I mentioned that I had started Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time earlier. Well I didn’t get very far before I quit, just about two or three hours into it. I was on Fire Mountain, for those of you familiar with the game.

Why did I quit?

1. Action RPGs are usually not my thing. When I do play them, I like them to be simple affairs like Rune Factory. The minute I start having to think and plan, I get stressed out and frustrated. FFCC:ET was easy enough that I didn’t get wiped out even once, but it was no fun at all.

2. Magic was next to unusable. First you have to select a particular type of magic on the bottom screen, then press a button and align the circle with the enemy, then let go to cast the magic. What if the enemy won’t stay still? What about all the other enemies whaling away at you at the same time? So it’s much faster to just hack away at random.

3. Your allies are confusing and just get in the way. Jumping all over the place like jackrabbits, falling in the water at random, failing to come to your rescue when you need them the most, doing the same thing over and over regardless of which AI strategy you pick, etc, etc. When I tried to pick stuff up, I’d end up picking them up instead. Sometimes enemy drops would end up on their heads and they’d run all over the room with them. Not to mention your allies are characters you create, so they have no personality or relevance to the story at all. I have no idea why they are with you, unless the final boss sent them to sabotage you. I considered ditching them all, but I didn’t have the confidence to go it alone.

4. Story? What story? It’s been a bunch of fetch quests and dungeon crawls so far. This is my first Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles game (apart from My Life as a King), so maybe that’s how they all play out. I don’t know, but I don’t like it. I like it even less when the main character has a dream about an evil character, then meets said evil character, then proceeds to do his bidding without stopping to look at the huge, flashing signs saying “VILLAIN ALERT!” “VILLAIN ALERT!” “VILLAIN ALERT!”

5. I hate the dungeon puzzles. In fact, I hate dungeon puzzles in general, especially ones that involve any form of running or jumping or platforming. This is why I can only love Zelda games from afar, i.e. I get other people to play them while I watch. There were all those crate puzzles and block puzzles and set-this-pot-on-fire puzzles in this game, all the things I hate in one convenient package. It’s a wonder I even got as far as Fire Mountain.

6. I don’t know whether it’s an FFCC:ET flaw, or whether it’s more of me just sucking, but the camera is impossible. I kept falling into holes and crevasses because I couldn’t see properly and the camera wouldn’t let me change the view to a more amenable one.

7. The game world is bland and insipid. I was attracted by the cute characters, but once I got in there, it had no content. One village, one city, massive wasteland and no room for new cities as far as I could see. Having the NPCs change their lines from time to time was a nice touch, but they didn’t have anything interesting to say to begin with, so it makes no difference. Plus you can’t enter their houses and plunder their goods either. What, you don’t trust me? I’m hurt. 🙁

8. The quests suck, plain and simple.

9. I couldn’t get the hang of the armor and weapon system. Let’s see, you buy them, then you equip them for a while, then they level up, then you take them off and turn them into jewels and equip those jewels on your new weapons and armor and repeat the whole process. It sounded complicated and off-putting. Don’t fiddle with the basics too much.

10.You can’t save at any time. There isn’t even a Quick Save function. Once you enter a dungeon, you have to keep going until you’re right before the boss. If you have to save, then you have to go back to town and do so. When you come back, you have to do aalllll those puzzles all over again. That’s close to a dealbreaker for me. I do most of my gaming late at night before bed, and sometimes I get really sleepy. If you won’t let me save anywhere, then either keep my progress in the dungeon or dole out the save points more generously.

In short, it just wasn’t my kind of game. I’m just glad I didn’t end up wasting more time on a game I wouldn’t have liked anyway.