Nintendo fans went a decade without a Final Fantasy game to their home consoles, even despite the fact that the series was born on the Nintendo Entertainment System, so you must imagine their resounding glee to discover that Crystal Chronicles, which ended up being the best Final Fantasy game in recent years, was making its way exclusively to the GameCube.
What is so remarkable about Crystal Chronicles is that unlike other Final Fantasy games that clutch to the series' trademarks with an almost upsetting fervor, this game goes out of its way to make the experience as unique and interesting as possible. A hack-and-slash RPG that borrows more from Diablo than it does from other games in the canon, Crystal Chronicles only beckons the most devoted of Final Fantasy fans by requiring them to buy a whole bunch of other equipment to enjoy the multiplayer experience. I mean, the mere fact that this game even has multiplayer is revolutionary in and of itself. No more sitting at home alone and crying into your pillow about how you'll never get to be with Rinoa! Now you've got to man up and play your Final Fantasy game in front of other people!
You see, to play Crystal Chronicles with four people, you'll need four Game Boy Advances and four GBA-to-GameCube connector cables. You can't get by with just using the normal controllers, oh no. One can imagine that this paved the way for the controller mechanics of the upcoming Nintendo Revolution. The Nintendo executives must have been sitting around patting themselves on the back for conceiving of the multiplayer mechanics in Crystal Chronicles, which clearly made the game superior to many other recent Final Fantasy games (in your face Sony!) and then the Revolution-controller idea happened. It's surprising, actually, that they're not marketing the controller as a separate device (like the GBA) and charging over $100 for it, because people would obviously pay it, and they would be justified in doing so if the quality and ingenuity of Crystal Chronicles is indicative of anything.
April Fool's TenSpot: Top Ten Final Fantasy Games
We take a look back at all of the Final Fantasy games and select, in order, the ten best ones. Of course, it was all just a joke.
