Now that Nintendo has announced Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Adventure, or whatever the former Four Swords Plus has turned into, that's become the new darling of the GameCube/GBA connectivity movement. Poor ol' Crystal Chronicles has been tossed out in the miasma.
Will Zelda save the GCN/GBA connection? Nintendo's push for connectivity is almost universally derided on forums, magazines and websites. It's become the new Raiden Sucks. One complaint I've seen repeated many times is that the connectivity stuff is either a useless bonus or a feature that could have been integrated into the game itself. For example, in Crystal Chronicles, could the game's "personal inventory screen" idea been accomplished with the GBA connection?
The benefit to having your own interface screen is that you don't have to pause all the other players when you want to quaff a potion or talk to a shop clerk. That info pops up on your GBA screen, leaving the TV clear for continued fighting or running by the other players.
I guess Square could have popped up a small text box onscreen, but that would have to cover something in the battlefield. And if three out of four players dive into their inventory, the fourth player would be stuck with precious little screen space. Plus, the GBA's most important function is a live level map. To me, having the map removed from the HUD (or the pause screen) is worth the cost of everything. I wish you could do this is every game... it was great being able to consult the level map in Splinter Cell without pausing every damn time. Imagine getting that big ugly map off the screen during 4P Double Dash.
So I'm totally bought-in on that score. Instead, I'm annoyed at CC's difficulty. Rhonda and I have characters that we've played 2P quite a bit... so our pals who haven't played so much get hosed when we play 4P. Is a dungeon's difficulty determined by the level of the current players, or by the year of the storyline? I'm inclined to think the latter, and that sucks... because now none of our low level friends (sorry) will be able to play. And what if they play without me, will the dungeons gear down for them even though it's Year 6? It's frustrating, because it's just not fun for the weaker party members to be continually dying.
So Crystal Chronicles has kinda dropped off the radar because of that. I'm probably going to have trouble convincing my friends to play again. I guess I should just move on to Zelda like everybody else.
