A Proper Crystalis Celebration

As is my yearly custom, I am pleased to report that I have celebrated the (15th!) anniversary of The END DAY by playing through Crystalis, the NES RPG cult classic that made the bold proclamation that this day in 1997 would mark the end of civilization as we knew it. Well, I say that the post-apocalypse has never looked better.

For starters, for the first time in a few years, I was able to play through Crystalis from start to finish in a single sitting. Marathoning the game isn't a requirement, but I'm at the point now where I can breeze through it in 3-4 hours; that's about how long I spend playing video games anyhow (when I get the chance), so why not finish the whole thing in one go? Besides, part of the enjoyment I derive from playing this every year is experiencing the continuous progression of the story and the gameplay from one area to the next; I don't get the full effect by taking a few days to complete the game.

More exciting than that, however, was the release of Part 1 of GameCola's Crystalis-themed D&D podcast, hosted by yours truly. It's an alternate retelling of the story in which the game's four wise men--Zebu, Tornel, Asina, and Kensu--are the heroes. If you're interested in Dungeons & Dragons, or are a Crystalis fan, or just like sitting in on other people's (virtual) tabletop gaming sessions, this one comes highly recommended.

However, the best part of this END DAY was unquestionably the rare opportunity to fire up my NES, settle myself into the couch, and watch the graphics of Crystalis' otherwise normal introductory cutscene go completely bananas:

Apparently, the mistakes of the past could have been avoided with a little more Tornel Teaches Typing.

 

In short, this was a good day for Crystalis.

GameCola Recap: April 2012

Holy Hatris! Thanks to a frenzy of podcasting activity, some exciting news in the adventure gaming world, and the celebration of its tenth anniversary, videogame humor website GameCola.net was inundated with my participation in the month of April. Looking back through the archives, there haven't been this many articles with my name attached to them since February 2010!

I need a nap.

Column:

- The Archive Dive: GameCola's 10th Anniversary Edition [Collaboration with Paul Franzen]

News:

- See Ya on the Chronostream...Again?

Podcasts:

- GC Podcast #38: UNCUT [April Fools' gag]

- GC Podcast #39: It's Pronounced "Crystalis"

- The GameCola 10th Anniversary 10-Hour Podtacular Is Live NOW!

Videos:

- GameCola 10th Anniversary Blowout Extravaganza Collaboration Celebration

- GC Podcast #33 on YouTube: 3D Games

Go Play Crystalis

If you haven't started playing Crystalis by the time you read this, you've obviously forgotten what day it is (or just got wrapped up in your super-secret Death Ray research again). I hope you'll join me in celebrating the 14th anniversary of the end of civilization by trying out, replaying, or at least reading about one of my all-time favorite video games.

It's the END DAY, folks. Go out there and enjoy it. Or, rather, stay inside and enjoy it. Even if the Game Boy version of Crystalis is all you've got.

Exfanding Review: Crystalis (GBC)

In honor of the 13th (!) anniversary of The END DAY, I found myself playing Crystalis, as I do every year on October 1st. Except this time, I wasn't playing Crystalis--I was playing Crystalis. For the Game Boy Color. Note the difference in intonation in my voice.

Ten years after the relase of the NES cult classic, the GBC introduced Crystalis to a brand-new audience...and disgusted most of the longtime fans.

As a standalone game, Crystalis for the GBC is pretty good--on the surface, it's just a direct port from the NES with new dialogue, different music, and a few graphical tweaks here and there. You know; the kind of port that's totally acceptable to play if you can't get a copy of the original. But don't you be deceived.

The trouble begins with the introduction. The very first screen of the NES game--that ominous declaration of 1997, October 1 The END DAY--is one of the most eye-catching beginnings to any game I've ever played. The introduction that follows is grim, mysterious, and ultimately hopeful, with music that perfectly captures what the text and pictures are going for. This sets the tone for the entire game.

The GBC version starts out DUH NUH NUH NUH NAAAAH GENERIC FANTASY ADVENTURE NAAAAH!!! Gone is the mystique of this strange new world you're about to enter; all of the details of the entire game are fed to you at once in a way that feels more like a summary than a story. The music is now a cacophanous explosion of alternating low pitches and high pitches that scream, "LISTEN! THIS IS WHAT DRAMA SOUNDS LIKE!"

