[James]

Now Crystal Chronicle is a game you sure as shit can avoid.

It's a Guantlet-style game, in which you go through levels hacking away at enemies. Strategy seems somewhat limited, aside from the fact that you carry around a magic bucket, and you need to stay inside of its aura so you don't lose health.

The point of the game is it's really meant to be played with 4 players, though there is a single player mode. But in order to play with 4 players, you need, 4 Game Boy Advances and 4 Game Boy/Gamecube Link Cables. That's a pretty tall order to ask of people.

There's not a whole lot of "Final Fantasy" involved in the game, so you should definitely rent it first, before devoting those $50 into it because it's a FF game.

But back to FFX-2. The Charlie's Angels similarities, to me, end with the fact that it's three girls. There's not a whole lot of needless flash and a convoluted shit story like there is in those movies.

Maybe in the full game, some of the music is better. But in the section I played in the demo, the opening game music was the only good thing. The battle music and music for the area were just bad.

And speaking of bad, Yuna's voice actor seems to have improved a little since FFX. But Payne's replaces her in that role. Everything she said in my demo was muttered, forced apathy. However, all she said was two or three lines, so we'll see.

The bottom line is, the game with worth playing. Even if you don't like it, or you have your apprehensions, there's a lot of stuff going on with this game, that you really should play it and expose yourself to the changes in the formula.