Year 0
Dear diary,
Since failing to get GBA linkage working in Dolphin netplay however many years ago, we were unsure of when we'd finally be getting around to this. Especially since the remaster was out of the question, as it lacks local co-op and not all of us have a Nintendo Switch Online / PlayStation Plus subscription. But we've finally found the opportunity (and the Link Cables) to play it on original hardware. With character creation now out of the way, we can introduce ourselves:
Player 1, our de facto leader: a male, long-beaked Yuke from a family of tailors
Player 2 (that's me): a female, red-masked Lilty from a family of alchemists
"Player 3": a female, shark-eyed Selkie from a family of fishers
I'll refrain from including our names to protect our anonymity should this diary become compromised. I'll keep the formalities short for now: adventure awaits!

Year 1
Dear diary,
Our first year has come to a close. We've settled loosely into "builds" based on each of the 3 primary stats: P1 is focusing on magic, I'm focusing on defense, and P3 is focusing on strength. It's reassuring that the chalice mechanic, which I had been led to believe was an abitrary piece of busywork, isn't that bad. It may not be a deep mechanic, but it's a decent solution for circumventing the lack of splitscreen functionality, especially since everyone can take turns on chalice duty. The dungeon crawling so far has been pretty uneventful, except the Mine, which featured lanterns with Bombs trapped inside - a creative integration of classic iconography with the world design. Also, unlike the other dungeons, it had an actual gimmick. Not a terribly interesting one, just standing on buttons to make a minecart break through a wall, but the other two were just flat areas with chests and enemies. Pretty generic action RPG stuff, but we've only just begun.

Year 2
Dear diary,
It suddenly dawned on me how the radar mechanic works. Each player is randomly assigned one of four features: enemy locations, treasure locations, a map of the layout, or enemy info (since there's only 3 of us, we're always guaranteed that one person will have the map). But what's the context here? Is gosh itself shuffling these components between us each time we enter a dungeon? Why can't we trade these features with each other, or at least choose which we want? Anyway, the narrative experience is rather strange so far. Besides the basic premise, the "main story" is shaping up to be nothing more than "trudge through a dull dungeon, kill a boss who's probably just acting in self defense, steal their myrrh, dance at a bonfire after doing that 3 times, rinse and repeat." Is the real meat of the narrative in the overworld events? Most of them just involve some group of people showing up on the road, saying some random stuff, and then it ends before anything really happens. If they're meant to be episodic subplots, then for each "episode" to be so barren must mean these subplots are spread quite thin.

Year 3
Dear diary,
I'm warming up to the radar mechanic. Not for some hidden merit I've discovered in it, but rather because the light amount of cooperation it enables spices up the dungeon crawling so much more than anything in the dungeons themselves. There was only one dungeon in this batch (the Manor) which provided some fun of its own, if only for its brevity and the cute story context. Speaking of story, I'm also warming up to the overworld events. They're so cheesy and bizarre that they're quickly becoming the only thing I look forward to anymore. It's ironic considering how slow and boring of an overworld this otherwise is, ESPECIALLY the miasma streams. Even for ones you've crossed before, you still have to sit there and watch as your character (yes, singular character, since funnily enough you can just have one person cross while the others sit at the beginning and slowly die of miasma poisoning) slowly inches along the path while you wonder how someone could possibly be enthralled by this more than MAYBE twice. And every miasma stream is nearly identical of course. I'm afraid the mindless monotony of the gameplay loop will just keep wearing on until the end. But hey, we're halfway there, right?

Year 4
Dear diary,
Some of the worst dungeons yet: same old tedium, but Rebena Te Ra had some obnoxious puzzles, and the difficulty is spiking hard. The combat has really been wearing out its welcome, particularly spellcasting. Spells are becoming much more crucial, and it's very common to be struck with a halting status (freeze, stone, etc) before you can finish casting one. This is doubly dreadful for spells which require two people. One of these, Holy, is practically required to kill some recently introduced enemies (and bosses!). It doesn't help that the equipment feels so restrictive. Theoretically, we could spend additional miserable hours grinding materials for a plethora of armor and accessories which give +1 poison resist or something (whatever that means). But is it worth it? If a relevant opportunity arises to use said equipment, I'd have to push Select, bend my face over the GBA, fumble fatfingeredly through the menu to equip the correct thing, then look back up at the mangled corpse I left behind in the meantime. We're approaching the light at the end of the tunnel anyhow, so I'll just hope we won't have to resort to grinding.

