I loved Final Fantasy Fables on the DS. I don’t know how many hours I spent on that trying to get all the cards, dueling anything I could and trying to beat all those little mini-games for even more cards!
Before playing Chocobo’s Dungeon, I hadn’t read much about it, but at least I was counting on dungeon crawling and more Pop-Up Duel fun. It did get a bit more complex than that, though.
The story of Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon revolves around the folks of the strange town of Lostime. Our protagonists, Cid and Chocobo, have been transported here from another universe, and Cid is now suffering from memory loss, just like every other villager in this town. Every time the bell sounds, people lose another memory, but they strongly believe that forgetting is the key to happiness.
Out of nowhere, a strange egg falls out of the sky. From the egg, a little baby hatches. Rafaello has the power to enter and find people’s lost memories, and that’s where Chocobo comes in. The little yellow bird is the hero, as he dives into the unknown vortexes above people’s heads to find and retrieve their memories, and with them, Rafaello.
The dungeons are randomly generated every time you enter them, but they follow a pre-set pattern of rooms, corridors, monsters, traps and stairs. You must progress through the floors to the lowest part of the dungeon, where usually a boss fight awaits, and only after beating it you can recover the missing memories.
The gameplay is actually similar to that of Izuna 2, which I played very recently. For every action Chocobo takes, so do the monsters, so there’s always a bit of strategy for positioning and being the first to attack. For example, you don’t want to find yourself surrounded, but instead retreat into a hallway so that you only have to fight one enemy at a time. You can use diagonal movement to your advantage as well.
You have normal attacks but also more powerful special abilities, which use SP. You also gain experience and job points, so you can change jobs just like in Final Fantasy Tactics. Your Chocobo’s special abilities change according to the job you choose.
The dungeon floors are ridden with traps, which we can’t see until we step on them, unless you’d rather move around square by square, kicking the air to reveal them. But danger also lies in unknown equipment, since it may be cursed. You need to identify objects to know their properties, or lift the curse if you happen to equip one of them. In some spots you will find healing circles, which restore your health, and monsters can drop potions. You must also pay attention to the Chocobo’s hunger, which is shown by a percentage on the top right corner of the screen. It resets every time you get out of the dungeon (either by completing, dying or escaping), but if you stay in for too long you will want to feed Chocobo some Gihsal Greens.
If you happen to die in a dungeon, only the items you have equipped will be with you, so deposit your extra items and Gil in the bank before you go out on your next hunt for someone’s precious memories.
In special dungeons (shrines), there will be a set of rules which will make your progress even more difficult… but these are the challenges you must face to obtain a new job or ability. From no items allowed to having only a single HP, you might find yourself dying over and over while trying to complete these challenges.
When you’re not dungeon-crawling, you can go fishing or plant seeds at the farm, play some arcade games or engage in Wi-Fi Pop-Up Card Duels. Yes, Wi-Fi. You can connect and play against random users, but if you want to play with someone you know you must add those very long Wii friend codes first.
The presentation in Chocobo Dungeon is very colorful and cute. Although the textures in the dungeons repeat themselves a lot, everywhere else is detailed and bright. However, you will notice that objects, people and buildings in the distance will look out of focus until you reach that particular area.
Familiar music can be found throughout the game, setting the mood from a serious or ominous tone to a cheery tune. There is plenty of voice acting as well, which we don’t see much of in Wii games. Unfortunately, it suffers from that exagerated over-the-top anime style, which makes the simplistic dialogs seem awkward and a bit ridiculous.
Overall, and basically voice over-acting aside, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon’s cuteness may actually turn some people off, but be assured that there is a very cool story and plenty of interesting gameplay under the childish appearance.
Special thanks to Klee Kuo and Square Enix for providing a copy of this title.
