Initially announced at the time of the Wii's E3 debut in 2006, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles--The Crystal Bearers has since been through three long years of development, and now the game is about to make its debut. The game will hit first in Japan this November, while American gamers will get the game the following month. Anticipation for this game has been high... for the first time since Final Fantasy VI on the SFC, a Nintendo console has been graced with a full-fledged FF adventure--a rarity for the Crystal Chronicles series.
And yet, there are forces that are threatening to work against this title. Posters at NeoGAF had been predicting that the title would fail in its Japanese release due to being significantly more "Western" than most Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicle adventures have been, while others were hopeful that it would do respectable business. With the recent Famitsu score of 30/40, however, the doomsayers have been increasing, declaring that this title has no chance on either side of the country.
However, the actual comments of the reviews did not match the scores; indeed, the reviewers' comments were actually pretty favorable, with only a fair amount of minor gripes.
Which leads me to make the following questions.
1) Will this score ensure that the game will die an unexpected death in Japan? Or will loyal FF fanatics give it a chance?
2) If the game does indeed fail, will Square-Enix pull its support from Wii, shifting DQX to, say, any other console?
3) Does the game have any chance of success elsewhere aside from Japan? North America? Europe?
At this point, it is hard to tell. But whether the title is a hit or not, one thing is certain: the proof is in the pudding.
