Over the past few days, I have been whipping through Chocobo Tales. I sit down to play one or two mini-games and soon discover that I’ve been playing for an hour. I have been moving the story forward without too much difficulty. That is, until I reached the Boy Who Cried Leviathan.

Most of the mini-games are exceptionally well-paced. I generally like to play mini-games no more than four or five times in order to beat them. This had been the case for most of Chocobo Tales. Only rarely did I find myself shouting at the DS, feeling cheated or angry. There is a large number of mini-games, all of which use only touch controls, so some of the games fit the controls better, making them easier. It reminded me of playing Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz on the Wii. Some things work well with unconventional controls and some just don’t.

One game that is very unusual in its control scheme is the Boy Who Cried Leviathan. The point of the game is to get a far as possible through a tunnel without touching the edges or other obstacles. The premise is that your little chocobo is outrunning a leviathan. However, you cannot control the chocobo's speed, only his depth. You can do this by moving the stylus up and down vertically on the lower screen, while watching the chocobo move through the tunnel on the upper screen.

The controls seemed simple enough and I had few problems with the controls themselves. However, the chocobo was supposed to be underwater, and the simulated physics meant that he sunk gradually which was slow enough to be annoying. Most surprising was the fact that I could not get past this level. I tried again and again, losing over ten times. I had worked my way up through the easier levels, but, for whatever reason, I just had a horrible time with that particular level. I grew so angry that I would turn down the volume right after I lost so I wouldn’t have to hear the chocobo theme in minor yet again. I began to feel that there should be some flexibility in the game, such as allowing you one free pass to skip ahead if there was some mini-game that was giving you an awful time. Each player is naturally going find some games more challenging than others, and it’s aggravating to get stuck on such a trivial level.

Finally, I decided to take a break. I came back about an hour later and beat the level after three tries. My final record was 15 losses, one win. (This was displayed, which didn’t help improve my morale earlier.) I was so excited that I continued forward and played a few more mini-games. However, my patience had worn thin from the frustration of continually losing, so I quit shortly after.