"I hope you have some friends to play with, otherwise you may be extremely dissappointed!"

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates is a prequel to the 2004 game Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. To recap, the original was a single/multi player game where players had to drive a poisonous miasma out of the land with the power of the crystal. Ring of Fates, being a prequel, no longer features the miasma but instead does things quite a bit differently. Let's examine Ring of Fates.

Story: 7/10

In Ring of Fates you will take on the role of the Clavat (human) twins Yuri and Chelinka, though you will also be joined later by party members that represent the other three races in Crystal Chronicles. You start off as rather young children who appear to be growing up peacefully with their father and his close friends Meeth, a Lilty (onion-looking alchemists), and Alhanalem, a Yuke (magic-using bird people). But soon, your father's past catches up to him and the twins are forced to grow-up quickly to defend themselves.

The story focuses quite a bit on people's fates, and the battle between the crystal and its enemies. The characters are rather rememberable, though I didn't like the way they changed the Lilty race. In Crystal Chronicles the Lilties were the strongest race and rather war-like, though in Ring of Fates, while they are still rather irritable, they focus on alchemy and fight with a spoon. Apparently, as time goes on, their race becomes quite a bit stronger. Also the fourth race, the Selkies, I felt were rather under-represented as the only major character you meet that is a Selkie was raised in the woods and rather un-intelligible. I did like the fact that the Selkies now use Bows instead of rackets, and they aren't really represented as being thievish… yet.

I did enjoy the numerous cut-scenes scattered throughout the game. They did a good job at advancing the stories at regular intervals, so you're never really left alone too long without hearing some more of the plot-line. Unfortunately, the story is rather short, as the game can be beaten in a couple of afternoons.

Gameplay: 6/10

The gameplay in Ring of Fates is your standard hack-and-slash fare. In the beginning you will only control Yuri as he fights his way through a closed-off environment, unlocking doors in order to proceed further and eventually fight the area's boss. As you proceed through the story in single-player mode, you will also be joined by your previously mentioned companions (whereas they will be your human companions in multi-player mode). Now here is where the score and the game as a whole suffer, at least in single-player. YOUR COMPANIONS ARE DUMB, EXTREMELY DUMB. Don't expect them to fight with you at all, or assist you in anyway. In fact, the only thing they are even remotely good for is to stand around, and hopefully the enemy will target them instead of me. Once in a blue moon they will attack, but don't rely on them at all. What makes this worse, especially in single-player mode, is that you must control each one of them in order to utilize their special abilities and proceed through the area, which makes any obstacle that requires you to switch characters seem tacked-on and unnecessary.

Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to play multi-player mode with anyone, but I'm convinced that multi-player is the only sane way to play through the game if you expect the other characters to help you at all. At least there is no mist in Ring of Fates to constrain you further. On the other hand, I would have rather played through the story by myself instead of having to baby sit three good-for-nothing allies. Another point that I should mention is the fact that you can't pause the game, not even during single-player mode, which is complete crap.

Now for the things I did enjoy about the gameplay. The character customization in Ring of Fates is very in-depth. During the game you can acquire scrolls to make new armor and weapons. Once you equip new armor and weapons, the change is reflected on your character, so you can actually make your character look like a dragoon, samurai, and paladin in the game. Unfortunately, each character can only equip one type of weapon, so you are rather limited there, but each weapon also looks different.

Graphics: 7/10

The graphics look pretty good on the DS, especially considering the amount of 3D character models used. There were a couple of times where they looked especially choppy, and there was even one cut-scene where I noticed that Chelinka was just out-right missing her feet altogether, but overall they did a good job. Most of the cut-scenes keep the in-game style instead of the movies that I know Square-Enix likes to use, so I wish that they would have had more of those, but I did love the amount of cut-scenes that the did have. Also, like I mentioned before, they also get bonus points for putting in all of the different armors and weapons, and being able to see the changes as you swap equipment. Overall the graphics are pretty good.

The other screen on the DS is used to display a map of your current area, as well as any doors in the area and which of those are locked or unlocked.

Music/Sound Effects: 8/10

The music in Ring of Fates is not only quite good, but also helps to set the mood of the environment you are currently exploring. While that is generally expected in any games soundtrack, the reason this section is one of the highest-scored sections in the review is because how impressive I found the voice acting. While the music and sound effects are both good, yet fairly average, I found the voice acting to be fantastic, especially for the villains. So, in short, expect everything to be average here and enjoy the well-picked voice actors.

Re-playability/Extra's: 8/10

Despite the flaws mentioned with the gameplay, I actually did find myself starting a second game, mostly due to the “New Game +” feature in Ring of Fates, where you not only retain all of your equipment and items gained from your first game, but they also make the enemies harder and put new treasures in all of the dungeons. I was quite impressed with that fact. Also, the enemies drop much better items as well, making it very possible to make your character immensely more powerful. Plus, If you can find someone to play Ring of Fates with you, it makes the game immensely better, I'm sure of that.

Overall: 7/10

Overall, Ring of Fates is a good game, but definitely not a must-have DS title. I would really recommend finding someone to play through the game with before you pick up Ring of Fates. If you don't have anyone to play with at all, it would be hard for me to recommend this game to anyone but a fan of the series, especially since the game still costs quite a bit. I hope the review helped you out. Have fun and keep playing!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/31/08

Game Release: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (US, 03/11/08)