Year 5
F***ing diary,
Hades must have been looking over my shoulder and decided Sysyphus wasn't the only one who needed a cruel and unusual punishment. We should've known by how freakishly powerful the enemies in this final dungeon were, but we pressed on. And we tried, we really did, but it's just not feasible for 3 undergeared caravanners - with what I'm realising are abysmal defense stats - to stand up to this ungodly monstrosity of a boss at the bottom of this hellhole. We were desperate to miraculously pull through to prevent throwing away the progress we made through this place, but it wasn't meant to be. We'll have to grind. Hard. Apparently each dungeon has cycles, and only by making it to the 3rd cycle (yeah because these dungeons were so much fun the first time) will we be able to upgrade our gear from Mithril to Diamond. Diamond is the NEXT STEP UP from Mithril, but I digress. Let's just get this over with.

Year 9
Good riddance,
Gear has been grinded, our GBAs have lost power at least 87 times, and unfavorable comparisons to Nicktoons Unite! have been made. I don't know what else I could say. We're entering the final dungeon for what I hope is the final time. Let's mosey.

Year ?
Dear diary,
I must admit, this sequence following the final dungeon's boss may have sparked the most engaging cooperation I've experienced in any game. We needed to put our heads together and place desperate faith in one another in a way I never could have expected. I wouldn't dare spoil the details of this, but not out of respect for any potential readers of this diary who may want to experience it firsthand. Rather, if we had to endure 9 years of torment to get to this moment, then I refuse to offer anyone a shortcut. Suffer like we did.

Year ????????
Diary,
This may well be my final entry. We've gotten a few "Game Over"s fighting this final boss, but we've learned how it works and sussed out some basic strategies to sufficiently stay afloat. This current attempt will probably be "the one," but we've been on it for a while now. Has it been 10 minutes, 10 days, 10 years? Is the boss' health nearly depleted, or is it actually infinite? If this takes much longer, I'm not gonna make it. I'll... lose the motivation to bother writing a review of this game. Should that be the case, then I hope someone manages to find this diary, because it'll be the only record left of what has transpired. So I'll offer these final thoughts to whoever may be able to read them: if you want to follow in our footsteps (or GOSH forbid drag some friends into our footsteps as well), just know that there's always a better way. If you really want the novelty of a multiplayer game which necessitates each player to connect a GBA to a GameCube, I'm sure Four Swords or Pac-Man Vs would suffice. If you want a multiplayer RPG on the GameCube, there's Tales of Symphonia. It may have shallow combat, a convoluted story, and a bizarre tonal clash between the graphics and the subject matter, but Symphonia clearly had at least 100 times more passion and effort on display than this. Or maybe you grew up with this, which unfortunately means you're already cursed beyond any hope of salvation. But if you're like us, and you're on a mission to play every Japanese role playing game with cooperative multiplayer, well... your fate is sealed of course, but just try to save this one for later. In the meantime, go play some Monster Hunter or something.

This game is something special for me. It has a great world building. You make your own character and you live your own story. You will travel throught villages which are full of nice people, and dungeons filled with the charismatic enemies of the FF series. Also music is amazingly good.

The game is so fun if you manage to play with other friends, which is very difficult because you need a GBA as controler and the cable to conect it to gamecube FOR EACH PLAYER, which is crazy.

Despite of that I completed this game 3 times, which 2 of them played with friends, and we had really good memories of our journey

Square's subsidiary Game Designers Studio (formerly Square next) delivered a Final Fantasy spinoff before getting absorbed back into the company; Crystal Chronicles, an isometric level-based action-RPG capable of 4-player co-op. Given the studio and some of the members involved, it's hardly a surprise that this often evokes two of Square's long-running RPGs: Mana (combat and multiplayer) and SaGa (character creation/selection, unconventional systems, quasi-open progression and replay value). The brawler/JRPG hybrid of the former turns out to be the highlight, and not only because it constitutes the bulk of gameplay. To start with, they found a more reasonable compromise between these two parts, adding a Kingdom Hearts-like command list and active (instead of menu-driven) spellcasting to facilitate the flow of battle. In a way, it's Secret of Mana for the 2000s, but without much of the story, magic or menu-related interruptions. Also noteworthy is how enemies actually counter the general frenzy (with ranged and armored attacks that force a more cautious style of play) and how variety is provided by a dynamic world (that changes shops, mobs, area paths and unlockables with each chapter). While the result is only vaguely related to Final Fantasy, it's nevertheless a solid and occasionally challenging beat-em-up; not exactly a casual dungeon crawler as advertised.

