

There are some people who consider Birth By Sleep to be KH3 since it's just as big as the KH1 and 2 and isn't a fucking retread of KH1 like all the other handheld titles are.

 

[RagnarokHybrid]

I haven't played Dissidia, but I was under the impression it excluded all of the spin-offs, Tactics, 4 Heroes of Light, etc.

As for forgetting the series entirely, no way, I've never played the original Crystal Chronicles, but the premise intrigues me and Squeenix would be right to try that out on the Wii U.

I think you may be right about that first bit. Maybe that's something they should change in Dissidia: OVER 9000!!!. The original Crystal Chronicles was way different from games like Crystal Bearers. Crystal Chronicles was a dungeon crawler in every sense of the word... but a good one, at that.

They haven't even started production on it because the combat team and creative director for the KH series is tied up making 13 versus. The creative director has even said that the last thing he wants to think about is making KH3 right now, and that he probably won't start work on it until a fair amount of time has passed after wrapping up versus (if they ever release versus that is)

There are some people who consider Birth By Sleep to be KH3 since it's just as big as the KH1 and 2 and isn't a fucking retread of KH1 like all the other handheld titles are.

This is why Square Enix makes me angry sometimes. KH2's secret ending hinted at a KH3 everyone has been waiting for since they beat the game. Kingdom Hearts is getting kind of ridiculous now with all the spin-offs it has and the storyline just gets more convoluted with each one. I've had someone try to explain the story thus far and, maybe he's just a bad storyteller, but I couldn't even understand the basics... I kinda don't even want to play KH3 if it ever comes out because I probably wouldn't be immersed at all. It'd be nice if they included "Kingdom Hearts for Dummies" with every purchase.

 

[godofwarishere]

Most probably

 

[Piorn]

I liked Crystal Chronicles, and while the idea behind the multiplayer was nice, the button limit on the GBA ruined the gameplay a bit, I think.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

;_; I really miss Crystal Chronicles. The first game was pretty damn fun (I'm playing it again with my girlfriend, but we don't play it very often), and I'd LOVE to see a WiiU version.....EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT NINTENDO IS ONLY ALLOWING ONE WIIU CONTROLLER PER CONSOLE which makes it impossible to play local multiplayer.

The other CC games were alright, but not as good as the first one (It'll probably feel way smoother to play if they make another one on the 3DS). Still, I'd JUMP at the chance to get another CC game. It's a great series.

And Crystal Bearers? ...Grrr... It was a good game, but it had the potential to be so much more. It could have been "InFamous: Final Fantasy Edition", but chose not to expand it's arsenal past "lift and throw". Not to mention the badly conceived (and awkward) travel system.

 

[jacobythehedgehog]

Goodness I dislike Square Enix right now. I really want Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Kingdom Hearts 3.

But yeah Square likes to forget about games a lot

 

[KeyMaster45]

This is why Square Enix makes me angry sometimes. KH2's secret ending hinted at a KH3 everyone has been waiting for since they beat the game.

People thought it was hinting at KH3 but it was actually for Birth by Sleep. There's supposed to be a secret ending at the end of BBS but I haven't seen it and I don't want to spoil it until I've unlocked it.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Crystal Chronicles is a damn fine game. Along with Four Swords on the Gamecube I had many a fun time on Crystal Chronicles, three friends huddled around with their Gameboys, arguing who gets what loot and who has to carry the little chalice. Also nothing's more badass than when you accidentally combine spells on a boss and get a Firaga or somethng to that effect.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, shame there aren't many other games along a similar vein. I'd kill for a more up to date version.

 

[Kyogissun]

OP, I was so ready to come in here and tear you a new asshole...

...And then I saw your post and I felt a glimmer of comfort in my heart. Someone else who feels the original FF:CC was a fucking GODSEND amongst the FF series? That's damn near un-fucking-heard of.

I to think that Square Enix needs to go back and look at where they were headed with the series and realize one things:

STICK
TO
YOUR
FUCKING
ROOTS.

The Celtic characteristics between the clothing, music and overall style of the world are something I haven't seen come about in an RPG since then. The grinding gameplay mechanic is by far, the only one in an RPG I've seen as completely forgiveable, because it encouraged multiplayer and only someone who NEVER played the actual multiplayer mode of that game would talk shit about it.

I kept hoping that with that original TCB trailer that we'd be getting a fucking full fledged sequel to the original game, with a timeskip to explain the advances in the world, what's become of it after the miasma had been lifted and more... And what I got instead was a piece of shit 'experiment' of a game from Square Enix that felt like a crappy attempt at an 'open world' type of game. God it pissed me off to no end.

Hell, I'd argue that while later games didn't have the best controls or best gameplay, at least they TRIED to stay close to the original gameplay! Even My Life As a King/Darklord were fun games, the former ESPECIALLY if you like world/city building types of games. Hell, I'd been praying that MLaaK was going to be a SIDE mini-game kind of thing and that TCB would either a: hearken back to the dungeon crawler roots of the original game or B: take an action RPG approach similar to Tales or Kingdom Hearts.

BUT NOPE, CAN'T HAVE THAT, TCB WAS A TESTING GROUND FOR SOME GAMEPLAY SYSTEM THAT DIDN'T EXPAND BEYOND THE MEDIOCRE EXPERIENCE IT WAS.

...Okay, with all ranting said and done now, I wish that Square would go back and 'redo' TCB. I was hoping for this super epic as fuck 'The world's all peaceful now, time for a big bad to rear its ugly head' kind of story, with world travelling, content loaded sidequests and minigames, multiple party members to collect, combat moves to memorize and combos to chain...

...And I got none of that. I'm not saying everything in TCB was bad, the art style at the least was acceptable and 'some' gameplay aspects were kinda cool. As for the 'setting' of the world, that 'magi-technology' state that the world had expanded to was TOTALLY what I was expecting, especially after we learned in MLaaK of the near infinite possibilities of what the crystals in FFCC were capable of doing.

I think that there's a fanbase for FFCC who, after playing TCB, were finally fed up and like myself, have given up most (if not all) hope of that series ever having a triumphant and critically acclaimed return to awesomeness. I'll keep a tiny glimmer of hope for it for the future, but I'm not expecting much.

 

[smearyllama]

I remember The Chrystal Chronicles.
I should probably go back and play that game again, since it's another one of those games I got as a kid and never really fully understood, and thus found it too hard and went back to playing Animal Crossing.
(Other examples include Tales of Symphonia, Skies of Arcadia: Legends, any RPG I tried to play)

 

[Epona]

Well, I had forgotten about Crystal Chronicles until this thread.

 

[Kae]

NINTENDO IS ONLY ALLOWING ONE WIIU CONTROLLER PER CONSOLE which makes it impossible to play local multiplayer.

WAIT WHAT!? That's the one thing I thought would be awesome about the WiiU : (