The original Crystal Chronicles might have been a lively attempt to encourage fans of multiplayer RPGs to meet around a single television screen, but it was also a failed one.

The high entry fee of a Game Boy Advance and link cable per player (the handheld acting as a controller linked to the GameCube) combined with some awkward mechanics effortlessly outshone by rival Four Swords ensured that the first Crystal Chronicles wasn’t worth the effort for any but the most ardent (and blinkered) Final Fantasy devotees.

Sequel Ring of Fates arrives without quite the same pioneering spirit, now confined to a single piece of hardware and boasting distinct singleplayer and multiplayer modes requiring separate characters. Despite the more traditional approach it’s a welcome addition to a Nintendo DS library inexplicably starved of such games, even if the multi-cart requirement and lack of online link-up ensure the barrier to multiplayer entry is higher than it should be.

The Final Fantasy moniker is misleading. This is an isometric 3D action game whose key-finding dungeon puzzles bring the game’s mechanics closer to Legend of Zelda territory than that of the mainline series from which it borrows a name. This liberation doesn’t extend to the game’s premise, which once again focuses on crystals – the weak and shallow thematic crutch that even the most devoted Square Enix fan must have tired of. Focusing on two young twins, Yuri and Chelinka, players are tasked with protecting their world by uncovering the secrets of a Great Crystal, a cookie-cutter story retold here for a young audience.

This review appears in this month’s edition of Edge magazine. You can read the rest over at Next-Gen.biz here.