Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Great Final Fantasy Games That Still Need to Come to PC
In 2003, it was time for GameCube owners to rejoice; a Final Fantasy game was once again releasing for a Nintendo console! It wasn’t quite the juggernaut that Final Fantasy X was, which released around the same time exclusively for the PS2, but it was a neat little game in its own right.
Crystal Chronicles was the first Final Fantasy RPG to feature true 4-player mutliplayer where all players could play at the same time. It was an action RPG where you travel the world in a crystal caravan collecting myrrh to stop the oncoming threat of the miasma. It played like a Zelda game in some ways, where the games’ levels felt a bit like dungeons.
Crystal Chronicles was interesting for how it used the GameCube’s Game Boy Advance to GameCube functionality. In order to play multiplayer, each player had to connect a Game Boy Advance system to the GameCube’s controller port via a Game Boy Advance to GameCube link cable. This allowed players to navigate menus on their GBA screen without interrupting the action on the TV. While this was a pretty cool idea, you had to have access to quite a lot of hardware in order to play with your friends. If the game was on a PC, instead of using the cumbersome setup of a the GameCube version, it could simply incorporate an online mode. That way each player has their own screen, and won’t get in the way of their friends when they have to bring a menu up. This would make it a much more accessible game in today’s gaming climate.
