1993 saw the release of Secret of Mana (incidentally, this title is up for a GBA makeover shortly) which was in its own right an excellent RPG/adventure, but also showed a great feature that has been relatively underused since – a multiplayer mode.

All Final Fantasy games require an engrossing storyline, and it seems that this game is lighter than previous instalments in terms of narrative and plot. The game takes place in a world which has unfortunately been covered in a poisonous vapour, where inhalation is fatal. Over time, the titular crystals have been discovered to have a secret power - they can ward away this vapour. And so each village has a crystal to protect the village from the deadly gas. Unfortunately, the crystals lose their power over time, and the only way to sustain the life of these crystals is to reap some Mana Water from the Crystal Trees scattered around the land. Since these trees are extremely rare, abhorrent beasts guard them all, and getting the Mana Water from them is no mean feat. FF: CC follows the story of a group of travellers who are looking to keep these crystals intact until a more permanent solution can be found to keep the vapour at bay.

Harking back to the days of Final Fantasy 5, a job can be assigned to a player during character creation. While creating your team, it’s essential to ensure that a well-balanced team is forged, as each job can assist the team in different ways. For example, a blacksmith aids the team in obtaining weapons, while an alchemist can create item formula scrolls. The characters race is also selectable, and except for the aesthetic appearance, the starting statistics are slightly different.

In practical terms, multiplayer RPG’s simply cannot work without some serious tweaking of the genre, and this is Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicle’s winning, and also losing points. Getting 4 players to play through a game lasting hundreds of hours isn’t an easy task in itself, but when all 4 players need a GBA as well, it’s a logistical nightmare.

FF: CC neatly sidesteps these problems; yet the methods used create other problems which seriously limit the appeal of the game. If a player begins the game with 1 player, more gamers can join in later. However, how do the players compete with a player at a higher level than them? Square-Enix’s solution is to abolish the levelling up system altogether. In fact, they completely butchered the whole system used in previous games. There’s very little fiddling with stats, and as a direct consequence, the game is more friendly to multiplayer gaming. Who wants to hang around while one person fiddles with their stats? It makes for a more quick-fire game, rather than a slow, deliberate excursion. Alluring to the multiplayer gamers amongst us, it seriously limits the life and appeal to the single player.

Players get stronger by completing the action stages within the game. After a stage, each player is given a ranking depending on how well they have performed, and then the players can select a single Artifact that was collected during that leve. These range from adding points to your statistics, giving the player the ability to use spells, and giving the player more command list slots.

The game is split into a 3 distinct parts, a world map, towns, and the action stages. In the towns, the players can wander around, talking to residents, buying items (the buying and selling is done on the GBA screen, to keep the main screen free) and generally getting ready for where the heart of the game is: the action stages.

Since the world is covered in a poisonous mist, the team needs some protection. Here is where the Crystal Cage steps in. This wards off the vapour for a limited area around it. A player must carry this cage, and the hapless player who has been given this task is unable to defend themselves, so teamwork is needed to protect them. Wandering outside of this area of protection will eat away at the life of that player, so it’s wise to stay within its boundaries.

One area the game falls down on slightly is the combat. Final Fantasy was never one for fluid, relentless combat, and this instalment doesn’t buck the trend. Each player is given a command list (starts at 4 slots) where two are taken up with Attack and Defend, and the others are user-assignable. The A button executes the currently selected command, and the L and R buttons switch between commands. Hardly a streamlined system for combat, and giving the player individual buttons for combat would have alleviated these problems. Attacks can also be charged up, for a more powerful attack at the expense of exposing yourself to attack while charging. Magic also works in a similar way, and can also be combined to create more powerful spells. For example, two people casting Fire together creates Fira, and a Fira and a Fire creates a Firaga, the most powerful of fire spells. Performing this in the heat of battle isn’t the easiest task to perform though, so teamwork and communications are critical between players.

A prevailing characteristic of Final Fantasy games are the resplendent environments that the world takes place in. Traversing from one area to the next across the Crystal Stream amidst the swirling vapour and Crystal energy produces some effects that have to be seen to be believed. Not only does the view look fantastic, but also the music is similarly home-like, reminiscent of the tunes from Final Fantasy VIII, while the picturesque villages and towns are remindful of Final Fantasy IX. Character design is also similar to Final Fantasy IX, with the Mogs making a welcome comeback, kupo!

Another trademark of the Final Fantasy series is an enigmatic, yet admirable arch-nemesis. From FFIX's Kuja, to the awe-inspiring Sephiroth, Square have succeeded in producing embodiments of pure evil, surpassing anything any other developers have produced. Even FFX’s Sin, which initially looked like a benign natural disaster, peeled off its outer layers to show one of the most ingenious foes encountered so far. In Crystal Chronicles however, we get a vapour. No hidden persona, no hidden agendas, just a plain and simple gas. A slight disappointment for some, but again, this is another of the sacrifices that had to be made for the game to flow smoothly, and quickly in multiplayer mode.

For a single player though, expect nothing more than Final Fantasy Lite, as having a single Mog carrying the Crystal Cage is no substitute for a team of players. The game has been geared towards letting many players work together, with a simplified combat and levelling up system so that players are rarely left waiting for each other to fiddle with their stats. Another problem is that since the same players do not need to be playing all of the time, what would happen if some players ended up more powerful than others so that re-joining the game would prove too difficult? In the other Final Fantasy games, the difference between a character at the start, and end of the game was often immense, but in Crystal Chronicles, characters level up at a much lower rate, so that even if a player has been out of the game a long time, re-joining will ensure that they are still not far behind the other characters in terms of skills and abilities. Therefore, levelling up your character is nowhere near as satisfying as in the previous instalments, seriously crippling the game's long-term appeal.

With a seriously limited single player mode, one could be forgiven for thinking that this title has relatively little merit at all, but this statement couldn't be further from the truth. In the single player mode, fighting enemies devolves into an endless cycle of slashing, running away, slashing, and repeating ad infinitum. Bringing more players to the table changes the combat from a tedious war of attrition into the frantic melee, just the way the designers intended. One player runs in, sword at the ready, with the magician continuing the barrage, and a healer making sure that the fighters have enough health. Cooperation is actively encouraged, and acting as a mere individual during the boss fights will leave all the players dead within minutes. Players rarely get bored due to the fast pace of the game, which is a bugbear in the single player mode, but is a godsend when playing with others. No-one wants to sit and wait while other players fiddle with their statistics, so the multiplayer mode flows nicely.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles remains an excellent multi-player romp, but in single player, it’s merely a diluted example of the other games in the series.