The Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series has returned with its third multiplayer edition and its second go round on Nintendo DS with Echoes of Time. Unlike the previous game, Rings of Fate, which consisted of both a single and multi player story, this edition allows you to experience the same story either alone or with friends. Depending on how you choose to take on the adventure will ultimately determine how much you will enjoy the end product.

Gameplay

Without going into too much detail and spoiling the plot of Echoes of Time, the beginning of the game plays out as your simple ‘find the items necessary to save someone’ plot. In the process, this turns into a double-cross and it’s up to you to recover fragments of crystals and prevent the game’s antagonist from destroying the world. If you’ve played any Final Fantasy game, the story will be right at home and fits with Crystal Chronicles’ universe.

You play as the Hero, who can be customized to quite a degree. Character creation is pretty wide open thanks to the choice of playing the game as any one of eight possible characters from four different clans. Every character group has their own traits and accessibility to weapons, which make the way in which you play the game feel extremely different depending on whom you choose. All characters have the same abilities when it comes to magic, but it’s the weapons that set each one apart.

You can pick from one of eight possible Heroes.

Echoes of Time, like previous Crystal Chronicles games, plays out in real time as you trek through various dungeons battling foes and solving puzzles. Some puzzles are fairly straight forward, but as you progress, they become increasingly difficult and often require you to defeat enemies before you can proceed. Unfortunately, while the World seems huge, you will only fight your way through a very limited number of them and more than once on most occasions. The game does have some variety with each location, but heading to one spot, completing a quest only to return a few hours later does feel a bit cheap.

On top of the main story, there are a plethora of side-quests to play through. Some quests can be played alone but there is a good portion of them that require a partner to complete. As you progress through the story and interact with NPCs, they will ask favours for you, which in turn, become quests. These can be simple tasks such as dosing fires or killing a specific enemy using a certain kind of magic. These do prolong the story quite a bit and reward you with special items that help with levelling up your character.

When playing through the story, you will be doing a lot more than simply battling monsters thanks in part to the game’s poor camera. The game uses a fixed camera and because of the layout of certain rooms, your view can become obstructed. Seeing what you are doing or who you are attacking quite difficult. This is not just an isolated problem, rather something that occurs relatively often. With so many situations where quick moving and precision is necessary, the camera manages to give you an extra layer of frustration that should otherwise be avoided.

How you decide to go through Echoes of Time’s story can be tackled in one of a number of ways. If you decide to play through the story alone, you can either attempt the story by yourself or recruit up to three AI controlled players. While the option to play with AI is there it actually hurts the single player experience. Regardless of how you build your AI team, they essentially do nothing but cause you problems: they never react to the environments, will not attack until being attacked, die extremely quickly and can often get stuck in spots. You know there is a problem with the AI, when the game assigns the L Button to re-group your characters. There is the ability to modify how your team performs, including telling characters to protect themselves or focus on using magic but this fails to make any sort of noticeable difference. The only positive to having AI partners is that in the event of your own death, you can still continue playing as one of your other characters until your fallen character(s) are revived.

While the AI ruins the single-player experience, if you play the game locally or over a Wi-Fi, your experience will be much more enjoyable. Of the two modes, playing with the DS Wireless Communication is the way to go. The Wi-Fi is still playable but does have its fair share of problems. For starters, playing online suffers from serious lag issues. Since Echoes of Time’s environments consist of so much information, the game cannot process everything fast enough. There will be significant delays between your button presses and the action that occurs on the screen. It is particularly noticeable when four people play together but is fairly manageable with only two.

If only she was giving the gift of Lag-free Online

If you’re looking to experience the game the best way possible, call over your friend to your place and play together in the same room. You’ll both be able to enjoy the game and you won’t encounter any noticeable problems. An interesting addition to Echoes of Time is that the game’s multiplayer works with either those who own the DS or the Wii version of the game. If you own the DS version, you can head over to your friend’s place and play on your unit while they play the game in front of their television screen.

Graphics and Sound

With the variety in the available Hero characters, each one looks good and can be customized to quite degree. There is a bit of repetition when it comes to enemy characters but thankfully the bosses you encounter are each designed quite well and can be a marvel to look at. There are some areas in the game that contain quite a bit of detail, but at the same time, there are some spots where just a bit more could have been used. Also, because of the camera issues there are some visible glitches that can pop-up. These include AI characters getting stuck in areas, collision problems and even your Hero falling through the ground. These don’t happen too frequently, but enough that you will notice them.

As always, SquareEnix is on the ball with some really good use of music throughout the game. The sound effects from the enemies and your attacks work well in every situation including some cute ‘taunts’ from your Hero. The game also features voice-overs during cut-scenes which for the most part work well. The game’s main antagonist is a bit quirky since he sounds like a Hans Gruber, the villain from Die Hard. It’s not bad, but makes it too obvious that he’s not to be trusted.

Value

The main story for Echoes of Time can last anywhere from 12-20 hours depending on how many of the side-quests you decide to take on. Even after completing the main story, you can still take your character and play with friends who might not have finished. Thanks to the various character classes to choose from, you can even start the game over and experience the adventure with a different character letting you experience the game another way.

Call over a friend and take on those monsters together.

Conclusion

A weak Camera, horrible AI and online issues prevent this from being an incredible experience. In order to truly enjoy Echoes of Time you need to play this over the DS Wireless Communication with at least one other person. For those who are not big on playing with strangers or who do not have a friend with a copy will probably find more enjoyment playing something else. Here’s hoping that if SquareEnix decides to return for another game in the series that they focus more attention on giving action-RPG fans both a solid solo and multiplayer adventure.