Their approach has its weaknesses - though: Many bosses are simply lackluster damage sponges, whose movesets are either too slow or too repetitive, while the RPG elements range from interesting albeit barely noticeable (best exemplified by their loot-dependent upgrade system) to formulaic (spell fusion and crafting).

I have nothing nice to say. Every aspect of this game drives me up a wall. The music is repetitive and obnoxious. Casting spells is frustrating. Multiple status effects that stop you in your tracks. Character progression is simple and uninspired given this is an FF game. Everything is slow. Traveling the world map, story events, connecting GBAs. GBAs dying is the cherry on top. Carrying the chalice is but a drop in the bucket compared to everything else I've mentioned. There is a clear gameplay loop they have designed but I hate playing the game so the fact I have to keep grinding dungeons for stat ups and materials to make progress is infuriating. There's little left to enjoy when the foundation was so poor in the first place.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is a charming action RPG that emphasizes cooperative play. You'll create a member of a caravan dedicated to collecting precious Myrrh, essential for protecting villages from a poisonous Miasma. The focus on multiplayer means the solo experience can feel slow and repetitive, but the beautiful worldbuilding, evocative soundtrack, and emphasis on teamwork create a unique atmosphere. While it has its flaws, Crystal Chronicles holds a nostalgic charm for those seeking a heartwarming, cooperative journey.

What a delightful little game. The aesthetics, the music, the world-building are all marvelous. It does a good and rather optimistic take on "post-apocalyptic world" trope, where it feels like everyone is hanging on the best they can. I remember the few "shit got real" moments in the game like Tida Village where the caravan failed to return, or Rebena Te Ra as a bastion of lost civilization. The game had a lot of mood pieces gave the world an ethereal feeling.

So how is it as a game? It's fine enough, good even. The biggest caveat is how much of an ordeal it was to get things running proper as a multiplayer game. Four GBAs with attachment cords to your GCN; it was matched really only by PSO for weird peripherals you needed to enjoy the game. But given the simplistic button set-up of the GBAs, the combat and depth of FF:CC isn't particularly deep unless you're combining spells with your partners. But the exploration and puzzle elements of the game are enough to keep busy. As a single-player experience it's solitary and lonely, but the game is still definitely playable and it's what I spent most of my tenure with the game with.

Real talk, I mostly play this game for the vibe. The vibe is immaculate, and I think few games especially in the same series does a good job of capturing that. It's sorta a shame that I haven't heard great things about the HD Remaster, but we'll always have some obtuse way of playing together if you can track down the stuff to actually play the game with.

I accidentally deleted my first overly long-winded review so here's the short version. Yes, this is the short version. I’m so sorry.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is probably the prime example of a game that I desperately want to love but can't because of several glaring flaws. It has almost everything going for it but still manages to drop the ball in the places where it matters the most. Those issues were easy enough for me to overlook as a kid, but as an adult, all the charm in the world can’t distract me from the fact I’d much rather be using my limited time in other places.

As previously suggested, this is going to be a bit lengthy, and I’m also going to spoil some stuff about the final dungeon and boss, so keep that in mind if you care.

This game is visually, audibly, and thematically beautiful. It looks great, with a lovely art style and environments that feel organic and lived-in. Kumi Tanioka's soundtrack is phenomenal, with each track perfectly conveying the intended mood while maintaining a whimsical and fantastical air even at its darkest (and it does get dark). I'm not even going to bother linking tracks. If you don't do anything else, go listen to Crystal Chronicles' OST right now. Finally, the worldbuilding is fantastic, with the concept behind the crystal caravans feeling very unique and tying in perfectly with the gameplay loop.

