YMMV / Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The game that Belle plays to get the other girls to get off her back is an actual sport called keijo, also known as "butt sumo." This is most American players' introduction to the sport, to the point many thought it was just made up for fanservice.
• Awesome Music: Maybe the most musically diverse soundtrack ever, and a lot of it is very awesome.
• Disappointing Last Level: The excellent plot and varied gameplay through the majority of the game culminates in a rather sad ending. On the storyline end, much of what was hinted at fails to be explained (instead we get the rather forced and ultimately fairly pointless Reveal). On the gameplay end, there is no Final Dungeon, simply a poorly-explained version of Explosive Overclocking that results in a One-Winged Angel form for the Big Bad and an 11th-Hour Superpower for the player, effectively making the Final Battle an Unexpected Genre Change to Shoot 'Em Up / Rail Shooter.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The minigame where Layle has to help Belle beat another girl at what can only be described as "aquatic butt sumo" is almost identical to the titular fictional sport from the manga Keijo!!!!!!!!, which came out seven years after Crystal Bearers.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Although it's only short for an RPG, and it's not an RPG, so those complaining seem to expect it to be.
• Last Lousy Point: A few of the medals are particularly loathsome to earn, especially the one that requires you to peel off all of the final boss's armor and weapons. Since pulling all of the armor off of one side of the core causes the fight to move on to the next phase and you can't pull off the other side once this happens, it seems like the best you can do is get all but one. Actually, you can get the last two off together by having a second player help you.
• One-Scene Wonder: Blaze, despite a fair number of mentions on this page, only appears in a very small section of the game. That said, he shows up several times in the background well before he becomes important to the story - the Chocobo wagon that Belle steals at the beginning of the game even seems to be his since he's the one yelling after her.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Amidatelion's Heroic Sacrifice. A large part of it comes from the accompanying music, Ephemeron.
  • Also, Vaigali's.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Reaction on the part of the fandom due to the marked changes in setting (from medieval fantasy to psuedo-technopunk) and artistic style (from cute and Super-Deformed to semi-realistic and pretty. This is a similar change to what the main series had been going through prior and continues to even now, removing some of what set Crystal Chronicles apart from other Final Fantasy games. The gameplay changes being so radical might understandably shock some.
  • Most reviewers seemed to want a regular 40 hour RPG that Final Fantasy games usually are instead of the fairly easy 12-hour action minigame-filled adventure game that Crystal Bearers actually was. The reviews ultimately were not kind.
• Too Cool to Live:
  • Blaze. If it hadn't been for certain complications, he might have jumped straight into The Dragon status.
  • Amidatelion. She's one of the most competent people in the game, has a great character arc where she slowly opens up to Layle and goes from laser-focused on just accomplishing one specific goal no matter the cost to trying to find a way to do so without the potential horrible side effects on the rest of the kingdom. She then uses her warp powers to prevent Jegran from killing Layle, but gets hit instead, knowing Layle will find a peacful solution.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Squeenix seems to have abandoned the idea of gender-specific armor altogether, as one can see both genders of Yuke wearing either kind of armor when you visit the Yuke city. Amidatelion in particular actually switches from the bat winged to the bird winged armor halfway through the game, while retaining her Lulu-inspired helmet.

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