When Square first announced they were returning to Nintendo consoles with the GameCube's Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, FF fan boys everywhere were ecstatic. When it was revealed the game would focus on real-time battles and multiplayer teamwork, fans were perplexed. When gamers were told that the multiplayer mode would require four Game Boy Advances (with GameCube link cables), many were irate.

If you could get past the odd requirements and changes to the Final Fantasy formula, however, there was a lot to like about the original Crystal Chronicles. The game did a good job of establishing a sense of camaraderie, with a division of labor that practically forced players to open their mouths and coordinate strategies. It's a formula that seems tailor-made for the near-ubiquitous DS, which has made portable multiplayer relatively easy. Unfortunately, the newest game in the Crystal Chronicles series, Rings of Fate for the DS, is depressingly standard and loses a lot of what made the original special.

The single-player game features a plot that comprises the Final Fantasy series' usual mix of melodrama and mystical nonsense, tied together through a thin veil of save-the-world apocalyptic threat. The storyline focuses on a pair of twins, Yuri and Chelinka, who witness the death of their father just in time to realize they have magical, crystal-imbued powers that allow them to exact revenge and, it just so happens, save the world in the process. Along the way they run into some companions (each with a "wacky" speech impediment and little else to recommend them as characters) and learn about the true nature of their powers through extremely long, rambling exposition scenes that feel like the fevered imaginings of a quantum physics teacher (I couldn't begin to explain the fate-altering, parallel-world-bending cosmology that the game struggles to describe coherently). The voice acting cast does a surprisingly good job with the badly translated, repetitive dialogue they're given, but only the pivotal scenes feature spoken audio, leaving the rest feeling oddly silent. Except for one semi-interesting, semi-playable flashback scene, the story generally left me confused and bored in turns.

Once the cut scenes mercifully end, the actual game boils down to a predictable series of RPG tropes dressed up in some action-adventure clothing. The main gameplay activity is fighting a depressingly repetitive cast of enemies (the red fireball, the blue fireball, the purple fireball, etc.) in a small array of tired, stereotypical locales (the ice level, the fire level, the forest maze level, etc.). The battles, for the most part, boil down to jamming the attack button repeatedly, occasionally moving away to dodge an attack or use a defense-breaking magical spell. The cast of characters gain an array of new abilities as the game continues and the monsters get marginally tougher, but complex strategy is never really needed to take out the waves of generic bad guys. Even the boss fights boil down to a simple, repetitive method of avoiding the ridiculously telegraphed attacks and then responding with a series of button mashing moves from behind.

The bulk of the game's difficulty does not organically come from these battles or even from the various find-the-switch/find-the-key puzzles (which are all relatively simple). Instead, the main challenge of Ring of Fates emerges from a combination of shoddy controls and shoddier partner artificial intelligence. The control problems come mainly from the touch-screen, which is used to switch characters, select magical attacks, and occasionally perform special tactics. It's a great idea in theory -- and one that frees up the system's face buttons for other uses -- but in practice, being forced to constantly glance away from the real-time battles and toward the bottom screen to make a selection is extremely distracting. Similarly, using a fat thumb to select from the relatively tiny on-screen button leads to a lot of accidental outcomes (using the stylus can help with this, but good luck holding that stylus while also using the standard buttons required for most of the gameplay).

The minor control annoyances are nothing, though, when compared to the aggravation caused by team of three computer-controlled cohorts you have to guide around in the single-player mode. In theory, having a group of AI allies should be a nice help -- coordinating to handle large groups of enemies, banding together to pull off stackable magic spells, etc. In reality, though, the AI companions usually just stand around staring at the nearby battle and taking damage from various enemy attacks. They'll also occasionally fall into hazards for no reason. I'm not kidding -- I lost count of the number of times another member of my team would fall pointlessly into a pit of fire, water or ice, taking unnecessary damage all the while. Sure, you can corral your teammates with a quick tap of the L button, but I generally don't play RPGs in order to babysit my partners.

This problem is obviously relieved in the multiplayer mode, where up to four players can each take control of one character on their own DS. Since everyone has their own system, there's mercifully no need for split-screen, or even for all four players to remain near each other on the map. But the multiplayer mode is still a little less engaging here than in the original Crystal Chronicles, mainly because there's less need for direct coordination. It felt more like I was playing a parallel game alongside my partners rather than really working together with them to do something I couldn't do alone. Also on the downside, the game doesn't support the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection for intercontinental multiplayer questing, nor does it support single-cart multiplayer, forcing everyone to have their own copy of the game. Also, the story is completely absent in the multiplayer mode, making the entire multiplayer process seem a little pointless.

On the whole, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates just feels a little dated in today's gaming environment. It sticks to a tried-and-true storyline and gameplay formula while all around it games are breaking out of their shells, and when it does try something new, as with the touch-screen controls, it ends up actually making the experience worse. It's a diverting enough game when played with other people, but as a solo experience it just doesn't stack up.

This review was based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher; a second retail copy was purchased by Crispy Gamer to review the multiplayer.