Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon

"Oh, Chocobo. You're a treasure."

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon for the Wii.
A new RPG has been released for the Wii this summer -- by Square Enix, no less -- but it goes largely unnoticed by the general populace. It's too bad. Chocobo's Dungeon is a delightful little adventure assuming you are fine with cuteness and rogue-like game engines

Okay. Tell me the story.

Chocobo is a care-free bird who appears child-like but seems to have a bit of wisdom in him. Chocobo travels around with his partner Cid who is a gentle natured Treasure Hunter and the two of them are always going off on adventures. Cid, like the various Cids of the Final Fantasies past, dreams of eventually making an airship. He has the blueprints his father left behind but he needs a certain gem, "Timeless Power," to power it. Chocobo and Cid start the game out by exploring some ruins that this gem might be in when they get transported to another place.

They find themselves in a place called "LostTime," which was supposed to have disappeared 50 years ago, according to Cid. That should be your first clue that something is seriously wrong. The second clue is that the town is dominated by a looming clock tower that has a magical bell in it. Every time this bell rings, a dark shadow appears over their head and they lose memories. It doesn't happen at random...There seems to be some force behind this bell. Some of the villagers have embraced this life by adopting the philosophy that if something is forgotten than it isn't worth remembering.

Luckily there are some people left that realize something weird is going on. This Bell is not able to affect Chocobo -- although it can affect Cid. Luckily Chocobo gains the ability to go inside people's memories and by clearing a dungeon restore a set of lost memories. (If you're reminded of the dream-walking in the game Alundra, then congratulations, you're a video game dinosaur.) It's Chocobo's mission to figure exactly what happened to this town and to do something to save it.

It's a cutesy story, but the basic premise could be a Twilight Zone episode quit easily, I think.

So what is this game, exactly?
This is a sequel of sorts to Chocobo's Dungeon 1 and 2 for the original Playstation; only the second one made its way to America. It's made by a different developer than CD1/2 and completely disregards the plot of the previous game in favor of going for its own little world. The Developer, H.A.N.D., also developed the Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales game and it shares some re-occurring characters from that game: Chocobo, Volg, Irma, Shirma.

This game is a rogue-like game, which may be a new gaming vocabulary word for you. A rogue like game is a game in which you traverse through randomly generated dungeons that are so many floors deep. You're not given a map, but you create one as you explore. There are items and equipment and monsters in the dungeon, of course. There's also usually a town for you to go to for you to visit shops or storage places. Some of the most recent examples of this kind game are the Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon series -- which were actually created by the same developer, Chunsoft, as Chocobo's Dungeon 2 -- and Person 3's dungeon game play. Other similar games are as follows: Azure Dreams, Dark Cloud 1 and 2, Dragon Warrior Monsters 1 and 2; Evolution 1,2, and Worlds; Grandia Extreme; Izuna: Legend of the unemployed Ninja; Shiren the Wander,

The battle system in this game is turn based, but not in the usual way. The dungeons are on a square grid and every action you do – such as attacking, or using an item – takes up a turn. The monsters are constantly moving around the map as you move. Attacking is pretty simple – press a button to kick or press a button combination to use a skill. Because it's so simple it results in some fast and furious battles.

Chocobo of course has these gaming staples. You can explore the town of LostTime and go on optional dungeons into villager's memories, buy items, leave items in storage. There's also a house of mini-games, a few spots for you to play a very simple fishing mini-game, a mini garden for you to grow flowers which have special uses in dungeons. There is also a card Mini game called Pop-up Dueling. You can collect cards and build a deck and then challenge people on Wi-Fi to card battles. While this was a main feature of Chocobo Tales it feels like a quickly tacked on "Look! We have online Multiplayer!" sort of thing and I really can't recommend it.

How does this game differ from ones in its genre?

