Hey all, and welcome to another installment of Geek Reviews. I apologize that this entry is so short and lackluster, but hey, better than nothing, right?
When you hear the words “Final Fantasy” what images come to your mind? Are you bombarded with thoughts of 8-bit sprites, Dragons, knights, and magery? Maybe your head fills with insane hairstyles, physically impossible weapons, cyberpunk dystopias, and the chants of Latin choirs. Perhaps you think of turn-based mechanics, collection quests, and words like “Ultima,” “Materia,” and “Magicite.”
Whatever your thoughts, if you’re a gamer, you have heard of Final Fantasy. With thirteen games spanning over two decades, the FF series is hands down the best known set of Role Playing Games ever to put paint to pixel. We all have some impression of the series.
Now please forget that impression, as the main, turn-based series is going to be left far behind as we discuss today’s title, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time.
First, a bit of background. The Crystal Chronicles sub-series of Final Fantasy began in 2003 with the Japanese release of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles on the Nintendo GameCube. Though praised for its graphics, musical score, control, and story-telling, many fans were disappointed with the game. A basic hack-n-slash dungeon-crawler, FF:CC alienated those who were craving a new, turn-based title on a Nintendo consol after the series left for the Playstation for FFVII.
Sadly, the game didn’t sell particularly well as a result, which is a shame, because it was really a solid title. Fortunately, it was successful enough to spawn a prequel on the Nintendo DS, Ring of Fates, in 2007. This, in turn, led to the creation of Echoes of Time, released in 2009.
If you’ve played the original FF:CC, Echoes of Time will feel familiar to you. Controls are basic – D-pad to move, A to attack, B to jump, X to grab, Y to cast magic – and the four “tribes” that serve as the character classes for this world remain largely unchanged:
You have Calvats, the standard “beginner’s choice” human-surrogate,
Selkies, who can double-jump and run slightly faster,
Yukes, who are better at magic,
And Lilties, who kill things with pointy sticks.
After creating your initial character, you are encouraged to craft up to three additional party members to aid you in your quest. Frankly, I found this one of the weaker portions of the game – the AI is dense as a brick – and only ever created one (a Yuke, to essentially serve as a giant “heal me now” button).
But now that you know the basic scheme of things, let’s break things down, shall we? How does Echoes of Time hold up in the traditional gaming departments?
Graphics & Gameplay, and Technical
Let’s face it folks: the DS can’t do all that much. Though fantastic by 2004 standards, this little chunk of hardware is starting to look a tad dated, even in the handheld market. Echoes of Time is a very strong example of the mixed bag of graphics that such a system – old enough to be pushed to the limits, but teetering on obsolescence – can do.
The game contrasts rather sharply between in-game graphics – which are quite passable– and startlingly beautiful pre-rendered cutscenes. In-game, characters are fairly discernable, easy to work with, and, though perhaps a tad pixilated, not as bad as online screenshots might lead one to believe. Text balloons fill the characterization gap nicely, with portrait shots allowing us to get far more emotional depth out of otherwise expressionless characters.
Meanwhile, the cutscenes are fully animated (though lacking moving lips for whatever reason) and voice-acted by a surprisingly good cast. Though sometimes distracting, they serve their purpose well enough without making us rue the graphical inferiority of the game itself.
Sadly, the controls don’t always quite work. As is wont to happen in these 64-bit (ish) environments, I more than once fell through the geometry. Also, the full-3D environments are sometimes tricky to navigate with a D-pad, leaving you spastically twitching your character back and forth alone diagonal walkways.
Despite these flaws, the game is actually pretty well-crafted. The level design is nice, the music (though a bit repetitive) is atmospheric, and the control scheme very easy to get used to. Magic is simpler than ever, the touch-screen elements blend seamlessly, and the game, over-all, has a passable learning curve.
Story & Setting
The story in Echoes of Time is a far more present happening than it was back in the original FF:CC. In fact, the only word to describe this game is “linear.” With the occasional exception of hunting down a rare item, you will pretty much cruise from level to level with no real stops in-between. Exploration is nonexistent, side-quests could more accurately be called “mini-games,” and even your equipment will pretty much be replaced after each dungeon.
That being said, this straight-as-an-arrow plot you are on is actually quite doable. Essentially, you play the standardized “chosen one” who must defeat an evil immortal bent on re-writing the past. There’s some poorly-concealed “crystals = oil” metaphors going on, but they don’t hurt too much. Characters such as Larkeicus (the aforementioned immortal) and Sherlotta (your surrogate mother/elder-sister) do their job well and get you at least marginally vested in the plot. Which is good, because despite leading you by the hand from level to level, this game is actually pretty low on actual plot-related events. What’s there is good, but the cutscenes are very limited in number, and seem rather detached from the actual dungeon-crawling you had to do to get there. In short, the plot and gameplay, both strong enough on their own, are separated by a 7-inch thick glass wall.
Conclusions
Echoes of Time is a fine game – not stellar, but good. Irritating graphical issues are made up for with streamlined controls, the lack of open exploration is made for with the ease of powering up, and the dungeons, though dangerously close to being repetitive, are short enough not to be bothersome. All in all, you’re only looking at about 15 – 25 hours of gameplay, depending on how many quests you do, what equipment you get, and how hard you play for completion. This works in the game’s favor – by the time I was done with Echoes of Time, I was just starting to get frustrated with the lack of variety.
In short, if you want pick-up-and-play, action fantasy game with little time or monetary commitment, Echoes of Time might be the game for you. I lucked out and got my copy for ten bucks, and was not at all disappointed. Give it a try – it might not be as good as the GameCube title, but you could do a hell of a lot worse.
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