Square Enix announced today that it is releasing a remastered version of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles for PlayStation 4, via Kotaku. It is coming out in Japan in 2019. We do not have word on a U.S. release yet.
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles came out for the Nintendo GameCube in 2003. It was a big deal at the time for being the first Final Fantasy game to release for a Nintendo home console since the Super Nintendo days. But Crystal Chronicles is an unorthodox Final Fantasy experience. It focuses on four-player cooperative action. It also has players using Game Boy Advance handhelds as controllers, requiring the use of link cables.
FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES Remastered Edition is more beautiful than ever and coming to #NintendoSwitch and #PlayStation 4 in 2019! pic.twitter.com/hwfldVLYRO
— FINAL FANTASY (@FinalFantasy) September 10, 2018
The experience was innovative but cumbersome. A remastered version that gets rid of the link cables and adds the convenience of online multiplayer could make the game better than it ever was.
Crystal Chronicles became its own subseries inside the Final Fantasy universe. But the last entry, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles — The Crystal Bearers for Wii, came out back in 2009. The series has been dormant, but this remaster of the original brings it back to life.
Update, 4:15 a.m. Pacific: The remaster is also coming to Switch.