http://wii.ign.com/articles/972/972988p1.htmlquote IGN
That Crystal Bearers official site has been seeing a steady flow of updates, but for the real goods, we must turn to Famitsu. Japan's "gaming bible" offers the first real look at the game in its latest issue along with commentary from producer and scenario writer Akitoshi Kawazu and director and character designer Toshiyuki Itahana.
Crystal Bearers takes place in a futuristic Crystal Chronicles world, where swords have changed to guns and knowledge of magic has disappeared. In the past, the Yukes race died off following a war with the Lilties, and the Lilties now make use of crystals to support people.
That self-assured main character who stars in the trailer that's available at the official site is named Layle. A Crystal Bearer of the Clavat race, Layle has the ability to manipulate gravity. His story in Crystal Bearers begins after he's come into contact with a Yukes creature (yes, the same race that is supposed to have been wiped out) named Amidatelion. This creature causes Layle some trouble, and now Layle is seeking him out.
Incidentally, a portion of Layle's cheek has been crystalized (look closely and you can see it!). All Crystal Bearers apparently have had a part of their body turned into crystal form in this way.
Other characters introduced in the magazine include Althea and Jegran. Althea is the blond character shown sitting on the bench in the trailer. She (yes, it's a "she") is the queen of the Lilties Kingdom. Her mother is dead, and her father is sick. Jegran is the head of the Lilties army. He senses danger from both Amidatelion and Layle.
Taking control of Layle, you'll get to use some of the character's neat gravitational abilities via the Wiimote. You use the Wiimote in pointer mode, pointing at objects to target them. The primary use for this appears to be as a means of grabbing demons and then using them for various purposes.
Layle's actions change depending on the type of creature he's grabbed. Sample actions include: tossing demons at other demons, stopping demons in their tracks by flipping them over, and swinging yourself around enemies as an evasion tactic.
If you make Layle grab onto something heavy, like a ceiling lamp for instance, he'll pull himself up like a grappling hook. You can use this to navigate ceilings without touching the ground and also to clear tricky terrain.
In the interview part of the Famitsu feature, Kawazu and Toshiyuki at long last revealed why there was such a wait between Crystal Bearer's announcement and the recent trailer. According to Kawazu, development hadn't actually begun at the time of the original announcement!
Kawazu shared a few details on the game's character building elements. There's no level-up system in the game. Instead, you build your character's abilities by equipping accessories. As an example, he suggested being able to make Layle pick up bigger and more distant objects.
Rather than encountering more powerful beasts as you play, it's better to think that you'll encounter creatures with a greater variety of actions. This is true in town as well, apparently, as people will react to you in various new ways as you advance in the game.
The two hinted at somewhat of a free experience for users. There's no separation between battle and other elements of the game, said Kawazu. It's close to an open world game, he said, although that wasn't really the goal with the project. The actual goal apparently was to produce something that's fun not just to play but to watch as well.
This certainly explains some of those wacky videos that have been appearing at the official site! Crystal Bearers is listed in Famitsu as 60% complete and without a final release date. It looks like those official site videos are the closest we'll come to the game for a while, so enjoy them! http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3173738quote 1up
The last time we heard anything concrete about Square Enix's Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers for the Wii, it was 2007 and everyone in the 1up editorial department was still popping their collars and wearing mood rings and fake gold medallions around the office. Completely true story.
"We didn't have a full development team at the time we announced the game," game producer and scriptwriter Akitoshi Kawazu admitted to Famitsu magazine this week. "We were working on it, and that's why we announced it, but it was a little early to be talking about it. The team also had a very tall order, to build a game where you could interact with everything that exists in the world, so it took time to build the foundation for that."
That last sentence doesn't sound much like the FFCC we know, that light 'n easy multiplayer-oriented action RPG that's taken up residence on all manner of Nintendo platforms. The Crystal Bearers is still a role-playing game, yes, but things are quite a bit different from when we last visited the game's world -- the characters have lost their cute, rotund look for something a bit more realistic and (for lack of a better term) Final Fantasy-like, and the story is much more mature than what you'd expect from a Wii RPG. That's what chronicling the extinction of an entire in-game race will do for you.
The "Crystal Bearers" from the title are talented magic users, lucky (or unlucky, depending on your viewpoint) people who have trace crystal elements imbued in their bodies. Every Crystal Bearer has his or her own unique ability, Layle, the hero of the game, has the power to control spatial gravity -- in other words, he can Force Push stuff around Jedi-style.
Layle was born long after the events of previous FFCC games, and a lot's happened in the between time. Firearms have replaced swords as the preferred weaponry, and the mythical crystals are now harnessed for such banal things as manufacturing and industry instead of fairy-tale miasma smiting and so on. Most shocking: The Yukes, one of FFCC's four traditional races, are a thing of the past, something largely forgotten by this game's timeframe. "There was a clash between mechanical technology and magical force, and this story takes place after that ended," Kawazu explains. "Each race has its own crystal and its own customs related to the crystals, and the clash between these customs finally escalated into all-out war."
As The Crystal Bearers begins, Layle is on a boring escort mission, guarding an enormous new passenger airship on its maiden voyage. The job gets more exciting when it's attacked by an army that turns out to be led by a Yuke named Amidatelion. That's where Layle's true adventure starts, and unlike the FFCCs of the past, the world is largely open to him.
This game makes a point of giving the player a great deal of freedom, even as it retains touches of what makes the series unique. The battles are still action-oriented, and as you'd expect, you can use the Wii Remote to mark out targets and throw them around with your crystal skills as you fight lots of enemies at once. However, unlike previous FFCCs (and most JRPGs, for that matter), there's no demarcation between cities and "the great outdoors." Layle can use all of his skills in town, too, picking up children and using his Force-ish magic to rip the newspapers out of people's hands if he likes. This opens up a very Fable-like element to the game, as Layle's actions in urban areas can either make him the darling sweetheart of the town's ladies or get him kicked out by the city guard -- or both. (The game has none of the multiplayer features of previous FFCCs, as Layle works mostly by himself, but Kawazu hinted that other people can use Wiimotes to help, or hinder, you in unspecified ways as you play the game)
"Part of the original concept was to make a 'touchable' Final Fantasy," notes Toshiyuki Itanaha, the game's director and character designer. "Games up to now were designed to have you fight outdoors and go shopping and talk to people in town, but this project eliminates all of that." The Crystal Bearers still has no release date (Itahana estimated the game to be about 60 percent complete), but if it lives up to its creators' promises, the interminable wait we've dealt with may just be worth it.
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