FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES Remastered Edition (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.0.3 Update + All DLCs

FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES Remastered Edition Embark on an epic journey with this game, an enchanting action RPG that follows the Crystal Caravans, a group of young adventurers searching for myrrh – a rare and precious liquid needed to cleanse and maintain a crystal protecting their world from the deadly gas, miasma. This is a series of video games within the Final Fantasy franchise developed by Square Enix. Beginning in 2003 with the game for the GameCube, the series has predominantly been released on Nintendo gaming hardware and covers multiple genres, including action role-playing.

GAMEPLAY

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is an action role-playing game where players take control of a group of adventurers who travel the world searching for rare trees which produce “myrrh”, used to fuel crystals protecting the world’s settlements from the poisonous Miasma. Players are guided through a repeating series of events that dictate their progress through the game and its story. The adventurers set out from their village, traveling to the trees guarding the vessel that gathers the myrrh, exploring dungeons in which the trees reside, and then returning home to renew their village’s protective crystal.

Players choose their avatar character from one of four races; they can be male or female, each with four pre-set body types. Each race has specific strengths, such as the human-like Clavats having high defense and magic statistics and the nomadic Selkies being able to use special abilities with less cooldown time. Each character’s attributes are further customized by choosing the profession of their family, which gives the character access to unique facilities and items each time they return to their hometown.

Players navigate the world map with their Caravan and enter town and dungeon environments discovered during the journey. In towns, the player can freely explore and use the available facilities to create and upgrade both items and equipment using materials and blueprints gathered during their journey. The player can also encounter other caravans and travelers, triggering story events.  Items used to support the player are both bought in shops and received as gifts from the player character’s family.

While exploring dungeons, players are confined to a safe zone created by the vessel, fighting enemies in a style similar to hack-and-slash games with actions assigned to command buttons; actions can be chained together into short combination attacks using equipped weapons to increase damage and charge up magic abilities. Magic can be used to damage enemies or trigger status ailments, with multiple spells able to fuse and create new effects in battle. The elemental affinity of the player’s attacks can be changed using crystals found in dungeons.

Certain elemental affinities are necessary for crossing into new zones otherwise blocked by streams of Miasma. Instead of an experience point system, character attributes and statistics are increased by completing challenges in each dungeon session which award skill points, and Artifacts found in dungeons that can be equipped to a character. In single-player, the player controls one character guarding the Moogle-held vessel from monster attacks while navigating dungeons.  The game’s multiplayer allows up to four players to join in a local gameplay session; multiplayer relies on the GameCube console linking with the Game Boy Advance (GBA) link cable.

All players are displayed on the screen, while their GBAs both control their characters and allow functions such as shopping in towns and performing battle functions. Character attributes are increased in the same way, except that the necessary points are given to the best player during that session. In battle, players can raise attack meters using standard attacks in succession, and combine individual spells to create more powerful versions for higher damage. The link cable can also be used in a single-player, allowing the GBA to be used both as a controller and a second screen displaying radar information.

The type of radar and what it shows is determined by the color the player’s Moogle—one of a recurring Final Fantasy race—is painted during stays in towns and visits to the adventurers’ hometown. The Crystal Chronicles series takes place in an unnamed world inhabited by four tribes. Recurring themes include creating objects from memory and the importance of family. The gameplay, which has always been aimed at as wide an audience as possible within a genre, generally involves either multiple players or a large group working together.

Since its inception, the series has been supervised by Akitoshi Kawazu, known for his work on both the Final Fantasy and SaGa series. Recurring staff includes composer Kumi Tanioka, who created the series’s distinctive medieval-influenced music; Toshiyuki Itahana. Who worked on the art design and directed The Crystal Bearers; and Yasuhisa Izumisawa, lead artist for Echoes of Time and the two titles released through the WiiWare service. Reception of the series as a whole has been positive, with many noting its experimental nature and the first game’s unconventional multiplayer mechanics.

PLOT

Crystal Chronicles takes place in an unnamed fantasy world inhabited by four races. The player takes control of a caravan hailing from the village of Tipa, in which members of the world’s four races come together to help its mission. 1000 years before the game’s events, the world’s sustaining Great Crystal was shattered by a meteorite carrying an alien lifeform called the Meteor Parasite.

The Parasite generated a poisonous vapor called the Miasma, which kills anyone it touches. Fragments of the Great Crystal ward off the Miasma from surviving settlements, but require renewal using myrrh, an energy harvested from magical trees using magical vessels protected by dedicated caravans. The Tipa caravanners go on missions across the world to gather myrrh, learning the world’s history from travelers and characters found in other settlements.

The caravanners eventually reach the home of the Carbuncles, an ancient race who guided the world’s races to the Great Crystal fragments before going into hiding. After hearing of their adventures, the Carbuncles direct the caravanners to the source of the Miasma, asking them to destroy the Meteor Parasite. The caravanners fight the Meteor Parasite, but before they can kill it are transported to an unknown realm.

There they meet Mio and her evil counterpart Raem, metaphysical beings born following the Great Crystal’s destruction. Raem attacks the caravanners, merging with Mio to increase his power, before being finally destroyed. Mio and Raem separate and fade away, and then the caravanners are sent back to Mount Vellenge to destroy the wounded Meteor Parasite. The world is freed from the Miasma—allowing the four tribes to begin rebuilding civilization—and the caravanners return home.