The world of Crystal Chronicles is shrouded in a deadly fog known as miasma. The four tribes hide away inside their cities and villages, protected by the light of large crystals that chase away the dark shroud. However, the power of these crystals is finite, and must be replenished through an offering of myrrh – a dew produced by trees that grow in the most dangerous and secluded parts of the world. Thus, the young and able members of each settlement form crystal caravans, traveling long roads and plumbing the darkest reaches in search of this precious treasure. They carry this myrrh in magical crystal chalices, and when they have collected enough, they return home to much fanfare and the relief of knowing their friends and families will be safe for just one more year. The cycle repeats, and in the meantime, the people of these settlements do their best to live fruitful lives despite the hardships. They remain optimistic and work towards bridging the gaps that both the miasma and past conflicts have created. Everybody prays and hopes that this will not be the year their caravan does not come home.

You play as members of one of these crystal caravans, comprised of any combination of the four tribes, with each having its own strengths and weaknesses. Gameplay focuses on delving into dungeons and beating baddies while looting everything in sight. Players must carry the crystal chalice with them on their way. It projects a magical barrier that protects the party from the miasma, and stepping outside of this ring will lead to you rapidly taking damage. It’s a very clever way of keeping the party together and ties in perfectly with the established lore. Slash everything up, cast magic and combine it to create more powerful spells, solve the occasional environmental puzzle. Gather up treasures from enemies and chests along the way, including artifacts which boost their holder’s stats. After defeating the area boss, the party collects a drop of myrrh. Each party member will be scored on criteria unique to them, and whoever scores the highest gets first pick of the boss loot. Higher scores also result in better loot being available, so even if you’re not concerned about being first in line, it still pays to play well. Following this is a brief interlude in which each player receives mail from their family. You can reply and even send gifts, and being good to your family will result in raising their affection for you, which can provide unexpected benefits. Finally, you can take the materials and item recipes you’ve collected back to town to craft new weapons and armor, some of which can impart new charged attacks or resistances. Much like with the aforementioned artifacts, doling out gear to suit the party’s needs is essential to keeping everybody on the same playing field.

Once you’ve collected three drops of myrrh, you return home to perform the crystal ritual. As you celebrate, you take the opportunity to reflect on all that you’ve experienced in the past year. Then you do it all again. Things change throughout the years, primarily with regards to the dungeons. For starters, a myrrh tree needs a year to replenish its dew, so while you can revisit a dungeon to grind for materials you can’t fight its endboss again until the next cycle. When you do return in a different year, the enemies there will be stronger and greater in number, and the boss may have learned some new tricks as well. Of course, with greater challenge comes greater rewards. Not being able to repeatedly farm the same dungeons, along with the fact that each dungeon is naturally host to a different variety of rewards, is a good way to incentivize trying out each one instead of simply settling on the same few year after year. One final wrinkle is the miasma streams, which separate each major section of the continent. Each stream has an associated element, which changes each year. The only way to pass them is to attune your chalice to the same element, which requires having completed or at least ventured into a dungeon with a corresponding elemental hotspot. Since each dungeon has different elements associated with it, which route you can take through the map may change depending on the year, and you might find yourself temporarily limited to a certain selection of dungeons. There’s a few other surprises that come with the turning of the years, too. It’s nothing revolutionary, but there is a surprising amount of thought put into the way this basic structure is implemented.

Let me give one more shout-out to the presentation before I start sinking my claws in. As you travel the overworld map, you’ll occasionally be interrupted by an encounter with other travelers. Each scene gives you some insight into the lives and struggles of the other caravans, as well as a few other odd characters here and there. You can visit the other settlements yourself and take in the sights while also getting clued into the history of the world and its tribes. Upon reaching the dungeons, you’ll be introduced to each by the memoirs of another caravanner, which are sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes foreboding, but always affecting. Every aspect of Crystal Chronicle’s narrative, even if it isn’t especially complex, feels lovingly crafted. The world is very inviting to explore, no matter how dark the underlying reality of it might be.

So that’s why it’s a dreadful shame the game itself is so… Unfortunate.

Let me preface this by saying that I have never played this with others before to any serious degree, and if you already know anything about the original, you may be aware of why. Square Enix, in their infinite genius, made multiplayer require a Game Boy Advance connected via a Link Cable for each player. Yes, it’s required. You can’t play this game with standard controllers even if you wanted to. Why? Because you need a screen of your own to interact with menus without interrupting gameplay, and to see information unique to your character. Both good uses for GBA connectivity, but to make it required is nuts, especially given how rudimentary of a hack-and-slash this game is otherwise. Crystal Chronicles probably has the highest barrier to entry of any console game I can think of, and as such, I never was able to play it with anybody as a kid. I haven’t played it with anybody since - the remaster aside, and that is a completely different beast right there. So all of my experiences with this are in single player, and everything else is just theory, at least as far as I’m concerned. As such, take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt, but I maintain that Crystal Chronicles has more than enough flaws even when you play it in the intended way.

