"Tales of Chocobos.. and Cards"

Kweh! It has been a while since the last chocobo-centred title, but the adorable, fantastical birds make a splendid return in Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales. As the title suggests this story is all about the chocobos, with a pair of mages, some other FF creatures and of course Cid providing the assisting roles. Chocobo Tales is equal parts mini-game compilation and card-based battles. It is not an epic production despite its epic heritage, but don't discount this tale based on it's childish look and nature, for it is anything but, especially if you are looking to obtain a card collection worthy of praise.

Visuals - 9
Sound & Music - 9
Gameplay:
* Mini/Micro-games - 7
* Pop-up Duels - 8
Controls - A
Longevity - A (~5 hours for main game completion; ~20 hours for 100%)
Replayability - B (Pop-up duels via WiFi/wireless; minigames you'll avoid)
Difficulty - Medium to Very Hard

Crayola Picture Book Artstyle - 10
VERDICT - 8.5

Save the Birds
The land is in semi-chaos when an evil tome by the name of Bebuzzu traps your fellow choco-mates within the forms of collectible cards. You play as a self-named yellow chocobo who somehow manages to survive the dastardly spell and promptly set about on your quest to put the bad book down. The plot is pretty bare-boned, but there is no denying how well everything comes together with an excellent cast of likeable characters, even if the world isn't coming to an end any time soon.

Chocobo will have to journey through 4 main areas outside of the central farm, including an enchanted forest, the volcanic mountains, under the sea and atop a soaring tower. Each environment is filled with plenty of detail and textured as best as the DS is able to handle, which is surprisingly better than I thought was possible. And everything runs at a smooth and quick framerate to boot. Final Fantasy III-D showed us what Squeenix was capable of with 3D on the DS hardware, but it was still limited by the old, rigid framework of the original game. Chocobo Tales is an all new production and it shows; it is a more dynamic show with plenty of swooping camera angles, honed touch controls and superb animation.

In order to save your species, you have to drag your cute chocobo butt into various story books scattered around the place. Each consists of a mini-game based on classic fairy tale stories, with some humourous takes like "The Boy Who Cried Leviathan" which obviously revolves around water and a leviathan. There is a brief re-telling if the tale, Final Fantasy-style, before each game. They aren't all that interesting, but they do add some light reading for those who still like this sort of stuff, and you are free to skip them if you wish too.

Mini- and Micro-machines
There are 16 mini-games in all, and 23 micro-games to add to that; the latter tend to be shorter in length, they aren't about manoeuvring your chocobo or what have you around, and most of them have a learning curve that will bust most gamers balls. All the games require stylus use and the controls are handled very well for nearly every single one. Getting through them to move the story forward is easy enough, but if you are wanting to obtain more powerful cards that can be used in the featured card-based duels, you will need to complete the generally tough mini-games at harder difficulty levels and the even tougher micro-games with gold medal rankings. Suffice to say, most gamers won't be able to achieve such heights, and what this means is that they will be handicapped when it comes to multi-player card battles where luck and better cards are important in winning.

I'm getting ahead of myself though, what of the mini/micro-games? The mini-games usually have you controlling chocobo, or some other Final Fantasy critter, as you would in the overworld, only this time you will have specific actions for each game. Some will have you creating leaves to bounce chocobo up to the top of the beanstalk whilst avoiding bombs, others require you to scribble as you struggle to have chocobo swim away from a hungry leviathan, or even take part in a rhythm-action game where you can tackle other chocobos to make sure you get it right and they don't. The computer AI is either stupid or cheap which means that a lot of these games aren't that much fun past their initial novelty period. You can play them with others wirelessly which makes it more enjoyable, but with a lack of record-keeping it still won't hold you for long.

The micro-games on the other hand are more like quick, reflex challenges, a lot like what was seen in Bomberman Land Touched! General consensus is that they are much more difficult to complete than the compulsory mini-games, but as I have indirectly stated, they are not a requirement to finish the main game. However, card-battles will have you kicking up a rage if you don't obtain a collection strong enough to take on the uber decks that the later bosses possess. So in a way you will need to complete a few of these hardcore micro-games after all!

Tough to Touch
I personally enjoyed getting gold for the majority of the micro-games, but then I enjoy a properly difficult challenge. If your stylus skills aren't up to it, many of them will be impossible to complete, and that means you won't get some especially important cards. Just like the mini-games, they are fun for a while, but after blowing darts to pop some bubbles or tapping bulls-eyes for the umpteenth time, you will soon grow tired of it. But to obtain gold you will need to repeat far too many of them far too many times, seeing as familiarity and luck factor in heavily with most of them. Yes you will have an advantage if you have a skillful stylus-hand, but I guarantee that you will have to replay at least half of the games seen here at least 25 times at a time in order to be successful. It is addictive and very satisfying when you get it though, but that depends on how long it takes you, how patient you are, and if you actually do end up getting it in the end, especially with the huge luck factor involved with some of them like "Tap Tap Trap" which has you blindly tapping a stone slab for a single microscopic weak spot, 18 times within 60 seconds if you want gold!