But hey, it's just the introduction. As long as they don't mess with the actual gameplay too much, I can just shrug it off as a different presentation.

The very beginning of the game starts off harmlessly enough. Everything plays out the same way, though the dialogue is a little different, and you no longer are able to accidentally start talking to people just by bumping into them. The menu interface has been reorganized to better fit the smaller GBC screen and, in theory, it's a little more organized. There's a few random, innocuous objects strewn about to give the place a smidge more flavor than the original.

No big deal. Some of the dialogue helps to flesh out a game world that hasn't gotten any deeper in the past decade. Pressing a button to talk makes sense. The new menu system is more logical than the old one. The little graphical tweaks make the game feel a little more modern. Nothing wrong with any of this.

Then I get my first weapon, the Sword of Wind. The village elder is suddenly a far more important person than he used to be. When I pick up the sword and hold it over my head for everyone in the tiny hut to see, a slightly garbled digitized voice blurts out, "SWORD OF WIND!" (Or, more accurately, "SGURG OB MEND!")

This doesn't feel right. It's not flat-out wrong, but it indicates that the game may be trying to deviate from its predecessor rather than simply improve upon it or update it for a more modern audience. Still too early to pass judgment, though.

I head out to the killing fields to hack up some slimes and tiger men. I recoil at the ear-piercing wannabe arcade game sound that has replaced the boppin' overworld theme from the NES. I charge headlong into monsters that never used to get anywhere close to me, thanks to the reduced screen size. Suddenly, there's no trace of the Alarm Flute I need to proceed to the next area--it's just...gone!

Oh, wait. There's a random tiny dungeon that wasn't here before, and that's where the Alarm Flute went. I guess I can live with that.

The first several areas of the game are virtually identical to those on the NES, but the music is already grating on me. For as much as I fancy myself a more objective observer than the average person, I absolutely cannot determine whether the music is so atrocious because it's decidedly not the Crystalis music I grew up with, or because it really is just plain bad. I suspect it's a little (or a lot) of both.

I begin to notice some strangeness with the level designs around the time I'm scaling Mt. Sabre; there should definitely be another room at the end of this tunnel, and the shortcut back to the village of Leaf is noticeably absent. I also notice some enemies that are showing up where they've never shown up before, some bosses are missing a special attack, and one or two enemies that have disappeared entirely from the game.

I can live with this. It's just different, and the developers no doubt had to cut out or change a few things to make everything fit on the smaller cartridge. At least the gameplay is the same, right?

Oh, no. That sword isn't supposed to hurt that monster. Each and every monster is supposed to have its own immunities and vulnerabilities to the four swords. Are you telling me that I can use whatever sword I want?

Yes, yes you are telling me that. And after extensive testing, you don't need any more weapons after obtaining a Level 2 Sword of Fire. Sure, you need to make ice bridges and blast apart iron walls, but as far as fighting random enemies is concerned, nothing else is as good.

Even the magic-guzzling Level 3 powers aren't as helpful this time around--the Sword of Water's most powerful attack is particulary sad, as the whirling barrage of snowflakes is now a multidirectional snowflake boomerang that NEVER hits your target.

Playing around with multiple weapons is a big part of why I love Mega Man so much, and it's one of the reasons I love Crystalis so much. Take away the distinctions between weapons, and Crystalis loses that little bit of strategy that keeps it from being a mindless hack'n'slash adventure.

I could prattle on about the rest of the game in fierce detail, but the central problems are easy enough to sum up at this juncture: (1) the limitations of the GBC keep any developer from doing full justice to Crystalis; (2) the major changes that were made change the fundamental feel of the game; and (3) too many of the little touches have been lost.

The GBC port of Crystalis may address a few minor issues that hinder the NES game. It may make the game more accessible (I.e. easier) for a younger or more casual audience. It's still got plenty of problems, and the problems are made worse once you realize what you could be playing instead. The original Crystalis is a game that, even with its technical flaws, is charming because of the developers' obvious attention to detail.

Even when the Sword of Wind becomes all but obsolete a third of the way through the game, there's a monster in the penultimate dungeon that can only be felled with the power of air. When you use magic to transform yourself into other people, you get unique reactions from townsfolk depending on what you look like--especially when you talk to the person you've transformed into!

