Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

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 could go on for a while as to why Crystal Chronicles was not a very good game, but emblematic of its issues is the simple fact that one player in this multiplayer game (the crystal carrier) doesn't get to play. Not only was this a giant pain in the ass to even make work back in the day (hope your friends have GBAs), you had to goad someone into carrying that damn crystal, which was near impossible unless one of your friends was a total sap. The few who actually managed to play this with their friends quickly realized they weren't going very far with such a restrictive and miserable mechanic. Single player is incredibly dull, and the remake cuts local co-op for online (which, if you thought it was hard to get your friends to carry the crystal, good luck convincing strangers without so much as a communication option). CC just doesn't really work, which is unfortunate. I want desperate for these co-op JRPGs to be good, but CC is another example of one bent on making it as difficult as possible for everyone to have fun.