Here’s something that absolutely needs to be said: This game’s control scheme is dreadful, and remarkably so given how simple the game is otherwise. You’re given a list of “commands”, which include attacking, defending, and using magicite or items. You rotate between these commands using the L and R buttons and execute them with the A button. You’re likely already seeing the problem. Having your abilities revolve around changing what a single button does is clunky as hell and only gets worse the more commands you have available. At the absolute worst, you’re going to need to spend time running away from enemies just to give yourself an opportunity to highlight the action you want. What’s more, it makes your singular defensive option almost completely worthless, as needing to switch to it first means you can’t use it in a reactive manner. This is all assuredly due to the fact that the GBA has noticeably fewer inputs than the Gamecube controller. This is somewhat alleviated in co-op, as you have up to four pairs of hands that can perform many actions at once. However, it doesn’t make the controls any less clunky, and now you’re controlling the game with the GBA’s D-pad instead of an analog stick. What’s more, the lack of available buttons isn’t an issue in single-player mode… And the exact same control scheme is used. Why an alternative couldn’t have been provided is beyond me, especially since just mapping defend and a single spell slot to individual buttons would have made a huge difference in playability. It’s still manageable, but it is immediately noticeable and makes gameplay feel much worse than it had any right to.

So the game doesn’t feel great to play, but it’s also obvious no honest attempt was made at tuning the game for single player. The vast majority of the game is perfectly manageable on your own, save for a few hiccups. Let me go ahead and get the most irritating one out of the way. Since you don’t have another player who can carry the chalice, you’re given a companion in the form of a moogle named Mog. Mog will carry the chalice on command, staying close to you so you won’t be hindered while exploring the dungeons. Great! Kind of. Apparently the devs thought a dedicated chalice-caddy was just a smidge too convenient, so they shoehorned in a caveat. If you’re constantly on the move, Mog will eventually get tired and slow to a crawl, complaining until you take over chalice-carrying duty. At that point, you’ll need to let Mog take a break until he states he’s willing to do it again. That’s already annoying enough, but it’s further exacerbated by two points: One, Mog will get tired much faster in dungeons with high temperatures (“It’s so hot, kupo!”), and two, if you decide to avoid any of this headache by simply electing to carry the chalice yourself, he’ll also complain if you don’t give it back to him! The first point can apparently be mitigated by a second mechanic in which you can cut Mog’s hair to help keep him cool… But that itself is tedious and the hair grows back eventually, so either way it’s just wasting your time. He can also cast spells in tandem with you when he’s not carrying the chalice, but that itself is clunky and he can only cast a few before needing to recharge, so there was never much of a reason to use that either.

Beyond that, most of my complaints with single player are about what you would expect. Dealing with multiple foes is irritating when you’re the only target, and you’ll sometimes need to bait enemies out of groups to avoid being overwhelmed or stunlocked. Some puzzles are also a bit more of a chore without a friend to help out. Magic is pretty much limited to what you can fuse in your menu because Mog is not a reliable casting partner. You can’t see what your bonus task is for the current dungeon without the use of a GBA, so you’re in the dark if you’re trying to max out your score to get the best possible prizes at the end. Gearing up can still be a pain because you’re not guaranteed to find any tribe-specific gear even though you’re the only person in the party. Really, though, it’s overall quite easy. As a Selkie, darting in and out taking swipes and using the occasional ranged charge attack gets the job done just fine. Since you have no other party members, you get your pick of all of the artifacts and gear that you accrue, so building your stats up is no trouble. Enemy attack patterns, even for the bosses, are simple enough to deal with. This all holds true pretty much right up until the last dungeon, Mount Vellenge.

Once here, a lot of the things that make this game irritating start to come to a head. The enemies here hit hard and have some really annoying attacks in their repertoire. There are a lot of ghostly foes that require being struck with Holy before you can deal any meaningful damage to them. Rocks frequently block the way and need to be destroyed before you can pass, meaning you can’t simply ignore the enemies and run past them. As you reach the latter part of the dungeon, you’ll encounter strange objects that will disable your chalice, making you take damage from the miasma until they’re destroyed. All in all, Mount Vellenge isn’t especially large, but it’s tedious enough that it feels like it goes on for quite a while. And then there’s the boss. It has friends that will constantly pelt you with projectiles, it can poison you, and it temporarily hides when you deal enough damage to it. The fight is broken up into phases and it eventually starts using moves that target your location, so you constantly need to be on the move to not take a ton of damage. Take shots where you can, whittle down its overinflated health bar and move on. It’s done!

