Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition Reviews
While the most dedicated players will find a game containing dozens of hours of grinding and challenge to overcome, most are likely to encounter repetitive and simplistic gameplay with no major story to reward their endeavoring. Many will no doubt find the final main game dungeon to be too great an obstacle to overcome. Without nostalgia to buoy its lackluster gameplay loop and online functionality, Crystal Chronicles is one caravan ride you may want to skip.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is a fun experience, although its transition to the current generation has been fraught with problems. Its history and combat are simple but pleasant, but the remastering is not the most impressive and multiplayer suffers from a series of confused and unnecessary ideas that limit what can be taken from it.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is the sort of game that you play to wind down with after a long day. It's not very demanding or challenging yet the adventures within remain memorable, charming, and ultimately rewarding.
Though its online-only approach is a bummer, Crystal Chronicles delivers a charming and content-rich dungeon crawl for veterans and newcomers alike.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Remastered Edition feels like a squandered opportunity. The game has seen a number of delays over the last year, but it doesn't feel like Square Enix utilized that time to improve the game over its predecessor. The voice work is rough, the controls are frustrating, load times are laughable, and the lack of couch co-op is glaring. The game's music and overall presentation are great and multiplayer is still fun after all these years, but it's hard to recommend the game when it feels like such a step back.
Though Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles was released to relatively positive reviews 17 years ago, the game has not aged well. The quest of a caravan of crystal bearers to refill their crystal’s power and protect their homes from a deadly miasma, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered fails due to problems that existed in the original title, as well as flaws in this remastered edition.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered is a better take on the GameCube classic from 2003. The game does a few things better, like the multiplayer. Still, there are enough obstacles for the game to be really fun. The chalice restrains you from moving freely and the multiplayer still feels outdated. In terms of graphics, there were steps taken but the game still looks like an old game, only in HD. For fans, this is a must by because of the new things added, but newcomers better skip this caravan.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
And while I don’t think Square Enix necessarily flopped, I think they faltered where it mattered most, and that comes at a cost.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered presents players with an enjoyably short yet not overtly memorable single player experience with enough restrictions and issues to multiplayer matchmaking that only the most dedicated of fans will want to overcome.
It cannot be denied that Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered has a repetitive and monotonous gameplay, but it knows how to make up for it with a fairly effective reward and progression system that keeps us playing. The multiplayer mode, while fun, has several optimization and matchmaking problems that make the experience not as pleasant as it could be. Even so, a highly recommended game.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
In theory, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered should be a win for Square Enix. In execution, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles stumbles to tell a story worth revisiting.
It's nice to see they've rescued a beloved game like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles from the old GameCube and playing it again back. By itself it is a very enjoyable game with many graphic improvements, despite the slight bad use of antialising, and with a great soundtrack. The biggest problem is that the mechanics are a very outdated, which can take its toll on with a poorly implemented multiplayer system.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Disappointed. That feeling sums up well what I felt with a game that could finally present an experience better adapted to the current systems. Whoever had the opportunity to play the original on the GameCube and looked forward to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition to have an improved experience, sorry but, being very sincere, you will not have a good time. The game remains a charismatic and cute adventura, but several things get in the way, resulting in a dungeon crawler that is difficult to play with friends.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition offers an entertaining adventuring experience that can be enjoyed when played solo or with friends – it’s just a shame that the process of playing online with others is so finicky in design. Boy, did it make me miss the glory days of being able to play in local multiplayer, even IF the free ‘Lite’ edition of the game is a delight. If you can look past that though, you really are in for a fun time with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition. It can be guilty of keeping its gameplay mechanics feeling simple in design, but there’s something so charming about its adventure that it’s easy to find yourself completely hooked in, especially if you’re already a fan of Final Fantasy. Add three friends into the mix and you’ll quickly find that it offers something a bit special…. just make sure you’ve got the patience to keep setting up online dungeon runs.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition is a gimmick game without the gimmick.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered is an overall disappointing re-release that keeps both the original game’s charm and faults intact.
There are better Final Fantasy remasters and remakes on all the platforms this is out on, and your time would be better spent with any of them.
When Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles first came out, it felt like a new way to experience Final Fantasy's magic but after almost two decades, all its new ideas feel archaic and mostly not fun. The overall visual design and the music still feels great but this Remastered Edition needed more changes in the gameplay department to renew all those old feelings.
Review in Persian | Read full review
The biggest offender is the fact that for a game designed to be played as a multiplayer experience, the multiplayer is absolutely dreadful. There’s no reason for it be as complicated to set up as it is, not to mention the fact that all players don’t progress their story unless they’re the host. This is a Final Fantasy game in name only and does not live up to the fond memories my nostalgia created.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is just one of those games from the era where you either have a good time with it or you just don't have a good time at all. For recurring players of the original who knows what they're getting into, they will likely enjoy it. However, they very well may end up disappointed as there is no offline multiplayer and online multiplayer seems convoluted and archaic probably not worth the hassle. Even if we had all the offline and online modes created as wonderfully smooth experiences, the core gameplay didn't get the quality of life improvements it very much needed to have. Check out what others have to say about it, maybe get some friends who are on board with playing, and it could provide a decent time worth the number of hassles.