The most interactive cooperative game ever.
What's great about this FF is that YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHAT TO MAKE. That's right. You choose your name, gender, race, job and clothes. From there, you move on a path to dungeons.
In dungeons, a mog will carry the chalice for you. What's the chalice? It's like a bucket of water, except it forms a sphere around it and if you aren't within this sphere, you start taking damage.
You will also be given a random goal to do in each dungeon. Depending on how well you do this goal, your artifacts will be better or worse. Oh and you don't know what this goal is... unless you have a GBA.
So anyway, you go through dungeons, bashing monsters, grabbing materials and opening chests. Some dungeons will have puzzles along with them, such as killing certain enemies, flicking switches, etc. You can also fuse spells that you find in the level. For instance, fire might be strong, but fire and another fire make fira. In multiplayer, this tactic requires coordination.
Notice how I said collecting materials. That's because you never JUST receive an item in this game. You get the lego pieces of the item and you have to get the proper scroll, give it to a certain blacksmith, pay for it and then it gets made. With that said, if you have friends to play this, you'll want to trade, which is a good thing. There are dozens of assessories, weapons and armor to be made.
So anyway, near the end of each dungeon, you will face the boss. Each boss needs a different strategy to beat him. The crab for instance is simply a matter of dodging his melee and spells and smacking him in between. The dragon zombie however requires you to HOLY his face.
After you beat him, you will write a letter to your family, or rather choose a predetermined response and are given a choice to give gil or items back as gifts. Then you collect a drop of myrrh from the tree into your chalice. After three drops a year passes. You can't do the same dungeon repeatedly, because it takes a year for the tree to get myrrh again.
Then comes the fun part, artifacts. If you did your goal well, you will get a better selection of artifacts. So you get to choose 1 from up to 8 artifacts listed. These artifacts boost your stats in either strength, defense or magic. And that's why they removed levels.
After dungeon-romping, you might have to cross miasma streams. These streams are between towns. The chalice you hold can be one of four elements: fire, water, wind and earth. Your chalice and the stream have to have the same element or you can't pass it.
After a year the streams change their elements and new places might open up. Some places have new people, others lose people.
The plot of the game is expressed through cutscenes, sidequests and dialogue. The overall story involves a poisonous gas called miasma that can only be prevented by myrrh, which creates a bubble of air around it. The myrrh runs out, so caravans have to go to dungeons to collect drops to give back to their town. You'll find friends and foes and the ultimate cause and source of the miasma at the end.
In the end, FFCC is a RPG, which means a lot of slashing, loot-grabbing and stat-building. Multiplayer with friends allow you to combine spells, trade materials and use different maps. FFCC uses real-time combat, realistic/chibi art style and somewhat celtic music. If you want a multiplayer RPG with some FF style, FFCC is a game like no other only on gamecube.