So... remember when I said my favorite Final Fantasy games tend to be the ones that lean more into D&D and classical fantasy? With that statement alone, it probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise that I adore the Crystal Chronicles subseries. I think most Crystal Chronicles games have something to like, from the top-notch action of the DS games, to the very fun Wiimote physics shenanigans of Crystal Bearers, to the slice of life strategy of the My Life games, but it's the original Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles that truly sums up this subseries' appeal, intricate pastoral fantasy world-building crossed with a stellar multiplayer system that makes your own friends the other party members. To put it simply, it's like a D&D campaign in video game form, and it's rad as hell.
Disclaimer: Many of these images may be from the Remastered version because those are the only ones I could really find. This post is specifically about the original Crystal Chronicles because the way the Remastered version handles multiplayer kinda sucks. With that out of the way...
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles's plot is pretty simple. Hundreds of years ago, a crystal shattered causing poisonous miasma to spread across the world, forcing people to either hide in towns or carry crystal fragments around for their own survival. The story begins with a party of adventurers from four different races banding together to sustain the crystal fragments and eventually find a way to free the world from the miasma entirely... and that's where the player comes in.
It's pretty obvious Square tried to keep the actual plot fairly light to compensate for the party customization aspects of the game, which we'll get to in a sec, but I think Crystal Chronicles more than makes up for that with its phenomenal world-building and visual story-telling. Crystal Chronicles's world feels so well-realized in every sense of the world. All of the towns you visit are detailed and rich with history, the NPCs all having their own jobs, roles, and customs. All of the dungeons and areas you visit are visibly in disarray from being left untouched for years due to the miasma, it's kinda Fromsoft. And in between stages, you run into a number of NPCs that comment on the goings on in the world, some even having their own mini-subplots. Heck, there's even an entire gameplay mechanic about keeping in touch with your family. It all adds up to make Crystal Chronicles's world feel so real and tangible, like it has this incredibly rich history you know nothing about, and that time keeps on going even when you're not playing. It makes you want to explore the various dungeons even more.
Gameplay-wise, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is an action RPG/dungeon crawler. Each dungeon has you cart around a crystal fragment that guards you from the miasma, all the while you have to take out all the enemies in your path and fight the boss at the end. It's not the craziest ARPG out there mechanically, but between a three-hit combo that requires some pretty tight timing to nail, a very fun spell fusion system, and having to keep your fragment safe, there's just enough going on to keep it fun for me. The phenomenal dungeon design also helps a ton with the variety, with dungeons having varied layouts from vast open areas to tighter corridors, to the addition of plenty of neat gimmicks like minecart tracks and bouncy mushrooms, to the multiple versions of each dungeon keeping revisits fresh. My favorite dungeon has got to be Moschet Manor where you visit a mansion and have to clear out each room of enemies before fighting the boss in the central garden, really creative and memorable stuff. I hear a lot of people say Crystal Chronicles's dungeons are repetitive and as a fan of dungeon crawlers... really? Like, I don't see it, these are some of the most memorable dungeons in the genre in my opinion!
When playing on your own, Crystal Chronicles is more than playable and honestly still really fun in my opinion. As I said, the fun combat and great dungeon design keeps Crystal Chronicles enjoyable no matter what. The big wrinkle in singleplayer is the fact that the crystal fragment is carried by a moogle named Mog, though every once in a while Mog gets tired and has to drop the fragment. This is a very divisive choice but honestly, I like that it gives singleplayer runs a touch of spontaneity, and having Mog get tired in the middle of a combat encounter really forces you to adapt your strategies until he gets better. Mog aside though, my general point is that I think Crystal Chronicles is already a very fun action RPG no matter how play, and the strong multiplayer that it's primarily known for is supplemented by the rest of its good design.
That being said, it's no contest that multiplayer is the way to play Crystal Chronicles. Even if the process of setting up the multiplayer can be a hassle, it's more than worth it. In multiplayer, each player can choose a character from one of four races each with their own strengths and weaknesses (I like Selkies the most because they're fast and their designs are cool), and form a party that will stick together for the whole game. Mog isn't there this time around, so now someone has to carry around the fragment, requiring a bit of strategizing in terms of where to go and who carries the fragment at what point. What makes multiplayer so fun in Crystal Chronicles is the fact that it simply feels like you're playing a D&D campaign with a bunch of friends, between the various races coming together to defeat a common threat, to the cooperative dungeon treks that require everyone to be in top form, to the sheer commitment of doing a full campaign that may require multiple sessions to fully complete. There have been plenty of multiplayer RPGs since then, usually online, but nothing really quite compares to Crystal Chronicles's unique and more in-person-centric approach to multiplayer role-playing.
However, what really solidifies Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles as one of my favorite games is the presentation. I already praised the world-building and visual-storytelling, but the visuals and art direction in general look absolutely lovely. I love how detailed the environments are, how memorable and diverse the species designs are, how distorted the miasma makes everything look, and overall just how clean and ahead-of-its-time it looks. For a Gamecube game, Crystal Chronicles looks incredibly good with its pleasing and colorful textures and detailed models, and some of the particle effects used in the miasma streams look very cool. And then there's the music, holy crap. I'm not going to lie and say that a good soundtrack can't make me like a video game more and overlook its flaws, but Crystal Chronicles's soundtrack in particular feels like the special sauce, the final puzzle piece, that really elevates this game to greatness. Kumi Tanioka not only understood the assignment, she went above and beyond with a stunningly beautiful folksy medieval-sounding score using actual Reneissance-era musical instruments. The music serves so many purposes, from fitting each individual dungeon, to giving the entire world a cohesive and identifiable sound, to heightening the sense of adventure, it aids both the world-building as well as the gameplay. Seriously, this is one of my favorite video game soundtracks ever and I can't praise it enough. Some of the many highlights include Departure, Magi Is Everything, Sleeping Treasure In The Sand, Twilight In Dreamland, Sound Of The Wind, When The Northern Sky Was Clear, and many, many others.
Look, I totally understand if you're not huge on Crystal Chronicles, it certainly has its flaws, but they're flaws I can overlook because the whole game just comes together far better than it has any right to. It's an already fun action RPG dungeon crawler with some neat mechanical quirks elevated by some really fun dungeon design, some truly top-notch multiplayer, some impeccable world-building and atmosphere, and an imacculate presentation. And it really is those last two elements that really complete Crystal Chronicles. This is a game that managed to craft a world so rich, detailed, and filled with life that I'd almost want to actually live there, a trait many of my favorite dungeon crawlers tend to share. I'd be willing to put up with a lot to spend more time in a world as immersive as Crystal Chronicles's, the fact that I also find it this fun is just icing on the cake.
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