Square Enix has announced that Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time is coming exclusively to iOS & Android mobile platforms! This was confirmed by the Japanese “Famitsu App” magazine.
Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time will be a retro-styled but all-new Final Fantasy game, similar to “Final Fantasy IV: The After Years” and is the follow-up to “Final Fantasy Dimensions” (known in Japan as “Final Fantasy Legends: Warriors of Light and Darkness).
Here’s the Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time iOS/Android 2015 image gallery.
Click on any of these image thumbnails to see the full-size screenshots:
Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time (also translated as “Final Fantasy Legends: Space-Time Crystal”, but that makes less sense so it’s probably inaccurate to the final English name) promises players a grand adventure that focuses on the theme of “magic that passes through time” with a story that takes players through “Time and Space”.
It will have environments to explore based on settings from throughout different historical “eras”, that have been cater-developed for the smartphone & tablet in mind; And hopes to give players a sense of nostalgia from the era of Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI for the 16-bit Super NES.
As you can see by the screenshots, Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time has a weird look to it wherein the characters are realistic in proportion but highly-stylized, like a new take on the retro 8bit & 16-bit FF entries.
Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time will incorporate Time Traveling elements in its original story and features “Command-based” Turn-based battles just like RPGs of yore.
It will be free-to-play but will feature “payable elements” and is scheduled for a Japanese release this Winter, and a 2015 release elsewhere.
Because it has a new story, it is not required for you to have played Final Fantasy Dimensions first.
Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time is being directed by “Takashi Tokita”, with sound design by “Naoshi Mizuta” and character design & illustration by “CyDesignation’s” “Aiba Ryosuke”.
Whereas Final Fantasy: Dimensions began development on Japanese Mobile Phones and was only later ported to iOS & Android, Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time is being developed from the ground up for both iOS & Android, so this game will be significantly improved over what player’s experienced in the previous title which was built on inferior hardware.
Plot
In a world divided into East and West by the folly of Man, the Eastern land of “Ajima” and Western land of “Westa” have been in unending conflict from time memorial.
On the small, calm island of “Nabaru” (or “Naval”), located between the two warring lands, the young boy, “Toumoro” begins an adventure through time when he meets a mysterious young girl from the future named “Emo”.
Together, the two begin a journey through the present, past, and future. And through a mystic world out of time to save the world from a dark future.
Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time is a tricky name as it’s not to be confused with the original “Final Fantasy Legend”, “Final Fantasy Legend II” or “Final Fantasy Legend III” games released for the original Game Boy way back in the early 1990s (1989, 1991 & 1993 to be exact in the US).
Those titles weren’t actually Final Fantasy games but were the first, second & third entries in Square’s “SaGa” franchise of RPGs (ala Romancing Saga on SNES, Saga Frontier on PS1 & Unlimited Saga on PS2), they were simply slapped with the Final Fantasy name to sell them to Americans.
A fun unrelated tidbit: Square also released a similarly packaged “Final Fantasy Adventure” game for Game Boy in 1991 that was actually the first entry in the “Mana” RPG series (ala Secret of Mana on SNES, Legend of Mana on PS1, Dawn of Mana on PS2). It has the same style of box art as the Final Fantasy Legend I/II/III games… I proudly own all of them boxed & complete except for Final Fantasy Legend III in my personal videogame collection. 😀 Ahem…
Anyway, Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time is also not to be confused with “Final Fantasy Dimensions“, a retro-styled Final Fantasy iOS/Android game released in 2012 that is called “Legends” in Japan, as explained above.
However Dimensions, or one of the above Game Boy titles, is what you are most likely to see if you google “Final Fantasy Legends”… It gets a bit confusing, eh.
The reality of micro-transactions has me worried regarding Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time, but even so, I really like the look of the game and I’m hopeful that Square Enix will be able to nail the retro-styled feel that they are going for.
The graphics certainly look spiffy enough, as does the character art, although I have to say that I’m not a big fan of the in-game character models. I also never played Final Fantasy: Dimensions.
Regardless, it’s still good to see mobile gamers getting a high-quality, all-new retro Final Fantasy RPG like this.
Are you excited for Final Fantasy Legends: Crystal of Time?