Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales (2006)

Gets extra points for being cute. I hate the repetitive minigames and I even hated how some of them controlled. I hated that there's a hardcore game under all that cuteness as well! How can you go from a 5 minute time limit on a short track to racing a chocobo completing it in under 1/5th its time. You heard it right, 1/5th of the time to be able to qualify! That's not all, right after that repetitive minigame there's an optional minigame challenge with THREE ROUNDS and you HAVE to finish it under 16 seconds just to get a gold medal! That's the exact spot where I stopped and whas like "NOPE, not gonna do it again!"

Look, every person has their favorite game but to this one I'd say to people: "Play it again and see if you're nostalgia is being challenged". Shortly after I've played Poképark WII and I know myself what I'm talking about. It's okay to admit sometimes you've played a bad or repetitive game when you were younger. No shame in that.

Chocobo Tales is a collection of mini-games loosely tied together with a haphazard story. The story is charming enough, but nothing memorable.

The mini-games are decently fun, with quite a few stand outs. Unfortunately, many suffer from terrible controls, making the experience completely frustrating. If you dislike stylus controls, stay far away: while you can control the overworld with traditional controls, the mini-games are all stylus-based and most control terribly.

The card game is also quite a bit of fun, but again has some major design flaws. Too much of the card battles is decided by chance, which can be down right infuriating. It's more or less rock-paper-scissors with a few bells and whistles. It has a good foundation, but I can't help but imagine that they decided to let chance be the main mechanic because they couldn't bother with programming a proper AI to make the card games challenging but strategic.

If you're an avid Final Fantasy fan, go ahead and give it a whirl. It's a short experience and not a terrible waste of time. But anyone else should probably look elsewhere.