RETROAWESOME: CRYSTALIS

We're all dead now, apparently. 


Welcome to Crystalis, or as they called it in Japan, "God Slayer: Sonata of the Far-Away Sky".   While we may have gotten the weaker name, it remains one of the best and most tragically underrated NES games I've ever played. 

It was a hipster among video games; it was doing Post-Apocalyptic video gaming before it was cool.  Released in 1990, the game foretold of a far off date (actually only a week after Skynet became self-aware in the Terminator universe...what was it about 1997?) in which "savage war engulfs the world...civilization is destroyed".   We nuked the shit out of ourselves, turning the world into a blasted wasteland of mutated creatures.  Over the years, the world reverted to an almost medieval state, with magic inexplicably appearing in the world.  

Before the war a hero was placed into suspended animation, to be woken up when the world needed him most.   I'm sure it's a gigantic spoiler for me to reveal...that hero...is you.

Crystalis was released fairly late in the NES' life cycle, and got rave critical reviews, but not much attention from the gamers in the world.  It was a top-down action RPG that incorporated an extensive inventory, item-based puzzles, a clever elemental weapon system, and a halfway decent storyline for that era of gaming. But it also had a smaller release, and wasn't put out by Big N, so it sort of flew under the radar.  It's a damn shame too, because Crystalis improved on The Legend Of Zelda in almost every way.

Graphically, the game was pretty decent for the time.  The colors are bright and vibrant in the overworld, and dark and moody in caves.  Backgrounds, especially caves, get a little repetitive, but the sprites were very detailed and well animated.   For the most part, you knew what you were fighting, be it a cyclopean spider, a weretiger, or an axe-flinging boar man.  A lot of palette swapping occurs, but for the most part it's a very good-looking NES game.

The maps are large for an NES game, but I have to laugh looking back at it.  I remember playing this game as a child thinking the world was huge.  Each set piece felt like this enormous, sweeping landscape, and the tunnels were vast labyrinths that I could get lost in for hours.  Now when I play the game, it feels tiny and disappointingly small.  The caves are often very small tunnels, although they do a good job of not being entirely linear.  Still, for its time, the maps were fairly expansive, given how many different areas there are in the game.

Gameplay is really where this game shines.  Combat is fairly quick and responsive, and the enemy AI isn't atrocious.  Start and select open sub-menus which allow for equipment and inventory management, and you will often need to swap on the fly.  Progression through the game is based on the old "find this item to get to the next area" playbook, but in 1990 that was totally okay.  It at least gives you a good feeling of masking that, like the items actually have use instead of just being the next arbitrary macguffin. 

The game introduces not only an elemental system for its weapons, but also a slightly strategic charge system.  Once you have collected the ball and bracelet for each sword, you can hold down the attack button to charge your weapon up to three levels, each firing a projectile with increasingly powerful knockback.  The bracelets unlock the third level for each sword, creating a heavy magic-based attack.  However, as quickly as the swords charge, you can only charge when standing still.  Easier said than done when you have a swarm of enemies bearing down on you quickly.   Do you fend them off with light strikes, or hope you've got enough space between you and them to fire off a shot?

The sound in Crystalis is fantastic.  While not quite as iconic as some titles of the time, it features one of the peppiest overworld themes I've heard, calm and happy village themes, and a dark, foreboding cave theme.  Boss music is excellently intense, and really gets your blood pumping for the battle.  Sound effects are a bit lacking, unfortunately...monsters don't make any sound, and sword strikes sound more like crumpling paper than actually hitting anything.  Hell, the sound of picking up a coin is more threatening.  But they are serviceable, and don't detract from the game itself.

Ultimately, if you're looking for a truly excellent 8-bit RPG, I cannot recommend Crystalis enough.  It's easily one of my favorite NES games ever released.  This game should have been huge, and in my opinion is in dire need of a current-gen revisit, rather than the half-assed, atrocious Gameboy Color remake that it got.  It boasts a fairly hearty length, so it's not the kind of thing you'll beat in an afternoon (unless you follow the 52 minute speedrun on youtube), and the challenge level can get pretty high.