Except it isn’t. Immediately after beating this boss, you move on to the true final boss. You’re introduced to a new character, there’s some dialogue, you’re made to do a pop quiz based on the things you’ve experienced up to this point. You sit through another cutscene, and then the fight finally begins. This boss is a bit more straightforward, but brings two friends to the fight that hit hard and will happily replace them if you eliminate them both. Thus, I ended up just taking down the bigger of the two and kiting the smaller one for the whole fight. Duck in, duck out. It’s here I really started to be worried about getting hit, because two out of the three kinds of projectiles the boss throws at you can freeze you in place. If that happened, it usually ended up being an instant kill when the aforementioned flunky came in to take a swing. That would have been whatever, if not for the fact that this boss’ intro cutscene – for some godsforsaken reason – couldn’t be skipped, even though you could skip the intros for every other boss in the game. Did I mention it didn’t have a visible health meter, either? Anyways, run around in circles, take swings, heal when you can, finish the fight. Phew, it’s over.

Except it isn’t. You beat this boss, there’s another cutscene, and then you get to fight the final final boss. This is about where my patience began to run out. It has a gimmick which is cute on paper, but in practice is just one big headache. The boss is relentless in its attacks, requiring you to constantly be on the move to avoid damage. During the fight, memories of your family appear, and by casting Cure on them you receive magicite which casts extremely powerful spells. So the idea is to gather them up and use this magic to turn the tables on the boss. Cool! Just one problem. When you’re one person busy running for their life, it’s really hard to find the time to cast spells, especially when at least one of the boss’ attacks is the type that will hit you if you aren’t moving from the very second it comes out. Thus, you have to wait until you get that one brief moment where you can charge a spell, and then you also need to wait for the right moment to pick it up. What’s more, the boss has a move it’ll use on occasion where it’ll try to suck up any memories still floating around. If you’re too busy running around trying to not die, or if you just happened to be unlucky enough that the memory spawned the exact moment the boss started using the move, you can kiss it goodbye. Did I mention you have a finite number of these? Each memory that spawns in this fight is actually being pulled from your character’s memories (read: roadside encounters and diary entries), a statistic that is always being visibly tracked but had no significance until now. On the bright side, you should have well over fifty memories by this point, and that ought to be plenty to beat the boss, right? So anyways, you have to destroy the boss’ tail before you can do any real damage to it, at which point it will change its moveset to make approaching it that much more dangerous. Duck and weave and cast all of your fancy magic and oh whoops I got grazed because I was being greedy. Game over. So my first discovery was realizing that this pre-boss cutscene isn’t skippable, either. But the more sobering discovery was that my memory count was not replenished between attempts. I was beginning to get a bit concerned because I had no idea how long this fight was supposed to take. Again, I couldn’t see the boss’ HP. I had no real metric for determining what kind of progress I was making, so I wasn’t sure if I was going to have enough magicite to beat the boss or if I even needed it at all. I tried again, and slipped up again, partly due to how long the fight drags on for and partly due to me just flat out getting a bit frustrated by this point. As to what would happen when I ran out of memories, I soon got my answer.

After trying to restart the fight with zero memories left, I got a short message lamenting how unfortunate it was that all of my memories were gone, and then I was dumped back at the title screen. Back to my last save. The last save I had the opportunity to make. Before the final dungeon. Before its boss. Before the pop quiz and its cutscenes. Before the semi-final boss and its cutscene. Before the final boss and its cutscene. I was done. Going through all of that probably took upwards of an hour or more, not that anybody was counting. And the entire time, other than the intrinsic wonderment of witnessing new scenes years after the fact, I was having exactly zero fun running around in circles and pressing the A button. I watched the ending online and called it a day.

