Incredible motivating for a mini game game!
**Story**
What is it about? Chocobo Tales tells a story of an evil wizard, called Bebuzzu, that is trapped inside a book. Once the black mage who lives on the chocobo farm accidentally opens the book Bebuzzu sucks all the chocobos (except you) inside it and they are gone!
Your task is to save them and stop Bebuzzu from executing his other evil plans.
You save your friends by traveling the world and searching for books. Each book offers a mini game and several challenges connected to that mini game. If you beat a challenge you have the chance that a chocobo is saved. If not, other good things will happen. For example you can gain cards this way which you can use in card games called Pop Up duels.
The story does its job but it is nothing special. To be honest it's not even good and the stories in the books you find are terrible! Nevertheless all the characters are really lovable and ease the pain. The whole world is also very cute and there is so much to do and to discover that the story doesn't really matter anyway.
**Graphics and Sound**
Both very cute. Sometimes the music is a little too cute and can get on your nerves but mostly is just fits well into the game. You will know nearly all the tunes from other FF games and most of you will agree that the music of FF (especially the older games) is very good and memorable.
The 3D graphics are very nice (and so cute!). The books have 2D graphics and it's a matter of taste if you like them. They are very simple and look like drawn by a child with crayons. Not really good but ok.
**Difficulty**
As always, some mini games are fun and some not so much. There are mini games in the books you find and there are micro games which you can play to get some more cards. To proceed in the story you only have to play the book mini games and beat easy to middle hard challenges. So most likely you won't have trouble to beat the game storywise. However to unlock all the secrets is very hard. I think I beat about 95% of the book challenges and 60% of the micro game challenges (all silver medals and a few gold medals) and now I'm at my limits.
**Value**
How long you have fun with this game depends on how much you want to achieve. Although I'm no mini game friend I found the game incredible motivating. I wanted to free all chocobos and to collect better cards for online play. There are 16 books and 23 micro games with which I spent 20 hours in the story mode (I finished the story after 10 hours but came back). You can play mini games against a friend with a DS and another cartridge. Unfortunately there are only 3 micro games that are available for single cartridge multiplayer.
The most fun however are Pop Up duels over the internet (or against friends if you have some that play the game, too.)
The success in this card game depends halfway on luck, a good card deck makes a quarter and the last quarter is skill. That way it is not too frustrating if you loose - just think it was bad luck. But a good deck and skill are not meaningless either and you can distinguish different playing styles of different players. Most importantly Pop Up duels are fun!
**Conclusion**
This game has a lot to offer. Plenty fun mini games and good rewards that motivate you to beat them. Enjoyable online card game. Plus your beloved FF mascots. Great game!