[Folcon]

I mentioned last night that this game is finally out and available exclusively for download to the Nintendo Wii and that I was going to play it and give my opinion on the game. Well, here goes. (Warning! Possible spoilers, but probably not.)

After over eight hours of game play, and zero sleep all night, I find this game to be fairly fun. It takes place a few years after the Miasma is dispelled and you, as a young king, return to your father's homeland to try and rebuild your kingdom. In the middle of the town is a massive crystal that says its been waiting for you and bestows the power to rebuild the kingdom. And right away you are to build some homes. Afterwords, you learn about needing a special material to continue building stuff that can only be obtained in the dungeons. Being king, you can't go, but one of the returned citizens volunteers, and thus, you get your first warrior. And the game pretty much goes from there with new dungeons opening up as current ones are explored. Most new buildings are unlocked through beating the dungeons bosses.

One downside to this game is that you don't participate in combat, instead sending your Adventurers out to battle monsters, which can leave thing s a little monotonous. But your other duties as king do compensate for the lack of action. Other cons are that the sound effects can get a little annoying after a while. The most frequent sound effect being when you hit the A button in menus, it sounds like a high pitched dog yapping to me. Another downside is that, at least at the point I'm at now, you can't build homes for the other three races of FFCC without downloading the content for 300 points a race or 800 for all three.

Middle ground stuff: Most of the main story is told through cut-scenes, but they lack voice acting other then basic sound effects like the weird sound that I cant describe that the Moogles make. For those that don't like a character that never actually says anything, you might not like this game, but then, your character's facial expressions and, I guess antics or childish behavior would be the word, make up for it. Although your character never says anything in text, his face and body language clearly express but he is saying. You'll see what I mean when the penguin shows up the second or third time. Also, any additional content you download will be available to all saved games from the next time you start up the system.

Upsides stuff: The music in this game is very nice imo, and I really like it. It's clear and crisp and flows very well. Also, so far the story is very good, although I'm only in chapter three atm. And the characters are rendered very well in the cute FFCC fashion. And you also have fairly free reign in how your build your kingdom from the list of unlocked buildings.

So far I would rate this game at 8.5/10.

At 1500 points for the basic game without the extras, this game comes at a good price, and being able to rebuild the city how you see fit from the available buildings allows for greater replay value as you learn where better shop and home placement boosts efficiency. This game also can be played with any of the four controller configurations, and after trying three, I find the classic controller the easiest to use if you want to have camera control as well.

That's really about all I have to say right now. I might extend or modify this review after I've played the game more.

[Laharl]

is this a new game in the series?

just when i thought SQEX where getting it together.....

[Zeypher]

I downloaded this yesterday, along with some DLC. It's actually a really awesome game.