The new trailer comes with the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time disk in Japan and is the most we've seen of the long-anticipated Square-Enix Wii title.
For some time many people expected that Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: the Crystal Bearers had been quietly cancelled. The single player Wii exclusive RPG had previously only been shown in tiny segments from trade show trailers.
But thanks to the recently released Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time, the Wii/DS connectivity title, a new trailer was included as an added bonus on the disk.
The trailers starts with several minutes of gameplay showing the game’s main protagonist moving and throwing enemies using a kind of ‘force’ power. Elsewhere in the trailer the same power is used to flip switches and move objects around, or to throw for an attack.
The battle system appears to be mostly pointer based, allowing players to highlight enemies or items. It looks very fast paced and takes place entirely in real time, keeping the feel of previous Crystal Chronicle games.
The amount of gesture control is unknown at the moment, but a section was shown riding on the back of a wooden cart, where players appear to have to use motion to slash at enemies.
Fans of Chocobo riding will also be glad to know that the feature appears to be in this game as a method of traversing the environments.
Not much is known about the characters or story at this point, but from various points in the trailer, we can ascertain some tit-bits of information.
The main character appears to have been requested to save this world from a great danger, he is a ‘Crystal Bearer’ and therefore is in great demand for his services. A crystal supposedly gives him his ability, and there also appear to be evil characters with the same power. The climax of the trailer was the protection of a huge crystal that apparently brings balance to the world.
Previous trailers showed some flying/skydiving sections, and again were prominent in the new trailer. However it is still unclear if that is gameplay or cut scene-based action.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers is set for a 2009 release in Japan.