honestgamer's Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles - The Crystal Bearers review

but it turns out that the available map is a lot like a blond airhead: fun to look at but useless in a jam.

ROFL!

So about combat, do you mean to say combat is simply grabbing enemies, shaking them, and stealing their abilities ala Mega Man to use against other foes? Does your character not have any innate spells or weapons of his own?

That worries me, because it sounds eerily similar to another Squeenix game worthless pile of dogshit called Dawn of Mana, in which you are supposed to cause panic in monsters by causing rockslides, knocking over structures, etc. However, the controls are so shitty, meaning it's impossible to line up a good shot to get the right effect.

You grab enemies and then can either shake them to inflict minor damage to them, or you can continue to carry them overhead for a limited amount of time and use any special attacks they have... or you can then throw them at hard obstacles to inflict damage on them. All enemies have a life bar. It's not as bad as Dawn of Mana by any stretch, but it does limit combat once you realize that the best way to succeed is to just find the most powerful guy around that you can lift, then heft him overhead and use his powers to take care of the other guys in the nearby vicinity. Fortunately, there aren't many fights in the game.