If you want a classic FF game, buy a remake. If you liked the action in Kingdom Hearts this game might please you.
- exciting dungeons with intelligent design
- cooperative play with up to 3 other players (rare on the market)
- a ton of items, including cute looking armors
- dialogs can be quite fun to listen
- new game+ and new game++ options
- your strength and the enemy strength are in good balance without power leveling
The Bad:
- terrible AI of your party members
- story mode is quite short
- no quick save option
- multiplayer missions are somewhat repetitive and you can't play through the story with friends
- multiplayer requires multiple cartridges and does not work over the Internet
- casting the more powerful spells is a pain
- most boss fights are disappointing
- story is way to cheesy
The first thing you have to know if you consider buying this game is that is has not much to do with the Final Fantasy series. First of all - it is no menu based RPG but a button mashing action platformer with RPG elements. Forget your familiar FF environment with Chocobos, airships and phoenix downs. The only faces you will recognize are those of Moogles like Mog, Stilzkin and Mogrimilian.
The game starts in the early childhood of your main characters. You will test your battle skills in a small cave near your house just for fun. This expedition shows you how the game works. You have to explore dungeons with a lot of environmental puzzles and one or two save points in it. At the end of each dungeon a boss awaits.
The layout of most dungeons is nice: you start from the first save point, kill monsters, solve some puzzles and unlock short cuts. You can reach the save point in a short amount of time and use the short cuts to get back deeper in the dungeon. However one iteration can still take its time and it is a shame that there is no quick save option for those who like to play in public transport.
You can fight the monsters with your weapon by tapping the attack button or by casting magic. Since your magic resources are limited you will go with the first choice most of the times. Casting simple magic is easy but if you want to do more than Ice, Fire and the like your will have to stack magic and that is terrible to do. It's the same with your special attacks. They are a little better than your standard attack and use the touch screen but while performing them you will have a hard time evading attacks. In multiplayer mode they are doable if another player has the attention of the foe.
The boss fights are easy. At least most of them. The bosses are very slow and you have enough time to dodge most if not all of their attacks. If you still fail to beat a boss the game lets you start the fight again.
A dungeon wouldn't be a dungeon without treasures. You will find a good amount of loot in each dungeon but you won't find any new weapons or armor pieces that you can equip right away. Instead you will find new receipts and materials that you can take to a crafter. The fun of opening chests is clearly reduced due to that mechanic. But shopping is much more fun. There are multiple hundred receipts. Some are only for creating more materials but there is still a good amount of weapons and armors. Especially the armors are cute. You will find your traditional black and white mage robes and hats as well as samurai and pirate suits or frog and cat costumes.
You will go through the first dungeon alone but soon enough you will have up to three party members, each with a unique skill that is required to solve the dungeon puzzles. That means you don't want them to die too often as you have limited resurrection spells. Sounds easy but since you can only control one of the characters at a time the computer takes care of the rest of them and does a terrible job. They will constantly fall into holes and step into lava. They will not evade monster attacks and will only attack the monsters once in a few seconds.
Between the dungeons the story progresses. It is incredible cheesy. Everyone is glad to sacrifice him or herself for the other one. Good and bad are clearly divided with no shades of gray. That doesn't mean that you won't hear funny dialogs. I did have some good laughs!
But after only a few dungeons and not much more than 15 hours the story has an end. Now you can play it again with all your levels and items you gained through the first play though. The monsters will be tougher (just right for your skill), the drops will be better and there will be a new dungeon available. If you make it through the game a second time you can start once more with even harder monsters.
Beside the story mode there is the mission mode which you can play alone or with up to three friends (if you have four copies of the game). As far as I have tested the mode the tasks are pretty random. Kill all monsters in the time limit, catch all kitties in the time limit, and press all buttons in the time limit. There are cooperative as well as competitive quests. In the latter ones it really matters which class your character is. You can have up to eight mission mode characters but each of them needs to level up and leaves you effectively with one or two characters you will play. You can also redo the dungeons from story mode although some puzzles are already solved for you.
Although there are only seven base skins for your characters to choose from you can customize them with the same armors you know from story mode. Again shopping is fun!
One word about music and graphics. The music is nice but not really memorable. The graphics are good... if you can say that for 3D on the DS. They are colorful and the armors are detailed. The characters look a bit too cute for my taste. In rare occasions the frame rate drops remarkable.
Overall Final Fantasy CC RoF has its sharp edges but you still get a nice package. In the end I spent way more time with it than planned.