![]() ![]() Fortunately, Echoes Of Time makes up for it with some enjoyable gameplay that, despite not being a complete write-off in single player, is best sampled with friends. However, it doesn't take long for Echoes Of Time to ditch the flowing narrative in favour of elongated retrieval quests and nonsensical story updates.Ĭrystal Chronicles veterans will be used to the lack of a decent story, but anyone who has only played a Final Fantasy title with a number attached to it will be disappointed. For a couple of hours the story shows great promise, with a few twists and turns (although granted the villain was easy to spot) interspersed with some fun dungeon crawling. ![]() Of course, it wouldn't be a video game if something didn't go wrong, and the sudden bout of sickness suffered by one of the village youngsters leads to a quest into the outside world a world that has forgotten about your people, save for a few scary tales to keep the kids out of the woods. After facing numerous enemies, solving a few puzzles and battling the game's first boss, the customised protagonist returns to the village for a well-earned birthday party. The game begins with your creation entering the forest on their 16th birthday in a rather warped and violent rite of passage ceremony. Before all of the combat and puzzle solving begins, players are asked to create a character from one of four races available, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. It retains the Final Fantasy tradition of equipping items, levelling up and exploring villages and dungeons, but swaps turn-based battles with straightforward melee combat and a simplified magic system. In order to become a more palatable multiplayer game, Echoes Of Time is an action RPG. While the first Crystal Chronicles title on the Gamecube offered link-up play with the GBA, Echoes Of Time takes it a step further, and with the aid of the brand new Pollux engine, Wii and DS owners can team up regardless of which version they own. However cynically you choose to view Square's blatant Final Fantasy flogging, it can't be denied that the Crystal Chronicles series has attempted to try something that other Final Fantasies haven't namely, to allow multiple FF fans the chance to enjoy their experiences simultaneously, without the need for subscription fees, high speed internet connections and hours of level grinding. On paper it shares very little in common with the main series, but chuck in a moogle or two and suddenly you've got a Final Fantasy title and an extra few thousand sales to boot. Attaching the Final Fantasy name to something has become a license to print money for the Japanese gaming giant, and the Crystal Chronicles series typifies Square's current approach to the franchise. Not content with the popularity of the main series, Square Enix has expanded its Final Fantasy repertoire to include a whole manner of spinoffs, merchandise, films and books, with the guarantee that the goods will fly off the shelves. It’s a shame that the bits that make it a game are absolutely rubbish.Also available on: Wii Developers: Square Enix Publisher: Square Enix Genre:: Action/RPG Release date: March 27, 2009 The presentation is the best part of the game. The music is catchy and the sound effects and voices are all pretty good. Yes, it really comes to something when an apparently current-generation home console is sharing graphics with the DS, but there you go. Bear in mind that the game looks the same on the Wii as the DS. It looks as good as polygons will get on the handheld system, and the designs are are cute and affable as always. It’s all there for the taking in Echoes of Time, and frankly, it’s not worth your time, or my time, to see through to its grisly conclusion.Īs far as the graphics go, this is one of the better representations of 3D graphics you’ll get on the DS. Messy and chaotic combat, characters not picking up the right objects because is clustered and cluttered, platforming disasters that we’ve not seen since the N64 era. However, the game’s unquestionable commitment to being terrible fights you every step of the way, and each time I started to get into the game, another problem, usually one that Square Enix should have fixed from prior games, rears its ugly head. I stuck with Echoes of Time as long as I was able to because, like I said, there is fun to be had somewhere.
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