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Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is a case study in overcoming adversity. Born from the chaos of Square Enix's merger and Nintendo's brief obsession with inter-console connectivity, this multiplayer-focused title launched to critical acclaim in 2004, at the height of the Gamecube's popularity. Not since the days of the SNES had Nintendo fans had a notable JRPG to call their own, an absence which Crystal Chronicles was perfectly poised to capitalise on.Announced in the wake of Final Fantasy 10, it rapidly became apparent that developer The Game Designers Studio - one of Square's internal teams, rebranded in an act of corporate sleight-of-hand to circumvent the ongoing exclusivity deal with Sony - intended this to be a very different game to the Final Fantasies which had come before. Rather than a story-led adventure full of hyperbolic pre-rendered cutscenes, Crystal Chronicles offers a series of communal expeditions best experienced with friends, while Kumi Tanioka's haunting soundtrack of lutes and crumhorns is a world away from Nobuo Uematsu's soaring orchestration.
Yet perhaps the greatest deviation from expectation is the beautiful, hostile desolation waiting to be explored. Crystal Chronicles' world lies beneath a dense cloak of choking, toxic fog, an omnipresent threat which has reduced once-great civilisations to scattered hamlets clustered within the cleansing glow of gleaming crystal fragments. The crystals' power wanes with the passing of the seasons, the continuation of daily life reliant on the sap of an exceedingly rare tree retrieved by caravans of adventurers huddled beneath their own tiny crystal shard.
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