Chocobos and card battles and minigames, oh my!
You see, as the story opens, you’re a carefree young chocobo, frolicking with your even more carefree chocobo friends, ready for a nice bedtime story, when a friend arrives with an odd book (he looks a lot like a black mage, and casts spells like one too !), that just happens to have a blinking eye on the cover. Well if you’ve seen the movie “Hocus Pocus”, you know that strange books with blinking eyes on the covers usually aren’t good news. In true villainous book fashion, he (the evil spirit of the book), slowly sucks in all your buddies and takes off, and he’s not alone. He has a helper, of sorts, an evil girl (who looks a lot like the twin sister of one of your chocobo’s friends, only hotter) and her army of evil chocobos.
So off you go to save your friends, but here’s the twist. You have to jump into other pop up books lying around, which takes you into a minigame. A lot of these minigames are based on Grimm’s not so grim fairy tales, (such as The Adamantoise and the Cactuar and the Boy Who Cried Leviathan) with a Final Fantasy-esque flavor. There are a number of goals in each book to aim for, each successful goal that you reach nets you a different reward, either a friend of yours is released and popped back on the farm, you win a nifty trading card, or an obstacle in the world is destroyed, or a path is created to a new area.
Some of these trading cards you can find lying around in plain sight, but most you have to win through minigame play. Typically, the harder the goal is to reach, the rarer the card you’ll receive (from 1 to 3 stars!). Each card features a nice picture of a final fantasy critter or summons, four colored “zones” which can be blank, have a sword or a shield in them. Cards also have different colors and can be used to harm your opponent’s status, by burning, poisoning, freezing, etc. When you play a card, its nice to see Shiva and Ifrit, or Carbuncle, somewhat miniaturized and cute-ified (yay I made up a word!), and ready to perform their attacks. If you’re an avid Final Fantasy player, you’ll recognize most of the cards and probably even their moves from previous games.
Boss battles are handled as card battles, known in the game as pop up duels (“Pop in to Pop Up Video!”). Ah the duel….from the dawn of time, man has yearned to destroy his fellow man in violent card games. Even the Ancient Greeks enjoyed a friendly card battle now and then. (“My Prometheus card gives me bonus fire damage!” “My Plato card lets me sit back and reflect on your attack in the context of the larger universe!” ….. …..”How long do I have to sit here???”).
There’s also an online mode, where you can jump online and take on other virtual chocobos out there in a pop up duel or two, though if you haven’t progressed very far in the story mode, you wont have the cards that a lot of players you face online may have, which is, of course, unfair (curse you Square! Making me play through the game!).
Graphically, the game is awash with bright, vivid colors. From the lush greenery on the chocobo farm to the lovely oceans, to the red hot lava flowing down Mt Magma (just like at home), though they wont win any awards, they are cute, and fit the game perfectly.
The music, likewise, fits the game perfectly. It ranges from soothing, as in the underwater stages, to painfully upbeat and cheery in parts of the overworld (you could play this at a funeral and end up in the casket with the deceased).
The controls in the game are very simple. You simply tap your stylus where you want your feathered friend to go, and drag and off you go. Controls in minigames vary, but they’re usually pretty easy to figure out.
The game isn’t without its flaws though, unfortunately. The main game itself, is quite short, lasting only from 10-20 hours, more of course if you insist on finding every card/conquering every minigame, etc. Many of the minigames are frustratingly difficult, though if you don’t mind putting in the time to learn them, they can all be patiently worked though. Also if you aren’t into minigames or card battling, (or chocobos) you may be a bit turned off. The pop up duels are a little weak, as well, as a successful attack or block, is merely a lucky play of a card, if your card’s sword icon is in the same place as the opponent’s shield icon, it’s a block, if two swords collide, its half damage. Since you don’t know the cards your opponent can play (only their colors), a lot of times, it seems more like luck than anything else, getting an attack through, or blocking an attack.
In the end, if you’re looking for a fun, minigame filled, chocobo laden game, with relatively light card battling elements, you could do a lot worse (especially if you happen to find another minigame filled, light card battling game with tons of chocobos). Its not Magic: The Gathering, or even Pokemon: The Trading Card Game, by any means, but what it is, simply, is a lot of fun.