In Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales, you'll enter a fun and enchanting game world, from the Final Fantasy franchise. When a black magician brings a picture book onto the Chocobo farm, it unleashes the great devil Bebuzu. The farm gets sucked into its pages, where white & black magicians must stop Bebezu from reviving himself to full form.

User Reviews about Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales

First, let me explain why I bought this game. A long time ago, I played Chocobo Racing and really enjoyed the short story mode. I'd only wished it had been longer. So, I bought Chocobo's Dungeon 2, thinking it would have a better developed story and be a true RPG. Wrong! It was a hideously boring dungeon crawler that had even less story in it than the racing game. So, when I heard that Chocobo Tales was coming out, I hoped that this would be a true RPG with an excellent story revolving around the cute protagonist, Chocobo. Well, I was half right, it gets the cute (if overly simple) story down, but the gameplay just isn't up to par. Sigh, maybe someday Squeenix will get it just right...

Graphics (score 10/10): The graphics look very nice. Characters and backgrounds are bright and crisp. Plus, the characters are fully 3-D and still look good.

Music (score 8/10): Most of the music is remixed chocobo themes from the final fantasy games. They all sound quite catchy and upbeat, but there's only so much of it you can stand to listen to before you hit that volume button on your DS. Overall, however, music was handled very well and is pleasant enough.

Characters (score 8/10): Given the type of game this is, I didn't expect much character depth. Even so, the characters are handled pretty well given the simplicity of the story. Your main character, Choco, never says anything (the stereotypical silent protagonist, I suppose). However, everyone else is imbued with sufficient personality to make them likeable and even humorous despite their somewhat one-dimensional personalities. Normally, character personalities that are this simplistic (for example, Chubby chocobo likes food--end of character development) would merit a bad score from me, but given the overall simple, light-hearted feel of the game, it seems appropriate.

Story (score 8/10): Like the rest of this game, the storyline is pretty simple. An evil entity called Bebuzzu has been trapped in a book. After he is unintentionally released, he starts trying to take over the world, and Chocobo must stop him. Pretty simple stuff. Even so, this story is still better than the non-existent crap found in Chocobo's Dungeon 2, so I'm pleased. The story gets the job done, and even adds in a few small twists to keep things interesting, so I'm satisfied with it.

Battle System (score 6/10): I really wish there had been regular combat. Instead, the player is forced to take part in "card battles" with opponents. This wouldn't be so bad if the games weren't based largely on luck. You basically have a deck of cards, which you use in battle. You choose what cards go into the deck, but that's where control ends. When in battle, three cards randomly pop up from your deck, and you must choose one of the three to put into play. There's four sides on a card, and each one has either a sword, shield or empty icon on it. The sides on your card matches up with the opponent's , and if you have a sword icon matched to their nothing icon, then you do full damage. If the sword is against another sword, then you do half damage, if it's against a shield, you do no damage. This also works the other way around with the opponent's sword icons up against your shield, sword, etc. Anyway, my main complaint is that it's random which three cards goes into your hand, so it removes a great deal of strategy. It would've been better if you could choose which card to use and when to use it. In fact, I would've preferred regular turn-based combat with an attack, defend, item, etc. commands. I find the card games much more tedious than regular combat, and I'd really wish they hadn't used that system.

Gameplay (score 5/10): This is a bit of a catch-all category for me. Well, remember those card battles? The way you get cards is by winning numerous mini-games all over this game. If I didn't know any better, I would say this game's story was a flimsy excuse to release a game composed entirely of minigames. The vast majority of your time is spent playing mini-games that range from fun to irritating. I'm the sort of person who feels mini-games are better taking a back seat to the action (hence the name "mini" which implies that it should be a smaller part of the game). Unfortunately, 80% of Chocobo Tales is mini-games, which really gets old after awhile. I really wished they'd fleshed out the story with regular RPG conventions like dungeons, battles, leveling-up, etc. instead of mini-game after mini-game. Of course, the way the story is set up, you really can't get away from these mini-games as they are integral to the story. I guess what I'm trying to say is that playing endless mini-games gets really annoying after awhile. Other than that issue, the controls are very nicely done. You can move either with the stylus or D-pad, and the mini-games all controlled nicely. Good thing too, since you'll be playing alot of them (did I say that already?).

Overall (score 6/10): NOTE this score is not an average; it's my subjective overall score. This game really is very cute, and can be enjoyable on the first play-through. The major drawback, though, is that you may never make it through a second play-through since the game becomes rather boring after the first time. Trust me, I tried and just lost interest half-way through. Too bad, I was hoping this would be an awesome RPG starring my favorite Chocobo, but I guess I'll have to keep waiting for that (maybe Squeenix will release a good Chocobo RPG someday!). Anyway, if you can find this game for a good price (less than $20, I'd say), then it might be worth your time since it really is quite enjoyable on the first play-through. Just don't expect any replay value out of this one. -- Cute and Fun, but Ultimately Mediocre.

