Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time

The protagonist completes a coming-of-age ceremony, receiving a personal crystal shard from Sherlotta at the Crystal Core. Upon returning to the village, the protagonist learns one of the villagers has fallen ill with "crystal sickness". Setting out beyond the village, the protagonist learns that the crystals have been gone for two thousand years. In the nearest town, they strike a bargain with Larkeicus, who agrees to make a cure in exchange for the activation of two towers.

When this task is complete, a larger tower appears. Larkeicus betrays the protagonist and uses the tower's weaponry to destroy the Crystal Core, causing everyone in the village to vanish. The protagonist works with Sherlotta and Veriaulde, a former ally of Larkeicus from 2000 years before, giving the protagonist the means of recovering the Crystal Core's fragments and restoring the village. Larkeicus tries to stop the protagonist, reviving after their fight due to his experiments with immortality.

He fails to absorb the protagonist's shard as it damages him, causing Larkeicus to identify them as the cause behind the future catastrophe and vowing to kill them. The protagonist receives flashbacks showing Sherlotta caring for him as a child, and that none of the villagers have aged since that time. Upon reforming the Crystal Core, it merges with the protagonist, allowing them to explore deeper into the local forest. Discovering a ruined version of the village, the protagonist learns that Larkeicus destroyed it 2000 years before; Sherlotta failed to escape, but the Crystal Core granted her immortality and a new dual form as her old self and the cat of a friend who died in the attack.

She and the revived village lived in isolation and emptiness until the protagonist was found as a baby, giving them all purpose and reminding Sherlotta of her humanity. Sherlotta vows to stop Larkeicus from preventing the catastrophe he predicted, which led to the vanishing of crystals and downfall of his civilization. The two infiltrate the tower, gathering artifacts to unlock the main door, during which time the Village inhabitants fade for good. At the tower's summit, the pair encounters Sherlotta's original body, now a comatose crystal producer that Sherlotta asks the protagonist to kill.

Larkeicus appears, revealing he created the tower to reach the point in space where the catastrophe, a magical explosion which caused nearly all crystals to vanish, will take place. He incapacitates Sherlotta's current body and attacks the protagonist. Sherlotta eventually revives in her original body, creating a Crystal Core and revealing it is the same as the one in the Village; being forged from her own will, it harms Larkeicus and defies his technology. Sherlotta asks the protagonist to destroy the Crystal Core, which triggers the magical explosion predicted by Larkeicus.

Larkeicus building the tower ensured the Crystal Core's creation and death of the crystals in his time, creating a stable time loop. The Crystal Core's released energy as it travels back in time destroys Larkeicus, Sherlotta and the tower. The protagonist makes a final visit to the Crystal Core's grove. They leave the crystal shard from the coming-of-age ceremony there, allowing it to grow into a new Crystal Core.