If Square-Enix knows how to do anything, it’s how to milk a cash cow. To beat a dead horse (what’s with all the animal references?). . . it’s a Final Fantasy, isn’t it? How come we’re now up to twelve playable titles in the main game series with oodles of spin-off games to boot then?
I’m not complaining, just making a point. When you crank out this many titles, they aren’t all going to be blockbusters. In my opinion, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales is one of those titles that just misses the mark. I know I’m not alone in this opinion, but it also surprises me when I go online and see people saying it’s one of the best games on the DS. Even beyond that review, the big boys in the review industry seem to disagree pretty wildly.
The game is, first and foremost, another reason for people who hate the “gimmiky” stylus to stand up and talk smack. Now, I don’t think the stylus implementation is bad. It’s actually fairly well-done throughout the game. The issue stems from the fact that the game is almost entirely made up of mini- and micro-games. I’m not kidding here either, in-game they even reference the different categories once you have the ability to warp between storybooks (we’ll get to that in a minute). Do you want to play minigames, or do you want to play microgames? “Huh??”
Long pointless story short, a bad guy whose spirit was trapped in a book is trying to resurrect himself with the help of his cronies, and in the process has made lots of storybooks (think “Tortoise & the Hare”, “Jack and the Beanstalk”, and even “Ugly Duckling”, to use three examples from FFF:CT) come to life where you, as the title character chocobo, must go into the storybooks and play minigames in order to trigger events out in the real world. No, seriously. And again, this honestly isn’t a bad thing for the most part. The problem lies with the minigames that completely suck which are unfortunately required to continue with the main story. Why do I want to subject myself to a poorly-conceived minigame over and over again simply because I have to?
The microgames are small games you can run across in the game, which ultimately have simple Silver and Gold rank scores you can try to achieve in order to earn Pop-Up Duel cards. The initial few are easy, but some would require either the right type of gamer or a lot of practice to achieve the Gold ranks. Completionists beware.
And what the heck is a Pop-Up Duel card? This is where the Chocobo Tales really starts to fall apart. While it’s not enough to be an ultra-lite RPG, if it can even be called an RPG at all, it also tries to become some sort of Pokémon/Yu-Gi-Oh! weird CCG hybrid game as well. You can collect cards throughout the game, which as you progress you learn are useful in building decks to compete against other people in the game. Again, this on its own would not necessarily be a bad thing if the game actually stressed this part of the gameplay more. Instead you’re forced to compete in Pop-Up Duels when you get to major boss battles in the game, and rarely else save the occasional mini-boss. (I’ll just say now, the frequency may change as you get further in the game but I dropped the title after the 2nd crystal.) So what happens because of that fact is you get no real experience playing Pop-Up Duels, but are expected to know your cards and be good at Pop-Up Duels when the time comes. And of course, what’s the only way to get better cards? Play more minigames and microgames! Oh, and have the rare occasion that you just happen to stumble across one lying in the middle of the road. But those are “commons” and the better cards all require beating the harder difficulty of minigame goals, or achieving the Gold rankings in the microgames.
Perhaps the worst part of the Pop-Up Duels is that they really boil down to a glorified game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. There are 4 colors on each card, and the colored circles may be blank, have a sword, or have a shield. Sword means that card attacks on that color, shield means it defends on that color. Each round in the duel, you and your opponent choose one of the three cards in your hand to play against the other person: match up the colored symbols and see if your attack is successful or is defended against, and vice-versa. If your attack is successful, there are also other effects on the cards which may come into play as well.
If Square-Enix’s CCG actually had any real enjoyability to it, FFF:CT may have survived a little better in my opinion. If I cared about the card battles, if I cared about more of the microgames, if the minigames didn’t sometimes get in the way of my enjoyment due to poor design. . . all of the tiny little quirks add up to a single frustrating, unfulfilling game experience. I’ll leave you with the quote from the 1UP.com review that MetaCritic felt was the best summarization of their opinion, as it is one that I agree with 100%.
Its parts are largely equal, which only leads to confusion. What becomes most important: building card decks, or mastering the minigames? Or, in the big picture, do you buy this game to play minigames or go on a chocobo adventure? There are simply too many things vying for your attention, and more than likely, none of them will get much of it.
