If your memories of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles depend on the tangled mess of cords needed for local multiplayer, we have some unfortunate news for you. Square Enix has clarified today that the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered multiplayer feature will only support online play. According to the official messaging, this is due to technical issues.
Here’s the original tweet, which is in Japanese, but can be deciphered through Twitter’s translation function. (It was also double checked by Siliconera’s Kazuma Hashimoto to confirm the information is accurate.)
公式放送などでもご紹介しておりますが、本作はオフラインでのマルチプレイには非対応です🙏
開発の都合上、オフラインかオンラインのどちらかを選択する必要があり、より多くの方に遊んでいただけるよう、今回はオンラインマルチプレイを選択いたしました。#FFCC #クリクロhttps://t.co/vZzJGXiASW— FFクリスタルクロニクル リマスター 公式 (@FFCC_PR) July 15, 2020
Roughly translated, it confirmed that there is no offline multiplayer and only online is available. It seems that, for whatever reason, potentially offering Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered multiplayer offline and online was not within the scope of this project, (which notably features cross-play between all platforms) so the team had to choose one direction and commit to it.
The original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was a Nintendo Gamecube exclusive and built around the console’s Game Boy Advance link cable. For co-op, players would have to use a Game Boy Advance as a controller, which provided off-screen menus and other information to keep the action on the TV flowing.
Considering the realities of the original software, it does make sense adapting that to the Crystal Chronicles Remastered multiplayer was no easy task, especially across multiple platforms that have to interact.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition will launch for the PS4, the Nintendo Switch, and compatible iOS and Android devices on August 27, 2020.
