If you enjoy games with pretty graphics, yet boring, repetitive gameplay then FF:CC is for you!
First of all, yes the graphics are lovely. They're very cute and pretty. The designs are quite nice too. That is probably the only positive thing you'll hear from me about this game.
The rest? It just sends me into a rage fuelled rant. Lets discuss the map music. First time you hear it, its cute. As you progress in the game and keep hearing it, it starts to make you mad. Many people say the rest of the soundtrack is good, I never really noticed it much, mostly because it doesn't stand out, its pretty average, minus the awful map music.
Gameplay isn't great and extremely repetitive. The game requires you to keep filling up the bucket (or Chalice, I prefer 'bucket') with water. You need three drops from three different trees to keep poisonous gas from killing the residents of your hometown. After you've gone through the same dungeon for the millionth time you get to see the same cutscene of people dancing around which loops, every time you get three drops. Levelling uses a strange system, you collect all these items throughout the stage giving stat boosts, after you defeat the boss it turns out you can only keep one. Also Mog whose entire purpose is carrying the bucket often gets tired and makes you carry it. This is extremely annoying, first of all you can't go outside the buckets forcefield-thing or you lose health, second of all when carrying it you move very, very slowly and your open to attacks. Mog is supposed to help you in battle but its pretty useless really.
Characters are bland, I felt they lacked depth. It was like they intended for you to feel sad for that Knight they all go on about for a bit, his son, this random Selkie who seems to stalk you and those thieves who steal your items. You couldn't care less about them, there's zero character development.
All of this though is nothing though compared to the storyline. You go so long with just "land is covered in poisonous mist, fill bucket with water" for storyline. Then at the very end when you finally get the full storyline and hope its something worthwhile you just this generic unimaginative waffle about memories.
I may be slightly biased having only played single player while multi-player is meant to be far superior.
Overall I think you should only buy this if you have four GBA's and link cables or friends with their own GBA and link cables. Single player just isn't worth it, unless your happy with style over substance. FF:CC is definitely over-rated.