Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (video game)
is an action role-playing video game developed by The Game Designers Studio and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It was released in 2003 in Japan and 2004 in North America, Europe and Australia. A remastered version for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Android, and iOS was released in August 2020. A spin-off of the Final Fantasy series and beginning of the series of the same name, Crystal Chronicles was the first title in the franchise to be released for a Nintendo home console since Final Fantasy VI in 1994.
Players take on the role of adventurers who travel in a caravan gathering mystical fuel for crystals which protect the world's settlements from the destructive Miasma. The single-player campaign has the player escort the vessel carrying the crystal's energy, defending it from enemies and solving puzzles to progress. Multiplayer, which uses Game Boy Advance units connected using the console's link cable, has up to four players protecting the vessel.
Deciding to partner with Nintendo for game development following severe financial problems created by the failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, franchise creator Square formed the Game Designers Studio as a shell company to develop for Nintendo hardware without impacting games for Sony platforms. The development team wanted to create an accessible gameplay experience focusing on multiplayer. The music, written by Kumi Tanioka, made extensive use of medieval and Renaissance musical instruments.
Upon release, the title was positively received by journalists, and was nominated for multiple awards. Reaching high sales positions in Japan and the West, it went on to sell over one million copies worldwide. The remastered version saw generally mixed reviews, with many faulting the change to online-only multiplayer, and by-then dated gameplay mechanics. Subsequent entries in the Crystal Chronicles series have released for Nintendo consoles, beginning with Ring of Fates for the Nintendo DS.
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 which dictate their progress through the game and its story. The adventurers set out from their village, travelling to the trees guarding the vessel which gathers the myrrh, exploring dungeons in which the trees reside, 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 defence and magic statistics and the nomadic Selkies being able to use special abilities with less cooldown time. Each character's attributes are further customised by choosing the profession of their family, which gives the character access to unique facilities and items each time they return to their home town. 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 travellers, 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 which 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 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 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.
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 vapour 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 travellers 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, 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 civilisation—and the caravanners return home.
Development
Crystal Chronicles was the first original Final Fantasy title to be developed for a Nintendo console since the release of Final Fantasy VI in 1994. Final Fantasy developer Square had broken with Nintendo in 1996 to develop Final Fantasy VII and future mainline entries in the series for Sony's PlayStation platforms, resulting in a long-standing enmity between Square and Nintendo. In 2001, following the financial failure of the feature film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Sony purchased a stake in the company amounting to 19% of shares. After considering their still-poor financial situation and wishing to keep their staff from leaving, Square decided to begin developing titles for Nintendo consoles once again. Sony, whose rivalry with Nintendo had softened with the appearance of Microsoft's Xbox on the console market, agreed to the partnership on the condition that it would not impact development of titles for the PlayStation 2. This resulted in the creation of "The Game Designers Studio", a shell company for Square's Product Development Division 2 co-owned by Square and Akitoshi Kawazu, a staff member famous for his work on the SaGa series.Development of the new project began in late 2001. The title was developed with the aid of Q Fund, a fund set up by Nintendo's Hiroshi Yamauchi to help first-time developers for the GameCube and GBA consoles. Kawazu acted as the game's producer. The director was Kazuhiko Aoki, a veteran of the Final Fantasy series who had worked on Final Fantasy IX. The artwork and character designs were created by Toshiyuki Itahana, who had also worked on IX. During the game's development in 2003, Square underwent a merger with Enix to become Square Enix, though the nature of the merger meant operations at the Gamer Designers Studio continued as normal. Square Localization Specialist Aziz Hinoshita stated that the game was originally meant to be an offshoot of Final Fantasy, and once the series was established it would drop the connection to that series and would be called "Crystal Chronicles". It was the only title ever developed by the company for the GameCube.
Similar to his SaGa games, Kawazu wanted to promote player freedom. The basic concept was to build a game around use of the link cable. Kawazu explained that using the GBA would "introduce different elements of gameplay". He later stated that this type of multiplayer meant "the entry was a bit high" for potential players. The battle system was initially going to use the series' recurring Active Time Battle system, but instead chose a purely action-based system to allow more people to enjoy the gameplay. Leveling based on experience points was also removed to create a level field for players. It was initially planned to include a human sidekick character, but upon considering its impact on multiplayer, they changed it to the current Moogle system.
The game's event planner was Masahiro Kataoka, a Square staff member who had previously worked in that capacity on Final Fantasy IX. The central plot details of the Miasma and role of Crystals were established early on, based around the wish to keep players together. Each race's defining traits were influenced by the designers' decisions about their combat options, with story-based additions coming from the planners later in production. The narrations which accompanied new areas were written in the style of journal entries, designed to both fit the theme of a caravan and introduce a new area to the player. While previous Final Fantasy games were driven by their narrative, Crystal Chronicles was driven by its gameplay; the narrative was instead communicated through basic storytelling and environmental narrative. Despite this shift, recurring elements from the Final Fantasy were included. The many encounters players had along the way were important to Kawazu, with the scenario designers "pushing themselves as far as they could" to fill the game world with these encounters and accompanying lore. Most of them were created well after production had begun.
Itahana heard about the project while he was attached to Final Fantasy XII during its early production, and transferred over to work on Crystal Chronicles. The scenario was already decided upon, with Itahana working from their briefs. A recurring theme in his artwork was the phrase "Memento mori". The four races were designed to have distinct silhouettes, so players would not get confused. Itahana originally created a cat-like race for the game, but Kawazu "hated" their design, so he created the plant-themed Lilties as a replacement. His work on the game lacked strong character designs due to the online multiplayer nature of the title. The player character designs were intended to be highly distinctive, allowing players to differentiate each other during play sessions. When creating the graphics, the team created graphical effects they considered possible only on the GameCube, and constantly checked background designs throughout development. Due to the multitude of elements new to Final Fantasy being incorporated into Crystal Chronicles, the development team faced multiple difficulties.