If you are looking for a challenge, Chocobo Tales is one to look at. Its micro-games will go down in history as some of the most pain-staking ones ever. The infamous "Job Juggler" and "Tome Raider" will no doubt be remembered in many minds. But if you are just looking for a light-hearted adventure with an easy-going difficulty, you may hate what was done here. It has a kiddy vibe, and it looks like it is geared towards younger audiences, but it definitely isn't easy by any book.

Pop-in, Pop-up, Pop-out
The second part that makes up Chocobo Tales is the cards. In the main quest you will have to fight 8 bosses in a card-based pop-up duel. Why are they called pop-up? Well the fights are all about using cards to summon colourful pop-ups of various Final Fantasy beasts from cactuars and iron giants, to the legendary figures of Odin and Ifrit. These battles have to be seen to be believed; they look absolutely fantastic! If you love the Final Fantasy universe, you will cry (happily) upon seeing your favourite beasts pop-up to life in inspiring crayon art.

Ok now you know it looks amazing, but what of the strategy? Here it doesn't go all that well. The principle is sound, with attack and defense in 4 elemental areas governing how hard you hit and are hit. There is a bit of rock-paper-scissors in effect, but this is not always the case. What this means is that water will not always be crippled by fire, but then there is quite a big random element that creeps up; you may know your opponent has an earth element card, but it doesn't really tell you much in itself. What makes it worse is that you only have 3 cards in your hand at any one time. The system plays similar to the Pokemon Trading Card Game rules, and you can imagine how having only 3 in your hand at any one time severely handicaps yourself.

No Random Battles.. but Preset Battles
Playing these battle in the main game is a joke. There isn't any AI to speak of and all the battles have set configurations. For example, every time you re-fight Iron Giant he will open up with Cait Sith's megaphone, followed by Goblin Slap+ etc. etc. Since the card battles are the star of the show (once you are done with the mini/micro-games, you probably won't want to touch them again for a long time!), if you aren't going to multi-play through wireless or WiFi network, there isn't all that much to do here.

WiFi Woes
Now when you actually face-off against a human opponent, things are fair, unpredictable and more intense and exciting as a result. It is a serious battle of wits and outplaying your enemy, somewhat akin to the psychological battle between Light and L in the manga/anime Death Note if you are familiar with that masterpiece. On WiFi, battles occur just like they do in single-player mode without much lag, but if you are facing an opponent at a long distance away, the server doesn't seem to be solid enough to hold you two together for long before the inevitable disconnect occurs.

Nintendo's WiFi network have always been plagued by problems with sore losers. The ranking system here works like Tetris DS with everyone starting off with a score of 5000 and gaining/losing points based on wins/losses, more points exchanged the more your score or your opponent's deviates from the baseline. This would have been perfect if it wasn't for the fact that a disconnect results in no penalty whatsoever. Since unlike Tetris DS where games often end abruptly, Chocobo Tales gives you enough time in advance for DC'ers to do their thing as soon as they see they have lost, without it affecting their score or yours. Coupled with how easy it is to simply change your username so that others can't blacklist you effectively, online is essentially broken. The best bet is to stick with friend codes, but this limits you to only 20 people to track at a time, which isn't a lot given that not everyone will be on at the same time.

A Golden Chocobo?
With Chocobo Tales you are getting another dose of Final Fantasy, a slew of mini-games which are both fun and aggravating at the same time, as well as an exciting, but flawed card game. The presentation as expected is top of the line, and this is easily one of the best looking DS games to come along. I haven't yet talked about the audio, but rest assured it is awesome! While most of the tunes aren't completely original, the remixes bring a choco-block of new flavours to make what once sounded great even greater. Favourites spanning from FFI to FF7, from classics like "Mt. Gulg" and "Battle at the Big Bridge" :D - the arrangements make the best use of DS audio as possible. New tracks like "Battle de Chocobo" and "Move de Chocobo" sound just as good, and the OST is definitely one that I will be looking out for.

I had a great time with Chocobo Tales, but this is strongly due to my love for the world of Final Fantasy (even though I don't think that much of the games themselves..) The mini-games aren't enough to warrant a casual gamer's attention, mostly due to the randomness and difficulty surrounding the majority of them. Card-battles will be the main draw for most, but this depends on accessibility to the multiplayer modes. I can see Squeenix going somewhere good if they flesh out the card game a bit more, adding in more cards to the standard 122 and a few special extras available here, increasing the hand-holding capacity, making the elemental-triangle more specific, and yes, perhaps SHORTENING the start-up animations. In all honesty, it was a bit of a mess thrown together here, held together only by some super-big-budget-glue.

8.5/10 - A bit of this and a bit of that.. but I want MORE of THAT!

My Score System – a score of 7 from me denotes a good, solid game. Excellence earns a higher grade, whilst 4-6 reflects a below average product; glitchy, unplayable games deserve less.

13/04/07 - modified on 17/04/07

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/17/07