...time has no meaning.
Cristales is a game I don't remember adding to my Epic Games library. I assume it was during one of their Christmas events, but it doesn't matter. I'd occasionally peak at my games list there, and Cristales always stuck out to me. There was always something telling me to play it, but I never did. It was a variety of reasons, mostly my bad computer and internet, so I'd try to suppress that urge. But I was craving something new, something different, especially during my Summer of Ys event. And Cristales fit that bill.
Cristales was developed by Dreams Uncorporated and Syck and produced by Modus Games. I don't know anything about any of those names except they're Columbian. The dev team said it was inspired by classic RPGs, citing Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and Persona (according to Wikipedia). I can definitely see the callouts, and appreciate all of them. But let's get down to business.
What does Cristails suck at?
It's kinda hard to say, honestly. I enjoyed the combat, side quests were (usually) meaningful, and the story was good enough. There is an abundance of charm, but there's something about it that falls flat. I don't know how to describe it. Cristales is a great game, but I don't know if I'll ever talk about it again.
I will say, though, the story is filled with confusion. It's a time travel adventure, and no game about warping through the past will ever make sense. Not even Chrono Trigger! And the ending makes me ask way too many questions that prevents it from clicking for me.
Zas sucks. I like that she's a caring person, but it's almost to a fault. And her irreverencey got on my nerves. She may have been the one to really kill the ending for me?
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I know one of those was vague, so let's quickly jump into what the game did well!
The characters! They're fun and tick most of the boxes I look for in an experience. The way they work in the world and story is amazing! And they're all different in battle! Some are more important than others, of course, but the one I didn't like it the least important.
The art is totally unique, flashy, and lovely to gaze upon. Every time I went to a new location, dungeon or city, it instantly became my favorite place. It seemed full of life, and that was because we got to experience them in three different timeframes. They're probably the reason why I wanted to play the game to begin with.
The music is also top notch. It mixes orchestrated stuff with atmospheric and then switches to some fun woodwinds and piano. There were no bad songs in the seventy one track OST.
The voice acting was also well done. I thought the voices fit the characters, and I enjoyed hearing Crisbell's voice actor. Everyone has a wide range here!
The battle system is everything I like in a turn based RPG. It's quick, interactive, and filled with points of strategy. Usually...
That's all the important things, so I'm glad I played this game!
For our numbers:
Plot: time travel sucks. The playable cast gets a perfect score, and the villains almost get there. There are two perfect bad guys, but the single chapter ones fall flat. Ultimately, Cristales is hampered by the curse all time warping games deal with: plot holes and inconsistencies. I could have overlooked it if the ending was good, but I didn't like it. 7/10
Gameplay: seemingly perfect. I enjoyed sending my enemies back and forth through time, altering their stats and attack patterns along the way, and being rewarded for proper timing in the vein of Super Mario RPG. Animations are quick, and every character plays vastly different. I'm giving it a perfect score, but a lot of that faded away the longer the game went on. Late game bosses were unchanged with Crisbell's time stones, and scanning everyone got tedious. I also forgot about the duel/synchro attacks all the time, which is a shame. 10/10
Music: high quality. While every song is enjoyable and fits the mood, I didn't find too many ear worms inside. This is a subjective thing, though, so give the entire soundtrack a listen and tell me I'm wrong. 8/10
Art: magic. Yep, it's got my top honors! I called the visuals in the game Seussian, vibrant construction paper, and so much fun to look at. Even if it gave me double vision, I hope to see more of this down the line. Maybe tune down the pure whiteness, though. 10/10
Charm: top quality indie work. I hope that doesn't sound condescending because there's so much stuff here. I enjoyed the world, NPCs are genuinely amazing, exploration is here, and the art and plot combine for plenty of cute side stuff. There are even multiple endings! But I feel like some of it should have been expanded on. A few tiny details fell through the cracks and didn't get cleaned up. You can talk to a dead character after they die, for example. But this is a small indie team and the budget is probably pretty shoe string. I'm willing to overlook a lot because this was likely the first game for a lot of devs. 9/10
The only negative things are the long loading times, and the writing sometimes felt weird. Loading three battle scenes takes a long time, so I'm glad the encounter rate is low. Nothing comes to mind about the writing, and I was willing to overlook them anyway, but I really disliked Zas and her roundabout way of getting nowhere. It started off funny when she was picking on Cristopher, but it got grating over the next ten hours. So, in all, Cristales gets a 41/50.
I enjoyed the thirty five hours I put into the game, and I'd suggest anyone who loves old school RPGs to play it. The art and characters set a nice bar for the genre. I'm keeping my eye on the dev team.
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