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> Results: Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Tales
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Comic Mischief GamerDad saw lots of cartoon slapstick action. Mild Fantasy Violence Characters attack each other with tackles, fireballs, ice, among other things to slow the other player down. But nobody dies. When players of the popular Final Fantasy series of role playing video games want to get somewhere in a hurry in the vast worlds, they use a Chocobo. Chocobos are large, yellow ostrich-like flightless fictional birds that players can ride on like a horse. With its own theme song, the Chocobo has become very popular and has ended up being Square-Enix's (makers of the Final Fantasy titles) mascot. Now you can play as the famous Chocobo in a storybook adventure on the Nintendo DS with Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Tales. Chocobo's Tales, in its most basic form, is a bunch of stylus and touch screen based mini-games connected together with a plot and overworld to explore. It's storytime at the Chocobo farm and Shirma the White Mage is just about to sit down and read the Chocobos a story. Just then, their friend the Black Mage brings them a new mysterious book to read. But upon opening it, a sealed demon in the book leaps out and swallows all the Chocobos and traps them in storybooks. Except you. Now it's up to you to guide the yellow Chocobo, venturing into storybooks to rescue his friends and seal up the book demon again for good.  As the Chocobo, walk about the farm and surrounding environs using the touch screen or control pad. A handy map tells you where to go on the top screen. When you find a storybook, hop into it and play a mini-game. These mini-games are based on classic fairy tales, but with a Final Fantasy twist, as all the storybook characters are replaced with FF staples. For instance, instead of "The Tortoise and the Hare," play a turtle racing game in "The Adamantoise and the Cactaur." Instead of a horse, cat, and other animals, the characters in the rhythm tapping "The Bremen Town Musicians" game are now a Unicorn, Cait Sith, and the little hamster from Dragon Quest 8. The touch screen play control in these mini-games is usually pretty responsive, but there are a couple of games where it's not as good and can get a little frustrating in the more challenging levels. Winning mini-games releases more Chocobos you can talk to on the farm, opens up paths for you to explore, and cards to collect. These cards are important because every so often, you must play a simple card battle game against an enemy character. These card battles are extremely simple to learn and play, but collecting better cards in the mini-games is still important. You can even challenge other players to the card battle game online with Nintendo's WiFi service.  The 3-D graphics are fun and colorful, and once you enter a storybook, everything changes to crayon pop-up book style visuals, giving Chocobo's Tales a unique look. Fans of the Final Fantasy soundtracks will also enjoy the music in Chocobo's Tales, as it encompasses classic tunes from nearly every FF game out there. While the game is a bit short and a little rough around the edges at times, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Tales will please fans of cute games and the Final Fantasy series alike. 
Kids will love the cute characters, funny text dialogue, and familiar storybook mini-games. Even more so if they like Final Fantasy games. Violence is only the fantasy, cartoony kind, as players attack each other with fire, ice, lightning, and tackles. But nobody dies or really gets hurt. Younger gamers may get a little frustrated at some of the more challenging mini-games, and parents may want to make sure little ones don't tap on the DS touch screen too hard.
Reading skill is a must, as all the dialogue in the story, mini-game instructions, and card battle rules are all explained with text. The story does mention demons, which some families may not be comfortable with. Also, there is a tiny part of the story that mentions war and bloodshed (guess they had to fit the angsty, moody part of Final Fantasy games in there somewhere). If you blink, you'll miss that part, but it still seems really out of place since the rest of the game is so cheery and colorful. Young fans of card battle games like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon will enjoy the simple card game in Chocobo's Tales, and playing card battles online is pretty safe as there isn't any way to have objectionable material. It may be stretching things a bit, but the game may also be considered educational as each storybook mini-game has a beginning, middle, and end to read, with different cause and effect outcomes that could possibly teach elements of story structure and encourage kids to read more books. Maybe. Overall, Chocobo's Tales is a fun little game for Final Fantasy fans young and old. Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Tales |
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