Ring of Fates makes Square-Enix look lazy. Or not.
Anybody who played Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube knows that it’s arguably the best looking game on the platform. While it impressed at every turn (except for its lackluster single-player gameplay), one of the most amazing parts was the area introduction feature, where voice actress Donna Burke (Bloody Roar 4, Silent Hill 2 and 3, Shenmue 1 and 2) expertly delivered poetic descriptions of each stage with a pretty Irish accent.
The music in the game was very good and very catchy, but there was no other voice acting used in the game. Keeping in mind that a Gamecube disc had about 1.8 GB of space and a DS cartridge has yet to top 256MB, the fact that this DS game appears to be fully voice acted first makes me feel like Square-Enix really slacked on the console episode, or else they’re really pulling out all the stops here.
As you can see, the visuals are at least as good as they were in last year’s beautiful Final Fantasy III. Great production values are something I could get used to with games like this and the recently unveiled Dragon Sword. Keep it up, developers, an installed base like this deserves it.
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Hey Stephen,
You seem pretty knowledgable about this as a GC brethren so I’ll ask you. Assuming I don’t have anyone to multiplayer FF:CC with, should I get it?
Is it worth buying it used for the single player experience? I’ve always wondered what the game was like but none of my gamer friends are interested in this so I’ve always passed it up. Now that the Wii has me re-evaluating many of the gamecube games I missed, I’m curious about it again. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Sadly, if you don’t have at least one other person who will be available often to link up their GBA and play, the game is just not enjoyable. It’s amazing to see and hear, but it’s just flat-out boring without the multiplayer co-op. I picked it up at launch and barely got anywhere in it because I had nobody who wanted to play it with me. Hold out to see how the DS version turns out. It’s got great potential.
Good enough. I think I’ll do just that. Thanks for the info.
I’m skeptical those voices may have simply been added in for the purpose of making the trailer more presentable, instead of making the viewer read all that text. I wouldn’t be surprised if they aren’t actually part of the final game at all.
If you watch closely, the voice and the text get quite out of sync at some points.
You actually liked the music in FF:CC?! Eyeach! I loved the gameplay (and you’re right, single player was boring, multiplayer kicked arse), but the music annoyed the living bejeezus out of me. It sounded like Ian Anderson farting through his flute, looped after 15 seconds. After the first few levels me and my friends had to turn the audio off on the game and put on just about anything we could find that wasn’t the game in order to enjoy it.