Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates

"A Review of the Single Player Mode Only"

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates is quite a deviation from the canon Final Fantasy games. It's a hack and slash game with a much more whimsical feel than previous Final Fantasy games. Even though it's a completely different game, it does manage to stand on its own for the most part, but the game is blighted by some glitchy gameplay and some poor design decisions that will make you wish you were playing a normal Final Fantasy game instead. There were times when I was playing this game that I was really enjoying myself, and then there were times when I was filled with contempt and never wanted to play it again.

Ring of Fates also has an extensive multi-player offering, but I didn't play that so I'm not going to get into it. I'll mainly focus on the single player, story mode.

In Ring of Fates, you will be playing as a young boy named Yuri, who is living in a small village with his twin sister named Chelinka. As the game starts out, they are young children with few cares in the world, but many events transpire throughout the game that will force them to grow up or face some dire consequences. Chelinka is not one of your party members, she is just there for story purposes.

Early on in the game, Yuri's dad will give him a sword, and Yuri will begin the adventure by going on some simple treasure hunting missions, but things will quickly escalate and he will need to befriend a few party members in order to see that his ideals are met.

As I said before, this is not a standard Final Fantasy adventure. This is a hack and slash dungeon crawler game, interspersed with some story elements to keep things interesting. I must say that the game does a great job of striking a good balance between the two, and you never seem like you are dungeon crawling too much, or listening to the story too much.

Yuri will be taught the basics of combat from helpful little moogles that are strewn about the game. He will learn how to use magic, he will learn skills for his sword, and he will learn the special abilities of the other members of his party as well.

By using the special abilities of your party members, you will need to solve some puzzles in the dungeons that help to break up the monotony of the monster slaying. One of your party members will have the ability to locate and initialize hidden parts of the dungeons, another will be able to double jump, and another will be able to do all sorts of interesting things with her urn that she has with her. I was quite pleased with the variety of characters in the main party.

Despite the great party lineup, walking around in my group was not very much fun to me. In fact it felt like a chore most of the time since the AI of your party members is quite possibly the worst I have ever seen in a game. Your comrades will constantly be standing on damaging tiles like idiots, falling off of cliffs, and just standing there and NOT attacking when they are face to face with an enemy. The AI in this game is pathetic, and when I was fighting bosses, I looked forward to my characters dying so I would no longer have to baby sit them and I could focus on the task at hand. Quite honestly, it's rather trifling to have extra party members during boss battles.

Not only is the enemy AI bad, but the game is laced with tons of glitches that really show how rushed this game was. Items and magicites will frequently get stuck to your characters after they drop and it will be a chore to pick them up, there are hit detection issues, and the one that made me forsake the game was that I somehow lost my ability to accumulate Blizzard magicites about three quarters of the way through the game. Every time I tried to pick them up, it said I was full, but I didn't have a single one. These are unforgivable glitches for a finished product, especially from Square/Enix.

Even though there were some problems with Ring of Fates, I did have a decent time with the game for the most part, but I just found it to be too bothersome in the long run.

Graphics 7/10

The graphics in Ring of Fates are rather good for a DS game, and things don't look as gritty and dark as Final Fantasy IV. The graphics are much more cheery and colorful. The game opens with a very nice CG cut scene that rivals the best I've seen on the DS.

Each character is represented with a nice, large, moderately detailed 3D character portrait with some nice animations as well. Things are a bit pixelated overall, but it still looks pretty good by DS standards.

On the downside of the graphics, when you have four members in your party, things will sometimes slow down and get a little choppy. I've heard this complaint about the multi-player mode, but the single player mode contains some graphical glitches as well.

Ring of Fates doesn't look as good as Dragon Quest Monster: Joker, but it does a pretty good job of presenting everything in a believable fashion overall.

Sounds and Music 7/10

I really enjoyed the music in Ring of Fates. I thought it did a great job of matching the look and feel of the game. The soundtrack has a bunch of flowing tracks that keeps things upbeat.

Ring of Fates also has a decent amount of voice acting during cut scenes, but most of it isn't very good. Well I guess the voice acting is okay for what it is, but the dialogue is often corny and the younger voices can get on your nerves. It seemed like for every good character voice in the game, there were two others that were annoying. For example, the character Alhanalem always reverses the last two words that he says, which gets annoying during dialogue or during the voiced cut scenes. Meeth is also quite annoying as she adds an “ie” to the end of almost anything she says. Saying things like: “It's hottie in hereie.”

