Chocobo & the Magic Picturebook (Nintendo DS) Preview

The first thing that strikes you about Magic Picture Book is how impressive it looks. The game seems to be running on what looks like the same graphics engine that Final Fantasy III was built on, which means extremely chunky, and rather tasty, characters throughout, all placed delicately in a three-dimensional world that is bursting with bright, vibrant colours, the likes of which will probably dazzle gamers playing on a DS Lite! And, from what has been seen so far, the game moves around at a speedy pace

Other than the 3D aspect, there are 2D crayon visuals mixed in that look reminiscent of Yoshi's Island. For instance, what looks like a flat beanstalk shoots upwards into the sky, allowing our friend Chocobo (still in 3D, by the way) to trot promptly upwards, dodging between 2D hand-drawn monsters. This sketchy appearance is used within battles as well, adding a great sense of style to the proceedings. In fact, the same effect is brought into the overworld, which is itself like a children's pop-up book. Seeing little 3D characters running about in cardboard-esque locations is a joy to watch and looks far better than the majority of other Third Party offerings out there on the market right now.

Chocobo to Mahou no Ehon, to give it its original Japanese moniker, was recently on show at this year's Tokyo Games Show over in Japan. However, Square Enix chose not to show the full game, instead opting to give people at the show a chance to sample it via a few mini-games included within the adventure. Whilst this may not give off the best impression, to be honest when I have tried playing through RPG demo versions before they can lose much of their appeal due to the noisy surroundings

So what was on offer at TGS? Well, there were three Final Fantasy-themed games under the names of 'Cid's Job Challenge', 'Malboro Hunt' and 'Bomb Search'. The first one sees players having to get a match on two people with the same job specification from the classics Final Fantasy III on the NES. On the top screen, the NES character sprites zoom by very quickly and you must make the appropriate selection on the touch-screen using the stylus. Whilst it may sound ridiculous easy, the fact that there is a set of shutters on the top screen that slowly begins to drop means that it is nowhere near as simple as you may believe.

The next two were equally short, but sound like great fun. Malboro Hunt is based around searching a 3 x 3 grid for those monstrous, large green creatures that cause major headaches in the main Final Fantasy series. You tap on an area covered with forestry and when uncovering a Malboro it simply moves to another hidden position, whereas tapping a bomb ends the game. Bomb Search has players tapping the grid on the lower screen to try and find their way to an exit, with directional arrows under certain panels to guide the way. Again, hit a bomb and you will be in need of a Phoenix Down to bring you back to life (not really, you just receive a 'Game Over'...).

Thankfully we know there is more to the game than this due to the storyline already being set in place, with Chocobo opening up a fancy picture-book that was brought to Chocobo Farm by the Black Mage. Inside the confines of its pages was the trapped evil fiend Bebuzu, who rapidly squeezes out to cause chaos around the farm, dragging everything into the pages of the picture-book. Yuki Yokoyama is on-hand for producing duties after gaining a good reputation for his work on Drakengard 2 and the Fullmetal Alchemist games. Yokoyama-san has already confirmed that the game will have RPG elements, such as taking Chocobo on wandering excursions and taking part in turn-based battles that use cards, called 'Pop-Up Duels'. He also stated how the game will be no mere dungeon-crawler, but a vast experience that will leave gamers laughing at points and crying in other sections of the expansive storyline. There will even be Wi-Fi online capabilities worked into the final game! How can you argue with that?