Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon

The second in Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Fables line star-

ring the series’ mascot yellow bird, Chocobo’s Dungeon is a dungeon crawl in the vein of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon titles.

Chocobo and his master, Cid, find themselves transported to a strange town at the start of the game — a place where nearly everyone loses their memories as they go about their lives. This includes Cid, whose brain is drained by the tolling of the town’s central bell.

Chocobo soon finds a way to search for the lost memories of the townsfolk in the form of black fortresses above their heads that lead to randomized dungeons full of monsters. The game play in these is turn-based — whenever Chocobo takes a step or action in a dungeon, monsters follow with their own; if he stands still, nothing happens.

In a nod to the most common battle system in the Final Fantasy games, Chocobo can learn to take on several jobs, specialized battle roles with their own sets of powers, such as Black Mage and White Mage.

Each dungeon has several floors and usually a boss monster at the end. The floors are filled with traps, treasures and monsters, and Chocobo must complete a run through a dungeon all at once — leaving or dying resets his progress and causes the loss of all items he’s not wearing.

Chocobo’s Dungeon is detailed and colorful, and the characters are well-animated. The voice acting is decent, but the score is worthy of special note.

It consists mostly of gorgeous remixes of classic themes from throughout the Final Fantasy series’ history.

For Nintendo Wii; $39.99.

Age Rating: Everyone 10-plus.