Final Fantasy CC: Echos Of Time is a great RPG experience for anyone who is new to the Final Fantasy series/ RPG genre.
User Rating: 8 | Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time DS
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is a good solid RPG. It has all that you could ever want in a good RPG such as the story, boss monsters and more quests than you can shake a stick at. When you first look at Final Fantasy CC: Echos of Time it seems like a shallow RPG without anything to really do at first, I am not going to lie the first hour is tedious at best. Once you have gotten into it, you find that the game sucks you in so fast that you wonder where the time went and why you are not at work at 2:30 in the afternoon. The first thing you notice are the visuals, for a DS game these graphics are quite fantastic the textures and character models are amazing and the fluid animation never makes it seem like a watching a slide show. The amount of things happening on screen is amazing spells exploding enemies coming from all sides is just breathtaking on how well this game actually works on the DS. The game play mechanics are quite fun and easy with next to nothing for a learning curve, the thing that I liked though is if your party AI ever fall behind (and they will) you just press the L trigger and they appear right behind you. Another interesting element about this game is that it is all in real time, no turn based action no choosing your attacks or witch monster to hit when they are all lined up no, it is quite liberating to run and jump around the battlefield blasting your unwitting foes with spells among other things. Your friendly AI are not so desirable in the whole puzzle department although useful in combat, you will often find them running into walls or trying to jump a high piece of terrain. A nice thing about your AI though is the way to recruit them, all you have to do is go to your local guild district and there right by the stairs leading to the quests is a booth, you can choose anyone you want to have in your party you can even have a party of a single race or a mix party with one of every tribe. Throughout the game you can find certain SPECIAL AI who for a certain fee of money hours and the like and they are a welcome addition to any party looking for a high lever adventurer. Although the AI is not to desirable the online CO-OP is worse, an ambitious thing to do but it is hard to find anyone who wants to work WITH you everyone is trying to get the quest done by themselves and it gets so bad that you just get frustrated and quit the online game. The story of the game is simple yet very entertaining and once the game gets rolling so in turn does the story I won't reveal anything but if you let it the story can really almost be a great sorrow and a great triumph. It surprises you with little things here an there but that makes it all the more enjoyable to play through this game. The voice acting in this game is mediocre, the voices actually help you with the story and it IS better than constant text streaming down your screen but, it is frustrating when the visuals are so good and cut scenes even better, that their LIPS DON'T MOVE for a game so good this was a letdown. As for enemies their cunning is surprising and refreshing just not to see wave after wave of enemies hurl themselves onto your swords and spells, they can even use spells of their own witch is nice because it adds to the intensity of the battles. The classes are generic and the races don't have much effect on the game except for Selkies who are able to double jump from the get go. The races are interesting though, you have your Clavats who are your warrior types , the Yukes who are your sorcerers, The Selkies who are your ranged and death from above attackers, and finally the Lilties who although short can deal massive amounts of damage with their over compensating weapons. The customizing in this game does not do anything wrong but nothing to terribly new either, you have the standard attaching of jewels and then combining the Items you collect from dead enemies to make better armor, weapons and accessories. Finally we have the Quests, they are pretty standard for an RPG game such as kill this monster and the collect this item. what I did like about the quests though was that you didn't have to go roaming all over the countryside to find the item or kill the monster they can all be accessed at your local guild and then you just pick one and it automatically sends you there giving you a certain amount of time to finish the quest before it ends. Despite some flaws Final Fantasy CC: Echos of Time is a good RPG that sucks you in and is a lot of fun to play when you are in the mood for an RPG. If you are looking to kill some time, fall into a world of fantasy, or you want to get into the series look no further than Final Fantasy CC: Echos of Time
