"Have no fear, Chocobo is here to save the world!"

FINAL FANTASY FABLES: CHOCOBO'S TALE
So the slime of Dragon Quest has gotten his attention in Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime for the DS, but how is our little Chocobo of Final Fantasy doing? As a matter of fact, he's doing great! And you can get to play as him, saving the world from monstrous picture books in this DS game, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales.

The story starts off with a white mage, named Shirma, reading a story out of a picture book. When a black mage, Croma, comes along and tries to make everyone read his book, that he had just bought from a merchant. Little does he know that this book has an eye on it. And they make, you chocobo, to open it. They make you play a small and somewhat pathetic minigame to get it open. After you've opened it up, the dark lord Bebezzu pops out, and sucks a bunch of chocobos up and eats them. Leaving you with the task of course, of saving your little village.

MINIGAMES
In order to save chocobos, you must dive into picture books and this is when the game gets fun. Every picture book has an epilogue, which is usually a little kid's story. Like something similar to Little Red Riding hood, or the boy who cried wolf. Except with final fantasy monsters and animals. That's what's used to setup the minigame that you play. In most picture books there is battle mode and trial mode. In battle mode, you must face the computers, and work your way through lv 1-5 of difficulty. And in trial mode you play by yourself, but will have to reach a certain objective. The game will tell you what you have to do in order to receive rewards. Such as, beat battle mode 3, or something like earn 15 points in trial mode. You only have to accomplish 3 of these or so in order to move on, the rest is for other rewards. Many times, the challenges are extremely difficult when you have to play the minigames on hard mode. But, they are possible, and keep in mind that you don't have to do them.

MICROGAMES
Another feature to the game, that is optional are microgames. To play these microgames you to touch some unusual object or talk to your other chocobo friends. The microgames are simple to understand, and many times harder to accomplish than the hard modes in the minigames. It tells you a silver score and gold score. The rewards for getting these scores is always a card.

POP UP DUELS
So what are cards used for? They're used for Pop-up Duels. Pop up Duels is like the replacement for a regular turn based RPG battle systems. In these duels you make your deck with cards that you find throughout the game, and use them for fighting. (Cards such as, Bahamut, Lamia, Tonberry, etc.) Each card has four different colored circles. there is a yellow circle, green, red, and blue. On these circles is placed a symbol, either a sword, for attack, or a shield for defense. However, not every circles will have a symbol on it. And on the card, it will tell you what the symbol does when activated. Such as for and Attack symbol, it will probably say, deals 3 damage or something. Or, it might say deals 3 damage and silences opponent. And a defense symbol might not say anything. If it does not, then all it will do is just prevent your card from being hit. If it does say something, it might say something like, casts protect on yourself. Now, every turn in the battle, you first choose 1 of 3 randomized cards from your deck(opponent will do the same) and whoever chooses their card first, gets the first attack. Now, lets say you get first attack. If you have an attack symbol on your Card, it will attack the enemy's corresponded circle that you have the symbol on in your card. Let's say, you have the attack symbol on yellow. Now, if the enemy has nothing on their yellow circle, then you do the corresponding damage it says on your card. If they have a shield, then you will miss and deal no damage. If they also have a sword, then you will only deal half the normal damage. Sounds confusing you say? It's really very simple once you actually see it in action.

MY COMMENTS
This game is actually very difficult to give a rating because there's really no set genre to this game. It has a story mode, which is quite good, obviously nothing like a normal RPG, but it could also be taken as a full-fledged multiplayer game because all of the minigames, you can play online using wi-fi connection or with a friend close by. Not just minigames, but also pop-up duels can be played with others as well, using the cards from your deck. So it's almost hard to tell what to be harsh on. So, I will tell you now, if you like Final Fantasy games, and especially if you are a die hard fan of the series, this is a good game for you. The game may be childish, but I really didn't seem to mind it that much. In fact it was interesting to see how they took Aesop's fables and put a Final Fantasy twist on it. Also, the minigames are great, all the minigames and microgames make you use the stylus, and most of them are a lot of fun. And although, the pop-up duel may not be better than a normal RPG battle system, it is still a lot of fun itself. And they even give a nice treat of remixed songs from previous Final Fantasies. However, if you hate Final Fantasy games, this is not a game for you.

Here is my thought process, on how I rated this game
It starts off with a 10/10, then
-.5 points for it being a bit childish*
-.7 points for the story not being absolutely complete
-.6 points for the pop-up duel not being the best replacement battle system
that leaves us with an 8.2
Bonus
A bonus is anything in a game that exceeds one's expectations, or without the factor, the game is not worse.
+.5 points for fun Final Fantasy factors (remixed music, monsters, etc.)*
+.4 points for great use of stylus
that leaves us with a 9.1 for a rating, which is closest to a 9.
*Note: How I looked at the childish and Final Fantasy fun factors was, I looked at it and figured that for some people the factor could be as bad as taking away 1 point or as good as adding 1 point, and for others it may not even affect them at all, so I went in between 1 and 0, which is .5.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/09/07