There are games that come along in out time that have excellent nostalgic values, this is one of thoes games.
The single player mode is fun and challenging. New areas of the map and miasma streams hinder your progress and its only after certain years can you enter various locales. The charactres are simple enough yet dynamic in that each race: Natural, Selkies, Clavats and Littlies have specific strenghts and weaknesses. One of the most extensive Final Fantasies in my opinion. Your relations with your family and hometown change as letters filter to you via Moogles. Also, your hometown grows as you make more characters and import guests from other memory cards. Its wise to make one of every job class so your hometown is completly filled with people who can offer you variosu services, even if you dont paly on thoes characters.
Eventually, I did breakdown and buy two GBA's and link cables and embarked on some kick ass 2-player co-op. Eventhough its mostly a childish battle for magic and items, its all in good fun. Mixing magics is probably the most fun, or adhereing magic to force attacks. my favorite expereince was mixing two Fire's to make Firaga (which shouldnt happen only Fira should occur but we figured out a way to do so).
I put the game down for the longest time (I couldnt figure out how the get the last miasma stream and I did not feel like sifting through hundreds of pages of my journal to find the answer) Then as I was sifting through some old GMR magazines I found a tiny article in the back regarding Crystal Chronicles and how to obtain the final miasma. I immediatley turned it on and got through the final stream only to find I was very much unequipped to fight any monsters in this particualr area.
All in all, this game as superb graphics and although the charactres are a little chibi (small) it reflects a classic time of Final Fantasy, much like how Fina Fantasy III looks on the DS. The textures and effects are amazing and the water reflections are superb. Music sound and story all go very well together, if real-time RPG's are your thing or you are a Final fantasy buff this is a must own game. Its an awesome game to own I feel and you can pick it up very cheap now, which is sad. Ive kept mine. I recently traded in some games to buy a DS and EB games was going to offer me $1 for Crystal Chronicles, what is up with that?