In the end, I can’t rag on Crystal Chronicles too much for the pain I experienced because I largely did it to myself. I insisted on playing a co-op focused game solo. Of course it wasn’t going to be nearly as fun or engaging. But I did have the option. Single player mode is right there when you start up the game, with equal billing to multiplayer mode. I managed to complete 98% of the game on my own, and I wasn’t completely bored to tears, but that last 2% is really just a doozy. I couldn’t amp myself into thinking it was worth putting up with all of that again. Let’s face it: Maybe I just suck. I’m sure I could have spent time gathering phoenix downs and health items to make my life a little easier. I’m sure I could have spent a few more cycles grinding to get more artifacts and the ultimate gear. I probably could have done a lot of things differently, but all said and done I just wasn’t having a good time, and that’s what really matters when it comes to games. This was my Crystal Chronicles experience, and I can’t overlook that the main reason I had to settle for doing it all alone is because I couldn’t jump through the hoops Square Enix forced me to if I wanted to bring along friends. I know a lot of people who love this game, but I don’t know many people who experienced this game in its “purest” form. I think that’s a real testament to how much this game has going for it despite being ill-conceived at its core.

I’d like to maybe revisit it one day with a few extras in tow, but I’ll tell you how I won’t be playing it: Via the remaster. Aside from the fact that they made zero attempt at improving the controls, they also completely skirted around the whole GBA issue by completely removing local multiplayer. Never change, Square Enix. Add in the fact that online multiplayer comes with its own handful of issues, the inclusion of grating voice acting and the fact that Squeenix just could not help themselves in adding paid DLC to the game, and it makes the few good additions like new items and dungeons that much harder to enjoy. If you can, I highly recommend getting ahold of the hardware needed to play it on the Gamecube, or at least finding an alternative that lets you experience the original. Hopefully you’ll come away from it with a more positive opinion than mine.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles will always have a special place in my heart. It’s given me so many good memories, although I really didn’t have the best time playing it. It’s weirdly in line with the game’s themes of the importance of making good memories even when life is hard. I’m glad I got to experience it at all, and maybe it’s time for me to move on and experience a few of the other titles in the Crystal Chronicles series. I doubt Square Enix will ever revisit it, and maybe that’s for the best, but if they do I hope they can bring together a team that can keep the charm of the original intact while improving the experience as a whole. Kumi Tanioka is a god. That is all.

this game has a special place in my heart but let's be real it's not a must-play. the soundtrack is lovely and the dungeons are beautiful, but i don't think it's worth playing from like, an academic standpoint.
if you really want to then go ahead, but don't play the "remaster", it has serious input lag and unnecessary (and insufferable) voice acting. just emulate the original. you can even play multiplayer in dolphin now, which i highly recommend; the game is really lovely when played with a friend -- more than two people is a bit hard to manage tho and probably inadvisable unless you're all very familiar with the game already.
anyway yeah i love this game. go listen to the soundtrack and have a chill time.

This game is very dear to me. It's also part of those games I tried to play as a kid and merely managed to advance through areas.

Its golden atmosphere accompanied by ancient instruments and cute little houses stuck in my head like few others.
Like I said, I replayed it as an adult. I feel that many have already exposed some repetition issues and limited gameplay. But honestly, I would say that the best way to enjoy it is to play it little by little, at well spaced times. Sidequests are randomized, and the world will always be there, with beautiful landscapes and graceful verses.

Even if not playing, I recommend listening to the soundtrack. Kumi Tanioka was amazing here.

Bought it due to having Final Fantasy in its name, but this game is terrible.

The gameplay is horrendous. It is such a tedious chore having to carry that damn pot everywhere you go to protect yourself from the miasma, and if you wanted to play co-operatively, it had one of the worst inclusions of multiplayer in any game ever.

I still remember wanting to play this with friends, as I had 2 Gamecube controllers, which could have been a bit more fun... but even this was ruined as you couldn't use the controllers with the console. Instead, it required the Gameboy Advance and link cable... entirely not worth it.

This was what Final Fantasy was to me up until my friend showed me FFX in 2006ish. I was obsessed with this. I played it with my nephew all the time. Obviously, the way the co-op worked was really counter intuitive and frustrating at times, but it was so fun to replay and experiment with the different combinations of classes you could use. The music in this game is absolutely one of the best OST's in video games. It's SOOOOO gooooooood. The range it accomplishes from mystical to jolly to depressing and creepy is quite a feat. Having 4 distinct classes to choose from makes replaying it a blast, and I loved playing in co-op and finding creative ways to work together to progress.