RPG mayhem that can be enjoyed by yourself or with your friends. Though I would suggest the latter.
User Rating: 8.5 | Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (w/Game Boy Advance cable) GC
Let me set the stage for my play through of this game. Me and my buddy have found it more and more difficult to play RPGs in a timely manner the older we get. So when we had free weekend we finally decided to bust out the almost multi-player mandatory Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. In about 25 hours, give or take, we defeated the game including minimal level-up time. Looking back, a little more side questing would have made the end game a lot less frustrating. With that being said, Crystal Chronicles is a wonderful step in the right direction for co-op RPGs. A word of advice though, the more people you can get to play with you, the better this game gets. The game can be played with one, two, three, or four players. One player mode allows the use of the Gamecube controller, where multi-player mode requires the use of Gameboy Advances for controllers. This hardware requirement can often cause a restriction in the multi-player department. By using the Gameboys as controllers though, everyone can do their micro-managing via Gameboy screen, which keeps the action on screen going strong.
Overall, FF:CC is a terrific game, and just because I finished it quickly doesn't mean there isn't plenty to do. Actually, the game is quite accommodating for those who want to re-explore previous areas, and there is a somewhat limited amount of places to go. Theoretically you could go straight for the end-game very early in the game though it will be very unlikely you will succeed. Backtracking allows you to gain more money and items, with really the only driving factor here is getting more items for forging armor and weapons, as well as gaining more power-ups after clearing an area.
