Hey sorry for the pessimistic attitude, as my menopausual mother is on the verge of throwing both my younger brother and I out of the house. Onto the screens and short preview.



The Japanese title for this one is Chocobo's Dungeon: Toki Wasure no Meikyuu.
The American title is Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon: The Labyrinth of Lost Time. All you really need to know is this: The game is fucking cute. Really Cute.



This game a sort of like the Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon recently released for the DS, only better. At least, that's what the guys at GameSpot say. I hope their right, as a good RPG would be welcome on the Wii, regardless of cuteness and the like.



Now, I know the Mysterious Dungeon series isn't well like here in America, as the Pokemon branded games were absolutely atrocious. But apparently, this one's a bit different. Here is a short synopsis of how the game is set up, from the link above:

In Chocobo's Dungeon for the Wii, you play Chocobo the Chocobo, or Chocobo for short. Evidently, some dark power is stealing your friends' memories and robbing them of their identities; it's up to you to get them back.

That's GameSpot's take on it, anyway. It really doesn't matter what goes on, so long as I'm given plenty of Chocobos and some moogles. It isn't the most technologically advanced game, but I agree with GameSpot about the art design:

As we roamed, we came to an area of striking beauty. In the foresetting was a tall clock tower behind a crystal fountain, all flanked by art nouveau street lamps. Behind this scene rose hills speckled with colonial, European-looking structures. It was an unexpected scene of quiet beauty, and though making it probably didn't take much technological muscle, many games on more powerful systems only wish they had such subtly striking scenes.



Right on! Seriously, why can't more developes at least put some time and effort into the art desgin of their games? As we have seen with Zack and Wiki, horsepower isn't the only thing that counts when it comes to a game's look.



As for gameplay, it seems to be somewhat like an Action-RPG, as other Mysterious Dungeon games are. Luckily, ChunSoft isn't handling this one, so the gameplay might yet be fun. You walk around battling and leveling up, using all buttons and no motion control. Thank God for that. Square did unfortunately note that many mini-games will make full use of the Wii's motion controls, as if we need more mini-games.



One last thing. The above picture shows a Chocobo dressed as a Black Mage. In this game, players will have a choice of 10 different character classes. Each one has it's own unique abilities and statistics. So, there's your costumization.



I actually have hope for this title, as it looks like it might be an ok diversion between Nintendo 1st party releases. God knows those are far and few between. If this game averages at least a 75 on MetaCritic, I'm there. It is Final Fantasy, after all.