Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales
Platform: DS
Solid minigames that could have had more variety.
Review by Sirus

Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales was likely given the title Final Fantasy Fables to boost sales because Square-Enix still thinks that their American audience won’t buy games without the name Final Fantasy before them. I prefer to refer to it simply as Chocobo Tales because it is closer to the original Japanese title which translates to Chocobo and the Magical Picture Book. The preceding Final Fantasy is at least marginally valid in this case because the game does contain a few characters that fans of the Final Fantasy series should be familiar with as well as music taken from the series.

Chocobo Tales is not a traditional RPG and instead blends minigames with card battles to create a unique experience that is worth a look. The story is rather simple and, many might suggest, childish. The black mage in your home town brings home an old picture book that he found in the west. When he opens it up to read it to the chocobos of the village, an evil demon awakes and sucks in all the chocobos besides the one you control and name. The chocobo you control sets out with the help of your local black mage and white mage to stop the demon from fully awakening.

The game’s graphics also make it appear quite kiddy because everything is overly cute although the difficulty present in the game is a little higher than the casual child gamer would be expected to overcome. The basic game progresses through a series of picture books scattered throughout the world, in which you play minigames, and boss fights you have to defeat in card battles. Each picture book has specific goals to reach that allow you to advance the story and other more difficult goals that perfectionists can reach for that rescue other chocobos or reward you with new cards. Most picture books have a trial mode and a battle mode, each with their own goals. The goals start out hidden to you and are later easily revealed once you obtain an item that lets you check what your goals are before starting.

The minigames inside the picture books range from easy to frustrating. Many of the harder games become easier with practice although some of them are still quite hard to overcome. Thankfully you aren’t forced to reach every goal for every picture book to advance the story and after a while you will have a deck you are satisfied with so that you won’t really care about getting new cards. Most of the minigames use the stylus well enough although some of the minigames seem like they could have been done just as easily with buttons. In the end, I preferred the minigames to the card battles although none of them really stood out to me as worth coming back for in multiplayer modes. The minigames you have cleared in the story portion of the game can be played freely both alone or with friends, through DS download play, without entering story mode. If you so desire you can also take the card battles online and play with your friends.

The card battles are simplistic and partially random. The cards are separated into red, blue, yellow, green, and colorless. Every card has a space on each of the four corners of their card representing the corresponding color. These spaces are either left empty or filled with a sword or shield icon. In order for either side to do damage, its sword icon must match up with a sword icon or empty space on the enemy. If the sword icon matches with a space, the damage is done in full. If the sword icon matches with a sword icon on the enemy’s card, the damage is halved. And if the sword icon matches with a shield icon, there is no damage done to the enemy who has the shield icon. The enemy with a shield icon can retaliate after nullifying the damage if their skills dictate as such.

At the end of every turn, a Crystal Point (CP) corresponding to the color of the card last used is put into your stockpile. Some cards require a certain number of CP of specific colors for their abilities to work. The card which blocks an attack with its shield icon might have an ability requiring two green CP that will activate as soon as it successfully blocks the enemy’s attack. What makes the game both random and strategic is that at every turn you don’t know which color card the enemy is going to use. Before you take your turn, you can see the colors of the three cards in your enemy’s hand and you have to choose a card that can counter the one you think they are going to use. The luck aspect of the battles is nice because you are able to beat an enemy after a few tries, assuming you have a fairly competent deck. Thankfully there are only around 8 card battles in the entire game that you must participate in and you can have a rematch against an enemy you have defeated already if you think you need to hone your skills.

The sound quality in Chocobo Tales is quite good considering the hardware it is on. The classic Final Fantasy music sounds nice during gameplay although it would have been nicer if there was more variety in the music used. The music doesn’t really get old as much as it seems that with 12 games from which to draw Final Fantasy music, there could have been more variety. The graphics in Chocobo Tales are nice and detailed although quite cutesy. The graphics are a little worse than Final Fantasy 3 on DS and could very well be running the same engine. In the end, Chocobo Tales is a solid 13 hour minigame compilation that is nicely held together by its story, even though it is cliché. If you have a DS, are a fan of Final Fantasy or Chocobos in general, and are in the mood for some minigames or just enjoy card battles, you could do a lot worse on the DS than Chocobo Tales.

Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 7/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Lasting Appeal: 7/10
Story: 6/10
Playtime: 13 hours
Final Score: 7/10