This game is swamped with Final Fantasy monsters, music, sound effects, dialogue, references, you name it. You'll encounter iconic Final Fantasy monsters such as Master Tonberry, Cactaurs, Marlboros, goblins and will even fight some bosses who may or may not be summon monsters from the FF games. All of these monsters are drawn in a Chibi-manner. If you're not in with Anime lingo, then Chibi means that they're drawn in a simple fashion and are loaded with cuteness. Also, around 80% of the music found in the game is remixes from past Final Fantasies. There's at least one song from each of the numbered Final Fantasy games – although I'm not 100% certain if FFII-J and FFIII-J are in there. But expect the Prelude, that catchy town song from FF1, The Man with a Machine Gun, the song from FFIX's hunting contest, a famous final Fantasy battle song or two. Not only will they stir nostalgia deep in your heart your ears will be happy because gosh-darnit they sound good.

Secondly, the Final Fantasy Job System is applied to the Rogue-like game play. After a little ways into the game Chocobo can change his class into Black Mage, White Mage, Knight, and what not and start with a few simple abilities. You get more classes as you go through the game, of course. Certain monsters will drop blue crystals which give you Job Points, which eventually gives you a job-up. With every job-up you learn more abilities which generally get stronger and more useful as time wears on. This allows you a good deal of customization in your general strategy…The jobs are on the whole pretty balanced, and you can choose ones that fit your personality the best. Personally, I like to switch between Black Mage and…well, one of the secret ones.

Another thing that makes Chocobo unique is that when you go into dungeons that take place in people's memories you hear bits of dialogue between floors. This slowly gives you a bigger picture of who the picture was and information on a cataclysmic event that happened sometime in the town's history. While not mind-blowing this essentially gives the player a reward for every floor they conquer. Non-memory based dungeons don't have these bits of dialogue, but sometimes involve a short CGI scene or an exchange of dialogue between characters.

A final thing that is unique to Chocobo is that there are certain dungeons that have certain rules to them. There are some dungeons where both you and all of the monsters in the dungeon have only 1 HP – whoever attacks first lives and whoever attacks second dies. Some of the dungeons have rules where you cannot bring your equipment and items into their depths which force you to think up new strategies. There's also some dungeons with battle-oriented themes – such as one where it's a straight line to the next stair case but it's filled with a row of monsters, or one where the only enemy is the skittish Cactaur, or one which is a string of boss battles. It's possible that this sort of thing has happened before, but I'd never encountered this kind of thing in a rogue-like before and I loved the challenge and the novelty; they really felt fresh.

Wait! There's Voice acting!?

Yes. This is a sensitive topic for many gamers. While the 21st century offers us all sorts of awesome technology for our video games it also means that the characters can have voices. For the most part the voice actors in this game do okay with their acting. A few boarder on going over the top at a few points, and I thought this one character sounded off in emotions. Sometimes the dialogue will get a little sentimental at times, which goes along with the cuteness theme. You can skip cut scenes, although it's usually not recommended. You can also read the dialogue that appears and then press a button quickly to cut off the voice clip before it gets very far.

Some of the voices themselves might annoy you, however. It's not that based on their quality, but more based on the difficulty of giving voices to the characters. Some of the girls in the game have high and squeaky voices which is a common thing people are annoyed by. Mog the Moogle also has a high-pitched voice that's full of intensity. It fits his character perfectly but isn't always soothing on your ears.

Chances are you know what you like and don't like in regard to voice acting so you can draw your own conclusions on this game.


Speaking of conclusions…

In the end, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon is a wonderful little game that is most likely going to walk down the path of obscurity. The graphics are about what you expect for a Wii-game, the music is excellent, the art direction rocks, the game play is fun…it's all top quality. I think it's unfortunate that SquareEnix was so un-confidant in their own game that they did zero work on advertising for this game because most people don't even know it exists – or that it's out.

Conclusion : A delightful and fulfilling game.
Score 8 out of 10


The Short version:
You may LOVE this game if:
* You love Final Fantasy mythology
* You love rogue-like game play
* You love or can at least stomach cuteness

You may HATE this game if:
* You hate Rogue-likes. If you don't like this game play style than you will not enjoy Chocobo's Dungeon much at all.
* You cannot stomach cuteness and find it ‘kiddy'.
* You are very particular about voice acting.

You might want to just RENT this if:
* You are not sure how you feel about Rogue-like gameplay.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/28/08

Game Release: Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon (US, 07/08/08)