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.