CRYSTAL CHRONICLES DS PS4

To make it worse, the doors only open when the switch in front of them is showing the symbol for the element type of your chalice. There's a central courtyard surrounded by monster-filled rooms - these are single rooms, mind you, not whole different branches or multiple locations - and entering into any one of them triggers a loading screen. One of the dungeons, Moschet Manor, is set up like a mansion. It's infuriating on the world map, but even more so in some of the levels. In other words, that’s 15 to 20 seconds of loading, two seconds of movement, 15 to 20 seconds of loading, 10 to 60 seconds of pointless cutscenes, followed by another 15 to 20 seconds of loading. More than once, I'd complete a dungeon, load, move my caravan one space on the world map (roughly two seconds of movement), only to hit a random crossroads scene.

Look, I'm more than willing to look past loading times when they, you know, load something good or worthwhile. I've loaded into cutscenes that last roughly the same length as the loading time, immediately followed by another 15 to 20 seconds of loading.

CRYSTAL CHRONICLES DS PS4

I'm playing on my PS4 Slim, and it takes around 15 to 20 seconds both coming and going. On top of being boring and mostly useless, the crossroads scenes are bookended by some pretty ridiculous loading screens. Cruelly, you can’t just mash your way through the dialogue to get to the end, because you would then be punished later on when knowledge of your past dialogue options becomes a critical part of the story, so you still have to pay at least some attention. I might have felt differently if people I met along the way popped into a dungeon once in a while to lend a hand, or otherwise had any effect whatsoever on gameplay, but the fact that they never do means all of these interactions are completely forgettable, trite filler I couldn't for the life of me care about. It's hard to feel any connection to the secondary characters when their only purpose is to serve as the answers to eventual trivia questions. Square Enix has added voice acting here, something missing from the original GameCube version, but listening to someone read dull dialogue doesn’t do much to improve it. Despite this ostensibly being a remaster, the character animations exude the purest of GameCube energy: mouths flap open and closed in a canned loop, body gestures are extremely limited, and the character models themselves don’t show a lot of signs of being updated from their 2004 versions. If this were to be rated solely on the single player experience, the score would be much lower, but fortunately multiplayer, flaws and all, is fun.'įor one thing, the story plays out through boring interstitial cutscenes you randomly encounter at crossroads on the world map. It has high production values, connectivity, and the Final Fantasy name attached to it, but other than that nothing stands out. While there's several nitpicky things, like being killed by the camera, the big problem is that this isn't any different than any of the other hack n' slash titles on the market.

I never used defend once - it would have been helpful, but it's not practical. I don't know whether it's the lack of cohesive storyline, or that the gameplay elements were so surprisingly simple. I was excited for it, connectivity and all, but something feels a little off. 'Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is a game that I wanted to like a lot more than I did. Just pick up the piece and drop in on the pedestal nearby and the door to Hill Caves will open.From IGN's January 2004 Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles review, by Mary Jane Irwin: When you're ready to begin your quest, exist the town to the east and solve the simple puzzle to open the door. There's a save crystal nearby if you feel the need to record the progress you haven't made yet. You'll begin your journey in your home village.

Crystal chronicles ds