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Editor’s note: William takes a look at the Japanese version of the upcoming Final Fantasy: The Crystal Bearers. William compares it — and not in a good way — to Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. How do you feel about games that are more cut-scene than action? -Jason
If you hated Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, you are going to hate Final Fantasy: The Crystal Bearers, at least from what I’ve played so far.
Over two-thirds of the hour that I’ve spent with the game is cut-scenes. Cut-scene after cut-scene after cut-scene.
The good news is that everything that you’ve already seen about the game is in those 40 or so minutes, so the trailers haven’t spoiled much.
Since the game was in Japanese, I could only make out bits and pieces of the story, but from what I could pick up, you play as Layle, an escort for some female photographer (a reporter?) who secretly happens to have superpowers, which in this game is called being a “Crystal Bearer.”
At the beginning, you’re flying your small airship, escorting a really big airship that behaves more like a boat than a flying vessel. The design’s very neat and reminds me of Treasure Planet (an excellent movie).
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a flight of dragons appear and start attacking the airship! So you naturally jump out of your craft and skydive down to the larger airship!
In this segment, you use your Wii Remote as a huge gun, shooting at the attacking dragons. It’s a long fall — it lasts 2 minutes, and you lose your gun halfway. You try to use your powers to retrieve it and shoot it remotely. Although it’s very exciting, all you’re doing is just shooting.
A cut-scene pops up in which you meet the captain and the reporter, all next to the corpse of a dragon killed in the earlier battle. Suddenly, the villain appears, says some lines, and starts doing some really creepy things to the ship (with creepy sound effects). The result of his evil doings? The ship’s engines fail.
Layle attacks the villain in a really cool but frustrating fight scene (you don’t control it), but Layle’s attacks have no effect — his fist even goes through the villain’s belly and out the other side! The villain dissappears, leaving the ship in free fall.
The characters then head to the cockpit, and you take control of Layle for the second time in 10 minutes, this time keeping the ship from crashing. You use the Nunchuk to make the ship go left or right, avoiding the canyon walls and falling rocks. It’s accompanied by hilarious screaming from your reporter friend.
It’s also an awesome sequence, with a John Williams-style score. But again, the action’s limited — you’re just moving left and right.
You end up crashing through a building landing in the city. People and officials gather around, and you and the crew gets down without a scratch. The people yell at you for a little bit, and you’re let loose into the city.
You’re finally in the game.
As for the gameplay, think of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed without lightsabers. You can pick up anything and make that object interact with anything else, be it a flower, a person, or a huge boulder. It’s pretty fun. I enjoyed letting loose a huge number of boulders on top of the townspeople and then picking the rocks up. The townsfolk seemed happy.
Your reporter friend (who I guess is your main love interest) walks through the city, and you must keep track of her. You also meet new characters and get on a train and see a glimpse of the rest of the city (and play around with the controls to make people in the train bounce around). A cat steals your Crystal, which is how people realize you’re a Crystal Bearer. You grab the reporter and jump out of a window.
You’re then in another chase — this time on a Chocobo, with a bunch of officials chasing you on their Chocobos. You use your “force” powers to pick up enemy riders and throw them off the trail or at other riders and breaking stuff along the way, causing objects to detour the riders or fall on top of them. It’s exciting and hilarious. But again, your actions are limited: You’re only using the Wiimote as a pointer.
The chase ends, with your Chocobo (and you and her) falling down a deep ravine. Another cut-scene follows. In this scene, the romantic interest builds between you and the reporter as you find your way out of the ravine.
You traverse a narrow cave, picking up treasure chests and other items along the way. At the end of the tunnel, you find the immense ruins of a lost city (that’s what I think it is; it could be the underside of your city). In the ruins you find the villain doing creepy stuff again, leading up to another cut-scene fight.
That’s as far as I got. I’m an hour to the game, and I have no idea how the main gameplay is like, since it was cut-scene after cut-scene. It reminds me of another game that was like this, and I didn’t like it: MGS4.
This (and MGS4) seem to be amazing movies — they’re very entertaining, with great action pieces and orchestral music. But I spent most of the time not even touching the controller.
Like the Ratchet and Clank: Future series, the cut-scenes’ visuals are fantastic. Some places in the game, like the train station, rival Super Mario Galaxy’s visuals.
But other times, mostly due to the camera, the graphics seem bland and empty. The animations, while crisp in the cut-scenes, are rigid and robotic during gameplay — the same problem I had with Ratchet and Clank: Future.
So far, The Crystal Bearers is a great movie but not enough game. I’ll wait for reviews before I buy a copy.