Tears of Pain & Frustration: A CRYSTAR Review

By Manuel

Player(s): 1
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch

We've had a surprisingly long-running connection with Crystar here at A-to-J Connections having interviewed some of the game's creators back at the last Anime Expo in 2019 and even reviewing the game's earlier release on PS4/Steam. Years later and the game is finally coming to the Nintendo Switch by way of NIS America and it's time to give Crystar a second look and see if this release is one worth adding to your collection.

Note: There will be a strong attempt to not spoil this game's plot, but as most every plot point comes by way of a surprise reveal, this is quite difficult. Proceed with caution.

See you all in Purgatory

First off, it's worth mentioning that this Switch version comes with all the content that previous releases came with and sort of serves of a "definitive version". This content mainly comes in the form of optional outfits but seeing as this Switch version is year's removed from the original release, it should be pointed out.

At its core Crystar is an Action RPG that follows Rei Hatada on her quest through Purgatory to save her sister Mirai and revive her from a death brought about from her own hand. She then signs a contract with Mephis and Pheles, the twin managers of Purgatory, who task her with defeating "Revenants", spirits who've gained some level of consciousness and are seeking to revive themselves by devouring other souls. In return for completing these "Ordeals" Mephis and Pheles agree to grant Revival to Mirai with crystals that are created from tears called "Idea". Rei isn't alone in this journey though and she's joined by two others "Executors" (those contracted to defeat Revenants) Kokoro and Sen, and a Revenant who isn't seeking Revival, Nanana. Each of these Executors also have "Guardians" which are powerful beings which represent some part of their souls, Nanana has an "Aberrant Form" which is similar as far as the game is concerned. There's a lot to talk about from here so if you haven't been lost already, let's continue.

Rei with her sister Mirai

Rei's Guardian Heraclitus

Story and character interactions are really what shine in Crystar and all the characters are well-developed. The plot is drip-fed to the player and you'd be forgiven for just wanting to know what is going on from the start instead of having to go through much of the game before getting a good grasp on the world of Purgatory. A powerful Revenant named Anamnesis serves as the core villain though she is largely absent from the first half of the game beyond characters mentioning her. This isn't a bad thing as a lot of the game's drama and character development comes from learning who the main characters are and how they learn to work together and interact with each other. There are a lot of dark topics covered here like beyond simple loss and death and they're all covered with a surprising amount of maturity and complexity. Rei is a shut-in who only has her sister and her dog as her "family" and whose life is rocked when she's brought to Purgatory by Anamnesis. Kokoro, the oldest character in the party, has had her family taken away from her by Anamnesis and is driven by revenge. Sen is the sole survivor of a tragic bus accident and pursues her single-minded form of "justice" to overcome her survivor's guilt. Nanana is a Revenant who has no memory of who she was when she was alive and fights to protect her friends and see them happy. There's so much more to say, but let's not get too far into spoiler territory here. What's important is to keep in mind that the characters and story is where Crystar really shines and what pushes the player past all the stuff we're about to talk about.

Did I mention that 90% of the cast is female?

The pencil sketches used for memories are amazing

Graphics are a mixed bag. Character designs are great and the pencil-sketch art style used for lost memories look even better, but in-game character models are very lacking. There's an amazing animated intro for the game but everything else cutscene-wise is used by the in-game engine and these models lack anything above basic animations and facial expressions. Most of the "feelings" in a scene are presented through the dialogue itself and the character portraits that take up much of the screen, almost like a visual novel, with the models standing there blankly. It can be a little distracting once you notice this. Also, while the character designs are great, you'll soon realize that there are very few actual characters in the game and limited ways to interact with the ones that are there. Enemies aren't any better as there are only a handful of these and most are palette-swapped a dozen times throughout (not an exaggeration) with even the bosses of each area being just beefed-up versions of basic enemy types. This wouldn't be too much of an issue if the gameplay could make up for what the lack of diversity in the enemy types and characters but that isn't the case.

