FF Crystal Bearers: Wherein NonCon can't see a goddamn motherfucking thing

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Loyal

And now it's the stupidest thing you've ever seen as well.

Good fucking lord. When I said XBV I was hoping it was an exaggeration, cause like, oh haha, looks kind of like it on first glance, and they're wearing basically bikinis, come to find out oh christ that's exactly what it is.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by phil_

Speaking of the camera, by about the time I first rode the shuttle I was using the d-pad to steer and the analog stick was for moving forward. This mostly solved my camera problems, though the fights in the Areal Prison still end up being "Shit! Shit! Where are the robots oh god!" moments.

I suppose that could work, though the camera would still be shit, but trying to constantly use the d-pad while having your trigger finger on B feels really awkward because the d-pad is positioned just a tad bit too far forward on the Wiimote for that.

EDIT: On the plus side, I've been needing a game to review that I can get really pissed about so this is sort of a blessing in disguise.

[Mirai Gen]

I'm feeling the same way about Demon'sssssssSoulsssss.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by Mirai Gen

Holy fuck this got 30/40 from Famitsu. Why. Maybe the voice actors are less painful in Japanese but goddamn.

If you think Famitsu could give a Squeenix game a bad score you are fucking kidding yourself.

[phil_]

Originally Posted by Locke cole

I had a lot of fun with combat once I progresed from "throw crap at things" to "grab enemies and use their abilities against each other".

Tonberries, man, Tonberries. OHKO on just about anything I've used them against, but you just get one stab. Makes Goblin Samurai into a joke instead of a protracted battle of "ARGHJUSTDIEALREADYTIME'SRUNNINGOUTYOUNON-THREAT!"

I should go see if I can grab a Tonberry Queen; maybe I'll get to use her chainsaw... "This is cool" indeed...

[mauve]

The combat was amusing most of the time, although the time limits were a real pain in the ass when trying to figure out a certain monster's weakness, or alternately. trying to explore or play minigames between monster sessions. I got bored of trying to kill the giant clockwork monsters in the harvest fields pretty quickly. I don't think I ever figured out the "right" way to dispose of them because it really didn't seem worth the effort.

I did get a kick out of harassing innocent bystanders, especially the folks in the Lilty capital. You know- The city I'm not supposed to be able to enter because it's full of Lilty guards who have been told to arrest me on sight, yet never seem to realize that the weird blonde Clavat using magical powers to throw people around might possibly be the same blond Clavat with magical powers who's on every wanted poster in the city. But I digress.

I found the action time events and certain miniquests to be extremely annoying. The game did a very poor job of explaining what exactly it wanted. An illlustration of a bobbing wii remote would lead me to believe that I was supposed to move the remote up and down, yet I would consistantly fail until a point where I got mad and shook it side-to-side just to spite it. A vague command of "Shake the wii remote to gain power!" got me killed repeatedly no matter which way I shook the remote, until it randomly decided I did a good job by also hitting A on accident. It took ages for me to figure out how to catch fish, only to discover that there's apparently no reward for doing so.

There were also too many random characters that did stuff for no apparent reason. I mean, I'm sure there's some achievement involving the random kid who seems dead set on repeatedly blowing himself up with dynamite, or the Selkie lady who spends her time chasing down and beating up one particular Lilty gentleman, but I never figured out what to do. Artemecion the moogle confused me as well. I eventually stole a key from him, but that's about it.

Aside from that, I enjoyed the game well enough. I have to admit that the storyline (read: the parts of the story not involving Belle) was interesting enough to keep me involved, and I liked being able to go into first-person mode to look at the animation on the npc's and backgrounds. I wish that had been in ff12.

Not sure if I would have paid full price for it, but it was a decent game.



Also- Worst voice acting I've heard in ages.

[Kim]

One thing that occurs to me is that the game has a lot of ideas I really like. Cool stuff everywhere to interact with, like throwing NPCs down the garbage chute, and the psychic powers are a cool gimmick that would be made infinitely better by not being the main, or only way, to fight. I think you could take a lot of the ideas, take more time to work them out, fix the camera, and give Leyle a sword and shield and you could probably make an AMAZING Legend of Zelda game.

[Loyal]

FWIW, the CC subseries as a whole seems to be Square's way of going out and trying new things. "Cool ideas with missed potential" is what I've come to expect of the series... though I can't really fault them for it.

[Bells]

Nintendo has become Squeenix Backyard for weird experiments. I Honestly don't know why Nintendo hasn't tried to grab a Kingdom Hearts game for the Wii or a Port of any FF Game from X to XII

So far they managed to get a Straight port of a DS game of the CC subseries....

[Locke cole]

Ninty did get Kingdom Hearts: NUMBERS! for the DS, though.