I wasn't completely dismayed by the voices. Some of them were good, but I'd say it's about split down the middle on characters I liked and characters I couldn't stand.

Story 7/10

If there was one element of Ring of Fates that really surprised me, it would have to be the story. From the beginning, it looks like you are in for a lighthearted, childish adventure, but nothing could be further from the truth. The game ends up devising quite a serious and urgent story, with death and deception aplenty. (No blood though)

I really liked how the story was handled in Ring of Fates. All of the dungeon crawling aspects of the games were interwoven with story elements in between. Some of the dialogue scenes are quite long, but you just don't seem to get tired of them for some reason. Aside from the voice acting of course.

However, most of the story is nothing new or innovative, and you have seen this kind of adventure a hundred times before. The story is above average, but nothing too great.

Gameplay 4/10

Since Ring of Fates diverges a bit from the standard Final Fantasy games, I was not really sure what to expect from the gameplay. It turns out that it's a pretty standard hack and slash action RPG, but the game gets ruined by some buggy issues and incredibly inept party AI.

The game strikes a balance between using the d-pad and the stylus for controlling your party. All of the running around and exploring is mainly done with the d-pad, but the stylus will be used in battle to switch between your party members in real time via the menus on the bottom screen of the DS. The stylus is also used to cycle between you equipped items and magicites. Other than that, almost everything else is controlled with the d-pad and standard buttons on the DS.

At the start of the game, Yuri will be by himself and controlling him will be simple and rather easy. He can do regular attacks or utilize magicites, which is the game's form of magic. As Yuri accumulates party members, things get much more complicated. Taking care of three additional, brain dead characters is often cumbersome and too imprecise.

The magic system in Ring of Fates is not very useful. You can collect magicites, but in order to cast a spell, you must hold down the X button, position the cursor over the enemy, and then release it. There is also the option to make “magic piles”, which are multiple magic attacks that are locked into places and compounded one after the other. This is how the more advanced spells in the game are used, but it's almost impossible to set these up in the single player game, and I really found no use for magic piles in the game at all.

As the game goes on, you will need to switch between your party members in real time to make them solve certain puzzles with their abilities. Once you get through the dungeon area, you will face a boss that is usually pretty easy. Well the boss fights are pretty easy once your additional characters die. I have no idea how you would actively keep them all alive during boss fights. It just seems like they become suicidal during the boss fights and throw their lives away ASAP.

Speaking of the bad enemy AI, Ring of Fates has the worst party AI I've ever seen in a game. Your party members will need constant attention, and baby sitting them will become your second in-game job.

Some examples of the poor AI: If you jump up a few ledges, none of your party members will follow you. You will need to summon them up to join you after you're at the top. You can easily summon your characters to you at any time by pressing the L button, but you will need to do this constantly, and it gets annoying to have to keep doing it over and over.

If you are jumping over hazardous terrain, you can be assured that your incompetent party members will plod right through it, or worse yet, just balk and stand right in it taking damage until you remove them by summoning them.

The game is also plagued by some buggy issues. Sometimes when you pick up items and magicites, they will stick to you and your party members and it will be dragged along for the ride. You will need to remove it manually, or just deal with it if your inventory is currently full. I ran into an issue where I could no longer pick up a certain type of magicite and it kept telling me my inventory was full when it was not. There are also hit detection issues, problems aiming your attacks at the enemy, a useless magic system, and countless other things that will drive you crazy.

The gameplay in Ring of Fates really hurts it.

Longevity and Re-Playability 2/10

Ring of Fates has a short, 10-15 hour single player story to go through, and it may or may not be worth going through again, depending on how well you are able to look past the issues that this game has. I personally have no desire to ever play this game again.

Conclusion

Since I only played the single player mode in Ring of Fates, I can't comment on the multi-player stuff, but I'd imagine that there are a lot of people interested in this game that are looking to see how this game plays in the single player mode, so that's what I'm attempting to do in my review. I really don't think this game is worth purchasing for the single player mode alone, but if you have some friends to play with in multi-player mode, you might want to check it out.

As a single player game, Ring of Fates doesn't really stand out. The horrible AI and buggy gameplay really hurts it. I'd say not to bother with this game unless you have some friends to play it with.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/09/09, Updated 10/19/09

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