Gameplay is where it's at in any game and that's unfortunately the weakest part of Crystar. You have hack-and-slash style gameplay here, but Ys or Zelda this is not. The combat system is very shallow with weak and strong attacks along with special skills/spells with most characters only varying in terms of their strength and Nanana being the only character with a dedicated long-range attack. I barely used anything but the basic attack and largely stuck to Kokoro as she hit the hardest and got me through most areas quickly. Speaking of using a specific character, it's unfortunate that this game doesn't have some sort of proper party system as it can be jarring seeing cutscenes involving everyone and then only one of them to be participating in the action once they're finished. The first of many missed opportunities.

Guardians also have powerful "finishing" attacks

A Revenant Aberrant form of a normal enemy

Collision detection also seems very off at times and your biggest enemy will be everyone's favorite type of attack: projectiles that come from off-screen. Nothing kills the fun more than doing well with an encounter only to be knocked down from an attack that comes out of nowhere. The lock-on mechanic also seems a little broken and rarely seems to pick out the enemy you want, but you pretty much have to use it if you want to consistently land hits. Also, the repeated enemy types make this flawed system hard to deal with as they always act the same, but get stronger and have more annoying spells as the game goes on. Guardians could help this but they often block visibility and make targeting and maneuvering more difficult. When activating Guardians it's best to just lock on to a nearby enemy and mash the attack button until either they're dead or the meter has run out, or just switch to Kokoro and mash attack for the same result. This poorly implemented battle system makes up most of the "game" in Crystar so you have to put up with to advance the great story.

There's just as much crying as you'd expect

Every character has faced death and loss

The item system deserves mention here too as it can be quite frustrating. The game uses both consumable items and equippable items, with consumables being a bit easier to discuss as they largely work as one would expect. Well, that is until you realize that they're all set to be used automatically by default. I ran through a lot of my consumable items before I turned this off and these items aren't very common as far as drops and chests go and are quite expensive. I have no idea why this would be included at all, let alone set to "on" by default, as it feels like a way for the game to run through your entire inventory on a couple bad encounters.

Equippable items are a little different and come from the Revenants in the form of "torments" which you purify with tears. These torments then become "sentiments" and you can equip them, fuse them, unlock special bonuses if they have them, and sell them. The latter is interesting as I spent hours playing the game before realizing you could unload the sentiments you don't need. You'd think it'd be as easy as selling them to the Peddler NPCs you buy consumables from, but nope, the sell feature is hidden with the item sorting menu. Speaking of selling, you can't sell the consumable items at all, and the whole in-game economy seems fairly broken (starting to see a theme here) as everything is quite expensive and requires a lot of grinding to make sentiments actually usable let alone be able to easily recover from status effects like confusion. The inventory system provides one more layer of annoyance and grinding that one probably is only putting up with because the story is so compelling.

These enemies are the most annoying in the game

Nanana really does grow on you after a while

Rei's Room is the "hub" of the game and even though I'm not usually a fan of Action RPGs that use a menu-based hub instead of some sort of overworld, I do like what's here in theory. I've already mentioned purifying torments with tears and dealing with inventory management but you can also view the bestiary, listen to music, change outfits, talk to other characters on your phone, choose your next Ordeal, and even get to play with your dog, Thelema. It's cool that you can change into various outfits but I found it odd that they all have a "bonus effect" section but only the Peddler Outfit (which gives you a 10% discount when wearing it) is the only one that has one that's different. The glossary and diary are cool to check out if you want to learn more about the game and the world, and the bestiary has a lot of little stories that can be entertaining even if they seem a little tacked on. The phone option seems like a missed opportunity to hear optional dialogue scenes and maybe get a side quest or two, but I'm willing to forgive a lot of things because of the inclusion of the "Thelema" option. Yes, you can pet the dog in Crystar.

