A century after a nuclear apocalypse, a great evil threatens to end the remainders of humanity and the world itself.
But this war had inflicted deep, mortal wounds into the earth and its axis shifted, causing most life to mutate into bloodthirsty monsters. Now, a hero awakens from the past without any recollection of his name, origin or anything else about himself. He soon learns of a great evil threatening to obliterate the rest of the world, forever. With sword in hand, he sets off to end it and restore peace.
Good: A storyline that pulls you in * Memorable and catchy soundtrack * Plenty of action to be satisfactory * Lots of room to explore, whether on the world map or in caves * No passwords, but save files instead!
Bad: A little grinding required * Backtracking to find something easily missed can be troubling * It's easy to get lost if you don't know what you're doing
Graphics: In 1990, there had been a good handful of overhead action/adventure games already released on the NES so to get an idea of the graphics is not too difficult to achieve. However, there had been a little more detail added into the graphics for this game that were unique to other games of the genre. Everything seems to have a life of its own; shorelines animate smoothly, plenty of grass and trees that catch the eye, even the mountainous environments look really good. Shadowing has also been taken account for and works out nicely.
Sound/Music: What a soundtrack Crystalis has. While it may not be the greatest, it's still good enough to be memorable. Perhaps some of the music may even stick to you and you may be humming it for awhile. It has a dramatic and somewhat mystical feeling to it which sucks you in a little more. The sound effects are decent at the least, but the constant sound of charging your sword can become very irritating. Nevertheless, it's a game that you'll want to turn up and enjoy the music to.
Difficulty: In all honesty, the game would actually be considerably shorter if it weren't for the grinding. But in every RPG, there must be a little grinding. Many of the cave systems are maze-like and it's fairly easy to get lost in them without a map or any clue of what you're doing or even looking for. In some cases, there'll be an area swarming with enemies much stronger than the player and it'll be a tight squeeze to push through. The difficulty is fair and offers enough to keep one busy for a good while.
Gameplay: Inspired by games like Ys, Crystalis is an overhead action/RPG which would be seen later in games like Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia and so forth. The field is very large in almost every area and grants plenty of space to move about, explore, discover and even train thanks to the spawning of several enemies scattered all over these playing fields. One feature to Crystalis is that once the player has obtained a sword, they may hold the "attack" button down to charge it and release a projectile attack. These attacks may be upgraded by meeting certain conditions throughout the game as well as the discovery of new swords, armor, shields and other items and equipment. Most enemies have weakness and strengths: some are immune to different elemental swords while others are weakest to a specific element. Magic may also be learned along the way offering many uses, towns will be visited with stores selling new armor and items, side-quests will be given by some throughout the land as the hero's quest for peace continues. Without a doubt, there is more than enough to experiment with and explore in this game.
Control: While comfortable, there is a downside to the control scheme: your thumb will probably cramp from constant use of the "attack" button. That aside, they're very simple: one button uses items and magic, the other attacks. The "start" button switches to the status menu and the "select" button swaps over to the inventory. One necessary trick to keep in mind when saving, the save menu can be opened by first hitting "select" and then pushing "start" while on the item menu. From here, players may choose to save their game on two different slots, or they may load a previously saved game.
Overall: Crystalis certainly is an overlooked game, and such an enjoyable one at that. In fact, it's an amazing game and it's disappointing to see such little attention for it. There's so much to do and see, so many huge places to explore and a great story that keeps you wanting to see more until the very end. It's hard not to like Crystalis for any reason, the few annoyances and inconveniences aside. In fact, the down-sides of the game are very easy to ignore once one gets into the game. It's not a hard one to find and it's worth your time, it's especially a must-play for classic RPG fans. It's something different that could never be done quite like this again.