Crystalis (NES) review "Go then, there are less grindy worlds than these."

We are spoiled. An RPG these days comes with a massive open or semi-open world, tons of side quests, crazy customization, an alignment slider, and more add-on material that you can shake a predatory stick at. What did we have in the 8-bit days? A game with maybe one main quest, only the occasional side mission, lots of grinding, and tons of menus to navigate. How did we survive?

Yet, as I love modern gaming, I still had a blast way back playing a title like Crystalis, which merely hits you with an introductory cutscene, shoves you into its world, and expects you to piece together its madness. Yeah, by today's standards the game is a tad antiquated, but we didn't notice that so much in the early '90s. All I knew is I had a new fantasy world to explore, a trusty sword to wield, hordes of what appeared to be werewolves and slimes to cut up, and experience to gain. Oh, and something about a strangely medieval landscape being a post-apocalyptic hellhole overrun by mutants, and a flying tower in the sky that's obviously the final dungeon.

Digression: what is it with post-apocalyptic hellholes that revert back to older time periods and ominous towers? Has everyone been reading too much Stephen King?

Anyway, Crystalis drops you into its world first by forcing you to talk to every citizen of the initial town, all before shoving you into a forbidding landscape. And by “forbidding,” I mean “rather large and filled with very few points of interest.” Clutching a wind-infused sword, you battle through piles of beasts only to locate a cave that serves no purpose until later in the campaign and a windmill that the townsfolk blathered about earlier, complete with a dude passed out nearby. The game doesn't hold your hand through its first events. It leaves you to wander the countryside and chop up as many lycanthropes as your patience will allow until you've decided to return to town, only to realize what you need is an event item sold at a store, one that pretty much says, “Use this to wake up sleeping people, you clueless knob.”

Next thing you know, you're blasting through a labyrinthine cave filled with apparently breakable walls you can't break yet, leading you to a ball that powers up your sword by allowing it to shoot a green gust of wind that smashes impasses. So yeah, your sword farts on weakened barriers and crumbles them. Later on, you encounter a vampire that looks like a Pac-Man ghost going through a goth phase. You thrust your sword at his Hot Topic-y flesh and hear a cheerful “CLANG!”

As it turns out, you aren't a high enough level to damage the vamp and you would have no way of knowing that. As a result, Clyde the Impaler sends you to an early grave. I really hope you saved before entering this place...

As with any older RPG, Crystalis pads its campaign out with a healthy serving of grinding. Though its levels cap at sixteen, it still feels like an eternity getting that far even at the end of the campaign. The hell of it is that you need to constantly grind to an unknown level just to be able to damage the next boss in line, and even then you might not be tough enough.

Granted, Crystalis is an action-RPG hybrid, meaning you rely on swift movement, dodging, reflexes, and proper use of consumable items and spells to be able to survive. However, the game still hits you with moments that are difficult to dodge, leaving you to rely on restorative measures to compensate for your inability to get around projectiles or sneaky boss maneuvers. What's more is you need to manage your inventory before advancing into dangerous areas because you only have so many slots available for medicinal goods. It's nice to have enough herbs to replenish your hit points, but you've also got to keep status afflictions in mind when traveling to certain areas. Doing so means you're probably going to pack the occasional antidote or two. Honestly, this is arguably the best part of Crystalis, because its difficulty rating doesn't hinge entirely on how powerful you make the protagonist. You won't have turn-based menu commands to fall back upon, so you still have to amply prepare for any occasion.

And that level of preparation depends upon killing droves upon droves of enemies so you can stay leveled and possess enough cash to keep your inventory stocked. I do not exaggerate when I say repetitive murder in this title gets old quickly. Pretty much any time you advance the campaign, expect to find a quiet place to grind for a few hours before you go any further. Odds are you're going to run afoul of another boss before long... Today's adventures pack on other types of content to avoid forcing you through mindless bouts of monster slaying, usually by stuffing in some simple quests or side areas filled with high-experience foes to pick off so you aren't spending days at a time trying to be buff enough to simply cut a vampire. Again, we're so spoiled now...

Everything I described above only intensifies as you advance. Yeah, you can easily appreciate various portions of the adventure, like its surprisingly complex dungeons, its crushing story focused on the tragedy of war and the inability of humans to learn from their mistakes, and its expectation that you experiment as you advance. How else are you going to know how far you need to grind before you so much as harm a boss? Or which items will be useful in said battles? Hell, there are a few points you access by just clowning around with abilities. You might equip the Sword of Water later on, fire a frozen beam at a shallow part of a river to create an ice bridge, and advance into an undiscovered part of an old map just to find a town you never realized was there.

I'll be honestly, though: the whole weapon shot thing also grows irksome. You see, beyond the Sword of Wind, you acquire three other blades, each of which performs different functions when you equip their corresponding balls (quit snickering). For instance, if you want to break through walls of ice, you'll need the Sword of Fire and the Ball of Fire equipped. In modern games, you exchange such equipment by clicking shoulder triggers. Here, though, any time you've got to switch swords and accessories, you must go into your inventory and manually equip each weapon and ball.

By the time you've reached the end of the line, you're more than ready to be done. The final areas see you slicing up giant scorpions so you can face off against a villain who—surprise, surprise—has a second form that's a dragon. Honestly, the finale doesn't differ much from the rest of the experience, except in regards to plot devices used. You beef up for hours, pad through a winding structure, and fight a boss that you're hopefully strong enough to defeat, all while minding your limited inventory. Again, we're spoiled these days. A modern Crystalis adaptation would've sent you on side routes, given you a greater variety of equipment and abilities that can be swapped out with ease, and offered a more balanced leveling system. So it goes with any medium. They're always advancing, and in gaming that could mean cutting out or simplifying processes so that you can focus on more entertaining features, rather than finding yourself stuck in familiar rigmaroles ad nauseam.

Community review by JoeTheDestroyer (June 08, 2023) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.