The Torments before you Purify them

Thelema is a good girl

Sound in Crystar is interesting as it doesn't really stand out but it also doesn't offend like other aspects of the game. Most of the music is just... there and I didn't notice it for the most part, but there are a couple tracks that sound very abstract and interesting if you're into that kind of thing. Elsewhere, the opening and closing themes, which contain vocals, are pretty good and there thankfully wasn't any particular track that got grating during long dungeon runs. Voice acting is a little different though as I found the English voice case hit and miss a lot of the time with Nanana being particularly grating whenever she chimed in. Maybe I'm just not used to anime dub-type voice work but the uneven English voice cast ultimately convinced me to switch over the Japanese voice track, which thankfully is included here too. That aside the entire game is voiced down to minor NPC dialogue and even random quips you hear in battle, so that's pretty impressive in my opinion. One minor gripe regarding music is the aforementioned option in Rei's Room to check out the game's soundtrack. While in her room you can listen to all the in-game music you've already heard in a "lo-fi beats" meme-y kind of way, but I never once felt the want to do this beyond sampling a couple tracks for this review. Every new track in the game gets added here though so this unused part of the game constantly had a "New" notification that can only be removed by listening to every track at least a little bit. A minor gripe sure but it's representative of all the little inconveniences and annoyances that continually build up in this game.

Replayability isn't really something covered when it comes to reviewing RPGs but Crystar tackles it in an odd way that must be discussed. I already mentioned having to redo dungeons for the sake of powering up characters or inventory, but if you want a complete bestiary (which adds those cool little stories about each enemy) you have to complete past dungeons until you defeat an enemy enough to fill out their entries. This would be fine until you remember that there are only about ten different enemy types and it gets tiresome to read these little flavor stories and still only see a flower or a basic specter representing it. Even if you don't repeat areas to fill out the bestiary, you're going to have to replay dungeons several times in order to truly complete the game. Without spoiling anything rather than have the game conclude with more dungeons, new enemies, etc. you are forced to replay parts of the game several times to achieve the "true" ending and while I won't give specifics, you're really not going to be satisfied with the "first" ending you get.

An example of a bestiary entry

Anamnesis in all her glory

The vast majority of this review feels like it's negative but I have to reiterate that the story really drives everything forward. It's amazing just how much getting to the next chunk of story drove me to put up with everything I outlined above. You really grow to care for these characters and you want to learn more about them and see how they're going to deal with all the twists and turns thrown at them. I found Nanana quite annoying when she popped up but even she grew on me in short order and the entire mystery of who is the true villain is quite compelling. I really wish I could discuss some of this game's great moments that came right when I was considering giving up but they really should be experienced without spoilers. Let's just say that the game goes far beyond the simple premise of Rei trying to be reunited with Mirai. The real question is whether a badly implemented Action RPG game is worth enduring to get through a great story, and that isn't something that's easily answered.

All in all Crystar is a good game, but definitely not a great one. The gameplay is very flawed and when I was done with the game I couldn't help but think that it would be much more enjoyable if it was crafter as a Visual Novel instead. The story is very compelling and if it wasn't so good I would have to say that this game gets a hard pass. As it stands, I think you can definitely do worse and the Switch version being something of a definitive release makes it the one to get if you're going to pick it up at all. As long as you set your expectations accordingly you may have an easier time at it. Also, if you're a fan of very grindy games you might be able to look beyond many of its flaws. Or you can just head over to Rei's Room and pet Thelema.

For more information on Crystar:
https://nisamerica.com/crystar

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Story: A
Gameplay: D
Graphics: B
Sound: B
Value: C

OVERALL: C-

Pros:
+ A very well-written story that deals with topics like loss, survivor's guild, and mental illness in a mature way.
+ Some of the music is really good and the game is fully voiced in both English and Japanese
+ This Switch release comes with all the content from the previous releases available from the start.
+ If you like grindy JRPG dungeon crawlers then the repetitive gameplay loop might not bother you.
+ You can pet the dog.

Cons:
- The combat system is very repetitive and parts of it seems flawed and/or broken.
- The inventory system isn't any better and only serves to add to the grind.
- The game can be pretty hard for all the wrong reasons.
- If you're not a fan of anime or JRPG story beats then you might not be able to look past the worst parts of the game.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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