For years, the Wii has been criticized as the low man on the technological totem pole.
Yeah, it couldn't push graphics
like the 360 or the PS3 could, but it had... um... it could point at things. So when Square-Enix
essentially built a DS
emulator for the Wii and considered it a retail release, not that many people were shocked.
Let's be absolutely frank.
This is a DS game that they just jury-rigged to work with the Wii's motion controls - vis
a digital finger capable of
acting upon a virtual DS Touchscreen, which is fighting with the main screen for real
estate on your TV... and if that
sounds ridiculous and almost laughable, you're absolutely right.
If you've seen FFCC Ring of Fates - the previous DS Crystal Chronicles offering - the gameplay's
going to look almost
identical... because it is pretty much identical. However, the story's significantly less saccharine
and there aren't
any egregious verbal tics that make you want to punch a wall, so technically they've managed
to address my primary
issues with that game. Instead, the hero of your choice, shortly after their coming-of-age-ceremony
(which, in true
Final Fantasy fashion, involves a huge honkin' crystal) is tasked with travelling outside
the village to find medicine
for a sick girl. Unfortunately, this finds our hero indebted to a creepy dude with a
bad Germanic accent, which
immediately sends up red flags. It's not gonna win any awards for writing, but it is going
to serve as a decent
backbone to that fantastic DS FF CC gameplay.
Building on the system left by its predecessor, Echoes of Time puts the familiar Final Fantasy
cast of monsters and
such in a ¾ overhead-view action RPG, kinda like Diablo with more interesting hair colors.
Whether you're on the DS or
the Wii, your primary concerns are running around, casting, picking up things, collecting
materials for new items and
such, picking up mobs and beating their heads into walls, the usual spiel. However, this
Wii version suffers from one
particularly egregious problem: if you don't mean to be pointing at something on the touchscreen
area - which you
don't really have occasion to do that often, outside of switching which spell to cast - don't
have the controller
pointing ANYWHERE near the screen. Accidentally drift the cursor up there for whatever reason,
and your A button goes
from "attack" to "poke whatever the finger's pointing at," which really sucks for the kind
of active battles you tend
to get into here.
But aside from the Wii's shortcomings, the game itself functions commendably, even when
you're juggling an entire
party what you've hired to take the heat off your own self. Or, if you actually HAVE friends,
you can bring 'em in via
Multiplayer, even across platforms. That's right, Wii-DS connectivity is a thing that
still exists, as Echoes of Time
joins the ranks of Pokémon Battle Revolution and... um... well, I struggle to think of
a third. Y'know what? Just cast
this Wii version and its weird two-window style off into space and play the DS version,
which gives you all the action
and entertainment, but without the control issues or glaring reassertion that the Wii's
maybe not the greatest
graphical powerhouse on the block.