New Crystal Bearers Details

[Shrygue]

via IGN


There's no denying it! The silence is officially over for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers. Famitsu managed to get yet another update on the game in its latest issue, complete with commentary from producer Akitoshi Kawazu and director Toshiyuki Itahan.

The major point of note in this update is the first info on a new character, a Selkie male named Keiss. Having earned the trust of army leaders, Keiss takes up a job guarding the Alexis II air ship, a symbol of peace.

Keiss and main character Layle are work partners. They're partnership is just part of the story, though. You don't actually form parties in Crystal Bearers, so you don't directly control Keiss.

Outside of the Keiss and the characters introduced in the original unveiling of the game a couple of weeks back, we can apparently look forward to one additional primary character, a female Selkie who may have the hots for Layle.

In addition to the new character, the magazine introduces a couple of new gameplay systems: Playable Events and Demon Reaction.

Playable events allow you to interact with the game during event scenes, shaking the Wiimote or pointing at particular areas of the screen. Some of these scenes have to be successfully cleared in order to progress, but in general the story will proceed regardless of your success.

One example of a Playable Event has Layle falling through the sky. Demons fall towards him, and you have to aim the Wiimote to shoot them.

The Demon Reaction system is something that we've already seen in the teaser video clips at the teaser site. The demons of the Crystal Bearers world have their own AI and movement patterns. If you let them be, they'll interact amongst themselves. The enemies react to one-another, and to Layle's attacks, in various ways, with Kawazu noting that the game includes a considerable number of patterns.

Crystal Bearers is still without a final release date, but it's certainly reassuring to see it get so much coverage of late. The wait to play will hopefully not be too long.

[kevenz]

"shaking the Wiimote"

I don't like that.... it's stupid.