Most people have never heard of Crystalis. It is an adventure game where after an unavoidable disaster where the animals have mutated, and you, yup the hero, have been created to bring peace to the world. How do you do this? Well you fight creatures and bosses and collect the four elemental swords of air, fire, water, and lightning.
THE GOOD
Crystalis is an intriguing, complex story that mixes together the adventure aspects of Zelda. The best part of the game is the game play. Your character is quite agile and allows you to move from one area to another quite quickly. There are also a slew of puzzles that you’ll need to solve to progress further. These puzzles are also quite challenging and will keep you thinking.
Every sword in the game has different attributes. Additionally, the longer you hold down the A button, the more power your attack will have and eventually if you power up enough, you’ll fire a projectile at an enemy. The wind sword throws wind balls, the fire sword throws fireballs, and the lightning sword will throw little lightning bolts. You can also level up your swords by finding corresponding elemental balls and eventually
bracelets. And of course, because these swords have elemental aspects, you need to ascertain which elements the enemies are weak against.
Like all RPGs, the main character can also level up and gain different skills like healing, teleportation, and even telepathy (you can talk to animals!). You can even change yourself into another person to get
different information from the townsfolk. All of these skills are critical. The boss fights are also challenging, and although you may end up dying a few times, don’t get too frustrated. You shall overcome!
The game takes around 20 hours to complete. Graphics wise, it’s simple but overall enjoyable to look at. The monster designs are a lot of fun, though the character designs aren’t that original. The scenery however is impressive. You go from a labyrinth like dungeon, to swamps, and even cross the ocean atop a dolphin.
THE BAD
The game is very linear and doesn’t give you a lot of room to wander. Because it’s a game from the Nintendo Entertainment System era, there is no replay value; or rather once you’re done, you’re done. There are also some puzzles that are just too obscure and extremely tough to solve.
The leveling up process can be very tedious as is the case with most RPGs, but this one takes even longer to level up your character. If you like hours of grinding and killing monsters, then that’s fine, and I guess in
some ways Crystalis was ahead of its time with the leveling system. But the monsters aren’t that smart, and the killing just gets a bit boring.
OVERALL
Overall the game is wonderful. The sci-fi and fantasy mixture really makes the environment unique, not to mention the storyline is action-packed and definitely ahead of its time. Towns get massacred and a lot of characters are killed off, which more than what most games had in their plot at the
time. If you still have your NES, pick up this game. It’s definitely worth playing.
Gameplay 8.2
Great fun to play. It is challenging without being overly frustrating.
Story 10
Wonderful story that gets you involved with the characters and the world.
Audio 7.1
Nothing really special here. Just a typical background music.
Graphics 8
The world is pretty and has a lot of different places to explore, but the
character designs are lacking.
Replay 4.8
There isn’t really any replay value in this game as there are no secrets or
alternate endings. But you might just pick it up again to experience the
world of Crystalis.
Overall 8.7
Wonderful Game overall that will keep you glued to your screen for hours on
end.