Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (ファイナルファンタジー・クリスタルクロニクル クリスタルベアラー, Fainaru Fantajī Kurisutaru Kuronikuru: Kurisutaru Bearā) is an action adventure game developed by Square Enix and released for Wii. It was released on November 12, 2009 in Japan and on December 26 in North America. The player can increment the character's maximum HP by clearing miasma stream fights and collecting the myrrh from each areas. Exploration and free roaming are heavily focused on the game to the point that there are fifteen bosses are needed to progress through the story and the rest are scattered everywhere for the player to find. As a result, Crystal Bearers was designed to be a "single player experience", as opposed to the GameCube installment which focused on cooperative play. Early concepts ranged from allowing players to fish, to using the Wiimote to move objects around in space. Kawazu stated that the game should have the feeling of being at a theme park, with gamers not distracted and wholly focused on the experience. Originally the game development team did not intend to use any of the unique features of the Nintendo Wii, but by the end they changed their minds. The team also realized that the Wii had become very popular with casual users, and retargeted the game at them. Internet connectivity was not added due to the low percentage of Wii owners using the feature. The team behind The Crystal Bearers was the same that developed the original Crystal Chronicles games except for the programmers, the head of which had previously worked on the Front Mission series. Indeed, Kawazu advised the design team near the end of development to not focus on "punishing" the player so much, as games traditionally do by having the protagonist die and restart. As a compromise to the Lilties's more traditional body types, a variety of types were included ranging from more traditional stocky builds to more humanoid characters like Althea. The costumes were designed to depart from the series' standard Western fantasy theme, with rugged outfits meant to exemplify adventure. Itahana took several trips to local hardware stores for inspiration. The early American aesthetic dominating the game was inspired by many on the team liking early Hoolywood western films. The music was intended to be different from traditional Final Fantasy, and was designed to be more "popular" and modern, and included country and western music. and at E3 2006 a short pre rendered teaser trailer was included within a Wii games compilation video. In May 2007 a new trailer including gameplay was released and a few interviews with the developers were given. Since then, no game information was given. Crystal Bearers has had no presence at recent Square Enix events or the website (the Crystal Chronicles developer blog has not made mention of Crystal Bearers since June 6, 2007) coupled with the developers of My Life as a King refusing to comment when asked about the status of The Crystal Bearers at the Game Developers Conference of February 2008, stating only that the public should "wait for a press release". In November, in response to a section in the next month's issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly stating that the game had been "quietly canceled" Square Enix released a statement confirming that the game had not been canceled and that they fully intend to release it, although no release date could be given. Itahana was surprised at the cancellation rumors, as he was in fact considering how to best reveal the game to fans. In Japan, a commercial for the game aired with the song We Weren't Born to Follow by Bon Jovi playing in the background.