[MidgarFanatic]

There are some strange things going on in the world of Final Fantasy lately folks… have you seen this?

There’s this one called Crystal Chronicles, and was meant to represent an epic return of the franchise to Nintendo after the wise abandonment to the Sony platform long long ago. It features these weird munchkins with huge “puppy-dog eyes” and one of them has the head of an onion, and they're followed by another creature who walks around with a metal version of Madonna’s pointy-cone bra. XD I kid you not friends!!!

When the excitement of battle begins, you realize there is something oddly familiar in what you are seeing. It’s quickly apparent that the monsters are all simplified re-hashes of the designs used for FFIX. So you are essentially cheated right-off-the-bat out of having any chance of experiencing some originality from the monsters in this game. Furthermore, the game play itself involved with the battle system is immediately confusing, and by the time you finally understand what’s involved you realize that it’s just too dull to deserve a continuing demand on your attention.

What is more, after playing for quite some time, you realize you have been denied of any CGI cut scenes which have been such a beautiful and prominent treat in FF games. But even if you had them it wouldn’t matter, the story lacks any real power or emotion; the playable characters get no deep back-stories or strong plot motivations that can even begin to compare to the characters from the twelve games developed for the main FF series. Not a single character has even yet to emerge as an underground fan favorite. (no Cloud Strifes, Celes Chers, or Vincent Valentines here folks) In short it all just looks and feels cheap. It feels like it was yanked out of Square/Enix’s dusty basement and was tossed to Nintendo like a bone. LOL Oh boy I’m terrible.

And then there is another Fraggle Fantasy which I think is even worse. The bane is known as Kingdom Hearts. Several characters from the past FF games walk around and interact with popular Walt Disney characters!!! OMG what is going on here?!!! As an older fan of the FF series, let me just tell you that this is like some freak horror show for me. I am certainly not a fan of all things Disney; however, even this is not the single reason I find this game so alien. There is nothing more pointless than a story which pulls a sloppy job at merging two iconic movements together like this. It just keeps reminding me of that ridiculous Hanna-Barbera cult-classic The Flintstones meet The Jetsons movie I saw as a kid, LOL. The whole concept from start to finish is just absolutely bizarre.

But hey, maybe you think this sounds like a cool idea? Well if that doesn’t weird you out, maybe the following will… The main character is a young boy who lives in a four-star tree house with a few other children on a tiny island completely estranged from adults. They spend their days trying to survive by playing blitzball, rolling logs around on the beach, and hunting for seagull eggs (where’s all the Lord of the Flies material I ask ya?!!! Heh) Eventually the battle between light and dark begins, and the characters must travel between alternate worlds in a gummi spaceship built by a couple of chipmunks. (Pfft, like that old storyline hasn’t been reused a hundred times before. :P) In an attempt to sum up the remaining story simply and without any spoilers, upon entering the different worlds the player must seal the gateways leading to them by using a blunt weapon called a Keyblade which the main character uses to bash in the brain’s of cute, tiny black creatures which crawl out of the walls. LOL... again I'm totally serious.

The graphics were good, but they failed to dazzle. The story’s concept was meant to be a humorous self-abasement, but it wasn’t amusing at all. This game was meant to be upbeat and magical and yet it haunted me more than any other “scary” video game I’ve ever played.

These Fraggle Fantasys are like weird mutated clones of some well-established classics... GET OFF MY LEGACY MAN!!! LOL But in all seriousness... I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with these games, and I think it’s great if any of you have played some of these and have enjoyed them. I myself have played one of these “mutant clones” XD and really enjoyed it, although it was a long time ago and was called Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.

My main issue here is that I am just not convinced that they deserve to bear the title of Final Fantasy within their names; not even as a tagline. The connection of the name FF should not be thrown around so loosely… these examples I’ve mentioned just don’t seem genuine to me. If these games are good then people will want to play them for what they are (and not because they are a FF game)… and video gamers will know how to find them.

The way I see it, nothing beats originality, and I’m just not convinced that these games either have it… or manage to pull it off.