GameLight – Square-Enix Invades Facebook

Knights of the Crystals & Chocobo’s Crystal Tower are facebook games created by Square-Enix in the likeness of Mafia Wars and Farmville (I think…).  I haven’t played Farmville before, but I have played games similar to Mafia Wars such as Castle Age.  I do find some of them interesting and even possibly fun; however, there were things about them that finally made me take them off my facebook page.

Knights of the Crystals (Facebook)

So Knights of the Crystals (KotC) is essentially Mafia wars in a Final Fantasy theme, but it runs on a flash rather than html.  Here were some of the things I hated about games like Mafia Wars that relates to Knights of the Crystals:

Image of Map for Knights of the Crystals by Shuriken

Browser Based- The games made on facebook originally refreshed the page each time you made an action such as going on a quest, buying an item, or attacking another player.  Well, Knights of the Crystals refreshes everything within its own game since it runs on a flash.  This is a big improvement to the browser based gaming design, and I think other companies will begin to utilize this method of browser based online games.

List of people who pwned you- It was annoying receiving up to 10 messages a day on facebook saying that you’ve been attacked by so-and-so and have lost x amount of gold.  KotC has all those information within its own game so you’ll still know who attacked you, but you don’t get spammed by that information in facebook.

Anonymity- It might have been because it was an early concept and the developers wanted people to be closer as a community, but facebook games allowed players to see each other’s profile and look through their pages.  It was weird having someone from across the world to ask me to add him on my friend’s page of facebook just to improve our stats in Castle Age.  KotC still shows a person’s picture, but a thumbnail size version.  Aside from that, a player can choose to enter a “character” name instead of their own name, which furthers the anonymity concept.

Boss Fight using two characters from my friend's list by Shuriken

Invites- Nope, this concept is still the same.  Get more people to join and you become stronger.  Have people open up a treasure chest for you to get items and in-game currency.  What DID change was the concept of party fights.  There are quests that require the player to fight a boss in a turn-based battle like in Final Fantasy.  You can choose two other friends who play the game with you to be in your party and use their characters to help you defeat the boss.  This concept was new to me and an innovative use of inviting friends.

OCD- This concept is still here.  Every once in a while, the player will log into their facebook page in order to see who attacked them, use their energy (or Action Power in the case of KotC) on quests, and Battle Points to attack other players.  Do you have a friend who plays a facebook game made by Zynga?  If they say they need to log onto facebook really quick to check on their crops of their farm, or they need to take a look at their restaurant, then they will begin to develop an artificial symptom of “Obsessive-Compulsive Disease”.  They won’t actually have it, but they’ll play the game as if they do.  I use up my energy for the day that I check messages on facebook and then I log off.  But if you want that next level, or attack some more players in 1 second animation sequences in PvP, then you’ll probably be logging on to facebook a lot.

Image from the one second animation sequence by Shuriken

Micro-Transactions- Yes, the game is free like many other online games nowadays; however, those who pay real money will more than likely have an advantage over other players.  I think I’ve hit a blockade where I am not even allowed to progress through a quest unless I pay real money for a certain item in order to do the quest.  Also, players who use real money can potentially defeat you in PvP despite being several levels below you.  If you feel sad about that, keep this in mind: you still have your money while the person who attacked you lost real money for that one second of satisfaction.

Overall, it’s a good distraction.  There are sound effects for the actions and animation sequences for most of the game.  There is also music whenever the player gains a level, earns a reward, or is fighting a boss.  The game consists mostly of questing and Player vs Player (PvP).

Chocobo’s Crystal Tower

This game surprised me since I found it to be quite entertaining seeing how I played it for over 2 hours of just trying it out today to write this post.  So the premise of the game is that you’re a royal Chocobo breeder who takes care of Chocobo’s of the Final Fantasy world and have them collect crystals from towers in order to maintain the peace of the land from being overridden by monsters.  Does anyone remember Tamagotchi virtual pets?  It’s a lot like that.  You feed, groom, and dress your Chocobo and then send them to fight monsters.  The player has no control of the fights, only the stat building depending on what you feed and what you have them wear.

My little Chocobo Farm! by Shuriken

You can buy more items to improve the stats of your Chocobo and even go into your friend’s farm or random people’s farm and help take care of their Chocobo’s as well when they’re away.  So this game is the opposite of KotC and has players helping each other out.  This doesn’t go without being rewarded though.  You can gain “breeder points” and level up by helping others.  This is one of very very few facebook games where I felt like I was playing an actual game.  There’s music, full animation, goals that isn’t a click of a button, but still involves the facebook community to interact with each other.

Certain items can only obtained by paying real money and exchanging them for Chocopoints, just like KotC.  This doesn’t have too much impact in the beginning, but it will probably become more difficult in future battles for your little Boco.

I had learned about KotC on Kotaku’s page 2 days ago and decided to try it out since it was by Square-Enix.  I am satisfied for the most part, but will eventually give it up since I don’t want that OCD to get in the way of my work and of real videogames I could be playing.  I learned about Chocobo’s Crystal Tower when I was playing KotC and saw the banner on the bottom of the page.  From the sounds of it, KotC will be available on phones and mobile devices soon.

Sources:

Kotaku - Knights Of The Crystals Is Final Fantasy For Facebook

Joystiq - Square Enix releases two free Facebook games, one with chocobos 

Facebook - Knights of the Crystals going mobile