Chocobo, the chicken-like creature from Final Fantasy VII on the Sony PlayStation, has became an icon before eventually arriving on the Nintendo DS with Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales. Now comes the console debut, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon for the Wii. It's a decent adventure with a strong story, but a couple of problems keep this golden egg from hatching.
In Fables, Chocobo teams up with his human buddy Cid as they're transported to the peaceful land of Lostime, following a battle with an enemy Final Fantasy fans might recognize (we won't spoil it). In this village, everyone suffers from the same problem. Once the clock tower rings, they lose their memories. With the help of a mysterious child named Raffaello, the duo sets out to restore them, even if that means wandering through creepy dungeons and fighting monsters.
This Final Fantasy has a great story, but lacks quality gameplay. It's your typical dungeon crawler, with Chocobo going from level to level, occasionally battling enemies in turn-based combat and avoiding traps. Some battles are beyond easy, with foes dying after just one tap of Chocobo's beak. Others, however, are ridiculously challenging. If Chocobo loses, it gets thrown out of the dungeon and, out of sheer humility, gets stripped of every gold piece and unequipped item. Every once in a while, you'll be able to find a spot to store items for later use, but it doesn't happen often enough.
This frustration is somewhat bearable, thanks to the job class system first introduced in Final Fantasy Tactics. Here, Chocobo gives himself a number of abilities, such as knight, black mage, white mage or ninja, which assists him in combat. Some job classes are better than others, depending on the fight. The white mage, for example, has better healing abilities, while the ninja, obviously, holds up better in combat.
Aside from the main story mode, players can also try their luck in a couple of minigames. The real standout here is the card battle game, which you can play against others through the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. At first, it's pretty good, with a decent amount of strategy. However, after a few rounds, you'll find that this game relies on luck. RPG purists and Chocobo fans will probably enjoy these games the most. Everyone else should probably pass them by.
Unfortunately, Chocobo's Dungeon doesn't look spectacular. Dungeons look good, but there's very little difference between them apart from a few color changes. The animations are OK, but not even close to the exceptional stuff we've seen in other Square Enix games. Background music is terrific, but it's almost ruined by the lackluster voice acting; Cid almost sounds like he's reading from an instruction manual. There's no option for an original Japanese soundtrack either.
Although there are some excellent ideas that went into this game (particularly Tactics' job class system), Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon comes up short. The unbalanced difficulty, gimmicky minigames and lacking presentation leave this chicken a little underdone.
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