First thing I'll say about this title is don't purchase it for more than $10. There is charm in the game, but overall it doesn't make up for the overall recycled gameplay and just pure repetitiveness.

I am a huge fan of RPGs, I've played almost all the main series, and ventured into the more underground ones (Like Atelier Iris, Etrian Odyssey, & Atelier Iris.) Therefore, I am one mildly educated on the subject of RPGs and the Final Fantasy World.

Receiving this game, I thought it'd be a typical RPG with mini-game elements here and there. My god I was wrong, more like a collection of repeating uncreative mini-games. Think of this game as WarioWare boss battles that you repeat over & over to receive the best medal.

Yup, all the game is basically is mini-games mixed in with a horribly unrewarding battle system that just seems forced. 50% through the game I had experienced 4 battles. The battles seemed like they were thrown into the game just so they could please Final Fantasy fanatics. First complaint about the battles is they take seemingly forever, and are very unbalanced. The card concept of battles is awesome, but the way it was executed is just poor in this game, especially because animations consume 75% of the time in battle.

If you want a good card-based battle game pick up Baten Kaitos, 100 times the fun, 100 times the content. Anyways, back on topic to the mini-games. Basically, they're all boring games uncreative games that you've played before without cute chocobos.

The most creative one is ironically the first mini-game, where you race up the mountain as a turtle. The rest are "collect small sprite, avoid boss." or other very common games used in RPGs.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy this game. It's just not all that good. It's cliche mini-games mixed in with battles ruined by overanimation, the plot is good though, and the "I want to complete this mini-game and get the best medal on it so I get some battle card I'll never use" is also pretty fun.

Replayability? Zero in my opinion. I have yet to beat this game (or pick it up again to consider beating it.) but I am about 75% through. This counts for about 9 hours of gameplay, therefore if you pick this game up I'm guessing you'll get an easy 12-18 hours of gameplay depending on how much of a completionist you are.

Like I said, it's a good game, but there are many better others on the DS.

Plot 7/10: Seems pretty solid. Makes sense, typical "collect 4 crystals of various elements to save world and friends."

Gameplay 5/10: Mini-games are recycled from other games for sure, but they're not horrible, nor are they extremely boring. They'll entertain you. Receives a 5/10 because of the bad animations that make battles take FOREVER. No skip-animation in options either

Difficulty 7/10: Once again, it's extremely easy to progress the story. Literally anyone could do it. But why I give it a 7/10 is it does allow for "challanges" on mini-games. Silver which you can get after 3-4 playthroughs, and golds which have taken me 20-30 on some occasions.

Length 8/10: Pretty good length, doesn't seem overly long, and hasn't gotten boring really.

Graphics: 9/10 Another redeeming factor. Basically Final Fantasy III: DS graphics mixed with Paper Mario I graphics. 2D & 3D mix in battles is nice.

36/50 = 72%

Buy, but dont pay more than 10 bucks. -- Fables you say? The only tall-tale here is this game being rated as good.

Being a young adult, when I first saw this game I thought it looked really cute but maybe a little more geared for kids. Wow was I ever wrong, and I'm really glad I chose to get it. Hands down this is my favorite DS game so far, and I haven't even finished it yet.

You play as a chocobo and can name yourself whatever you want. A friend of yours has you open this book he got, and it ends up stealing the souls of all your friends. You are then sent on a mission to go defeat this book/evil spirit and get all your friends back. More storyline develops afterwards that I won't spoil.

The thing I just LOVE about Chocobo tales is all the mini games. Most of the time I don't like mini games because they're annoying and not well made, but the ones in this game are very enjoyable. That's also pretty much the main focus of the game: jumping into pop-up story books and beating the mini game inside. Then the story proceeds and you learn more about the plot and what not. There's also a card game worked into the system, and normally I hate that because they make it too complex. But this one is very simple and fun!

There's nothing about this game that needs to be improved, and I can't really think of any cons at all, so I give it 5 stars for sure. A must have for anyone. -- Amazing game for any age

I didnt really know what to expect from this game, other than it being really cutesy. But after playing it for an hour, i realized this game is a lot of fun, esp. if you other friends who play it too! Pop-up card dueling is fun, and the mini-games add entertainment to the story. Stories in this game are *Final Fantasized* so be ready to chuckle a bit. Recommended indeed! -- Chocobos are tooo awesome!