Review: Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon
Playing Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Donjon is rather like biting into a piece of sugary candy to key out there's in reality a bit of chewy steak hidden at bottom; you're likely to get into the spirited expecting unitary kind of experience entirely to fetch up with something completely different altogether.
At a glance, it seems the hyper-cutesy trappings and bubbly personality oozing from all pore of Square Enix's third venture along the Wii virtually guarantees it will Be dismissed by a large swath of gamers who mistake it as a style for younger audiences. After all, almost every facet of Chocobo's Keep is covered syrupy, odoriferous cuteness. The game's playful, lighthearted nature and easy-to-grasp gameplay are certainly accessible to a broader audience, merely delving past the best few layers of cushiness reveals a surprisingly challenging dungeon crawling RPG dangerous undertaking.
While hunting for treasure, Chocobo and his human companion Criminal Investigation Command accidentally ascertain themselves teleported to the settlement of Lost Time where the local citizens mysteriously lose their memories all time the bell tower in townsfolk tolls. Some townspeople receive the implemented forgetfulness, however others struggle to regain their recollections of the past. With the arrival of a magical baby – hatched from an egg that falls from the sky, of all places – Chocobo gains the great power to journey into the minds of Lost Time's residents (these psychological jaunts serve as the game's dungeons) to find their missing memories. Layers of the secret plan begin to unfurl as you supporte to a greater extent of the town remember.
At that place are a few moments when the presentation reaches a nauseating pitch – chiefly ascribable cheesy voice acting and occasionally dull, oversimplified dialog – but the secret plan is otherwise compelling and really quite an good. It's easily happening par with much of the high-remnant storytelling featured elsewhere in the Final Fantasy series, though it's diluted a number for the kiddos.
A simple, No-frills control strategy also works well with the game's general ease of use. Support for the standard controller is rewarding, but the D-pad and buttons setup of the Wii Distant (held either sideways or upright, depending on personal preference) does the magic trick nicely. In the latter case, limited movement control is actually implemented in a delicate and reusable way; a docile escape fro of the Wii Outside at the inventory screen door mechanically sorts all of your items. Superb.
Exploring the lushly detailed environments of Hopeless Time and the rubber farmland just on the far side the reaching of the bell's sonority is dulcet decent, and chatting up the cast of oddball characters ISN't overly tedious. The malign town Vanessa Bell always seems to have a bent for ringing just when the person you're conversing with is about to reveal some crucial tidbit of information, causing them to forget their words in mid-sentence. This signals an chance for Chocobo to go spelunking in the dark temporal goo of their psyche to unearth the appropriate storage. Locating these stolen memories is the key to advancing the storyline, unlocking classical job classes, and opening up other opportunities for geographic expedition in the game.
The gameplay takes a dynamic turn, once you start jumping into peoples' heads. Ordered out in a serial publication of randomly generated, multi-story gridiron environments, dungeons are turn-based affairs where every activeness you take advances the entire floor away a single turn – in Roguelike forge. Each step gradually replenishes your wellness and trick, but information technology also gives the wandering denizens an opportunity to move around or take a swipe if you venture close enough to get their attention.
Fighting boils down to trading blows with your adversaries and using magic or special abilities to improve your advantage whenever possible. Monsters typically wander in a hardened pattern or prevarication in ambush until you approach. Get too close and they'll take to a higher degree a passing interestingness in your feathery hide. Fair-minded like when you're exploring, each movement OR action you take gives early nearby creatures an opportunity to react. This allows some other wandering beasts to take notice and jump out into the fray, making for some now and then delirious encounters where you'll end up surrounded on altogether sides. Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities to discover items and hone equipment to aid in handling tougher encounters down the pipeline.
Surviving long sufficient to advancement through and through the deeper dungeons and note the bosses later in the game requires use of special abilities gained from leveling-up numerous job classes unclothed end-to-end the adventure. Secondhand-school Final Fantasy classes care the horse, white mage, black mage, and ninja are among a handful of other jobs Chocobo fundament admit by donning an lovable costume at the get of each donjon.
Soon after the story picks high, the dungeons increase in size and become much tougher to complete. Additionally to taking out monsters and dodging traps, you'll follow continually searching for the stairway to the next flooring. Tracking Chocobo's hunger meter also adds other level of complexity, since you'll begin to take scathe with every step, if you jeopardize for too long without a snack. Successfully navigating their depths becomes a very affected appendage requiring strategy and a careful approach. The sure increase in difficulty as time progresses doesn't grind the gameplay to a lame, but you'll find a lowercase extra clip expended leveling-up goes a long fashio.
Chocobo's Dungeon proves appearances can be quite deceiving. Despite its extremely kid-favorable exterior, the game has a lot of depth. IT strikes a decent equipoise between pouring on the charm and oblation a long and challenging RPG adventure. Regardless of whether you favor one end of the spectrum terminated the other, there's some good middle ground to be explored here.
Bottom Line: Look on the far side the curtain, and you'll find Chocobo's Dungeon is a far more than a kids' gimpy. It's one of the better RPGs available on the Wii and a white starting manoeuver to get into the donjon crawling literary genre.
Recommendation: Try it. Cute and cuddly isn't forever secret code for "crap."
Nathan Meunier is a robot made of meat. He's likewise a freelance writer with an unhealthy video game obsession.
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/review-final-fantasy-fables-chocobos-dungeon/
Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/review-final-fantasy-fables-chocobos-dungeon/