Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time

I love cute looking games. I love final fantasy games. I love RPGs. So I figured this game would be amazing for me and my family. Unfortunately that is not the case.<br><br>Square Enix took a DS port and placed it on the wii. You have 2 tiny screens that look just like nintendo ds screens. The screens are so small that your playing screen is less than 1/8th of your tv screen- even when fully enlarged. If you do not have a high def tv- you will have a lot of trouble reading the text.<br><br>On top of the small screen issue- Square Enix has a tan background image. The problem is that background image is not stationary. It is moving the whole time. Gamers are forced to strain to see these small screens and are then getting motion sick from this moving background image. There is no way to make it stationary. Everyone here who tried the game complained of headaches and motion sickness due to the straining and the moving background.<br><br>Some other flaws in the game are the controls. They just don't feel natural. They are fine for a DS game, but they put jump and grab and attack in awkward places. The controls aren't very responsive either. The game camera can not be moved. Many times you are fighting in places that you can't see. Many times you will have to jump to solve a puzzle when you can't fully see where or what you need to do. The puzzles are overly annoying and just not necessary. Plus you will have a hard time playing solo in the later parts of the game. There are too many places where they made it thinking of co-op and not solo player. This is quite true with some of the puzzles and switches.<br><br>The online part is a nice addition- but the game is quite laggy. Hopefully nintendo will fix the server issues.<br><br>I really wanted to like the game. We stuck it out to nearly 3/4th of the game. But the headaches and the motion sickness took its toll.<br><br>Only rent if you are a huge fan of FF and have a huge tv. Even then, don't expect much.

I was no big fan of the original Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube, as it became a basic hack-n-slash with a jar to escort and a ludicrous multi-player setup. However, it looks like Diablo 2 compared to it's sequel.<br>Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time is another basic hack-n-slasher with a famous name brand. You character can jump, slash and cast spells. Over time, you can buy new equipment or make some. If you want cohorts, you can have them.<br>The thing that really sinks this game is the screen. For some reason, the developers decides to show the play area in a box, next to another box for your stats. Around all of this is empty space on your TV screen. Basically, they took the DS game, put the screens side-by-side and released it on the Wii. Apparently they couldn't be bothered to calibrate it for a system, so I could see what I'm playing.<br>Not that there's much to look at. The graphics and sound feel like they were ripped from the DS as well. Most of the dialogue is done in text blocks, which you can barely read anyway.<br>Even though half the screen is used up by your stats, finding important information (like which armor and weapons work best) seem to be nowhere in sight. Just figuring out what's going on or what you're supposed to do next is a chore.<br>So what works? You can jump, slash and cast spells effectively. Then again, almost every game gets that part right.<br>Since this was on the same level as Baroque and I played this less, I have to give it the same score. And as a personal note to Square Enix: please stop making Crystal Chronicle games!

I've played FF games mostly on my DS; this was the first time trying one on my recently purchased Wii. <br /> <br />Pros <br />Beautiful graphics and music (as always); interesting story <br /> <br />Cons <br />Two screen format. There are always two screens up, one with your location, and the other with stats and such. You can change the size of the selected screen some, but there are always two screens side by side. I studied the manual to see if this could be changed, but that's how the game is set up. i have an average-sized tv (not hd or anything special), and the two screens are just too small distracting and annoying to enjoy the game fully. This is my first RPG game to play on the Wii; i hope this isn't the norm! two screens on the ds is different than two screens jammed beside each other on one tv display. <br /> <br />oh well, this is why i like gamefly so much; i didn't have to blow 40 bucks to find this out, lol.

I'm a huge fan of the Final Fantasy Chronicles and was a little upset when I played this game. The graphics were quite rigid and I felt trapped in each area like I couldn't move on. The dialogue and plot were sensible to the game but I just couldn't get into it. I ended up stop playing about 3 hours into it and mailed it back. If you can endure this game I truly give you kudos because I wasn't woMAN enough to do it. ;)

The concept of the game was good, but the small screens and hard to read text made playing the game a nightmare. Hard to figure out the controls unless you have the manual. Didn't play this only a few minutes because I became frustrated with not being able to read the text and the small screen sizes, even at the largest setting.

The game has the title &quot;Final Fantasy&quot; yet it's nothing like the final fantasy games. Also the Wii version doesn't appear to have been formated for the system and left as if you were going to play on a DS.

Sure the graphics are low key, but hey you can't expect that of Nintendo any more when you compare to the other systems. The game had great controls, and was simple enough that I let my 5 year old farm items for me. I digress the bad thing about this game is you never know when you can save it. In almost all FF games you could save at any crystal or other type of save point, but this time it is random. After playing for 6 hours you would think you could go and save your game, or stop what you are doing and turn it off for a break from the game, but you can't.

The graphics were very disappointing. I had to sit very close to my TV to even be able to read the dialoge. The game was good but the problem with the graphic discouraged me from playing the game.