The original Crystalis truly feels like the people who designed the game were also the people who wanted to play the game. The GBC port feels like the game was repackaged for a different audience, one that wouldn't appreciate the atmosphere, challenges, and nuances of the original. Much of what made the game worth playing in the first place was lost in the transition.

Crystalis for the Game Boy Color is a decent game, but for those who've played the original, it's the difference between fantastic sparkling cider and really bad champagne. Or something along those lines.

Yeah, I almost hurled a few times, too.

1997, October 1, The END DAY

That's right! Today marks the 12th anniversary of the end of the world--or, at least, the day that savage war engulfed the world and destroyed civilization, according to the 1990 NES game Crystalis.

If you're unfamiliar with the END DAY, check out last year's review of Crystalis, which, incidentally, is one of my all-time favorite video games. It holds a special place in my heart, it does, and I argue that it's better than The Legend of Zelda.
Don't believe me? Download the instruction manual and try playing Crystalis online to see for yourself. (Go ahead. Click those links.)

Better yet, go out and buy or borrow a copy of the original NES game. Or, if you have to, the Game Boy Color game, but I make no promises about the awesomefulnessitude of that one. Crystalis might not win you over immediately, but if you play it long enough to really get a feel for it, I promise it'll be worth the time.

Happy END DAY! Now go play Crystalis, or so help me, I will make you... uh... grow weary of my incessant urging for you to play Crystalis.

Crystalis: Better than The Legend of Zelda

And that's how the game begins: 1997, October 1, The END DAY. A terrible war that all but wiped out humanity and left the planet dominated by mutated monsters.

To celebrate the 11th anniversary of the end of the world, we're reviewing the classic video game that made the world aware of the apocalypse that we apparently all missed.

...Well, perhaps "made the world aware" is a bit too broad a statement. Crystalis to this day is largely unknown, despite its excellence.

Crystalis was released in 1990 for the old-school Nintendo Entertainment System, gained a cult following, and was remade in 2000 for the Game Boy Color. In many ways, the GBC version is not the same game, so treat it as you would a Swedish meatball tumbling out of a speeding car.

Take that however you will.

In Crystalis, you play as a young man who emerges from a high-tech sleep chamber hidden in a cave, possessing nothing but a name. (Well, and clothes. There are clothes involved.)

You, of course, are the hero who will save the post-apocalyptic world from the monsters and villains that plague it. Your quest takes you through towns, fields, mountains, caves, swamps, deserts, seas, and more, guided by four wise men who teach you to use magic along the way.

In addition to magic, a variety of armors, shields, herbs, boots, and flutes are at your disposal, along with the centerpieces of the game, your weapons, the four elemental swords.

Throughout the game you collect the swords of wind, fire, water, and thunder, each with their own special powers, and each with the ability to eventually be charged up for more powerful and dramatic elemental attacks. These can also allow you to do nifty things such as knocking down rock walls and building ice bridges over water.

By the end of the game you are able to launch tornadoes, create firey explosions, launch swirling blizzards, and call down devastating thunderstorms to smite your enemies. Needless to say, this is very cool (and the pictures don't quite do justice to these effects).


Unlike many other games, your weapons never go totally obsolete: though the Sword of Thunder is the most powerful, there will still be times where only the Sword of Wind can harm an enemy.

Much of your equipment never goes out of style, as well: while the armor that restores your health is the strongest in the game, sometimes it's helpful to change into the slightly weaker armor that defends you against being poisoned.

Crystalis plays like The Legend of Zelda (and its 2-D brethren) in that it's a real-time, top-down perspective adventure game with lots of sword swinging, but with different types of puzzles (and fewer of them).

However, I hold that Crystalis is superior to The Legend of Zelda because:

- The weapons are more visually interesting, more powerful, and generally cooler (thunderbolt-hurling sword vs. bow and arrows... hm...)

- The RPG elements (leveling up and buying/finding numerous equipment upgrades) keep your character from stagnating

- The plot is more developed, and the characters seem more like they actually live in the game world and aren't just there for decoration, clues, or plot advancement

- Overworld areas between "dungeons" aren't just filler; every location has a distinct purpose and a unique feel to it

- Magic serves a support role rather than a strictly offensive role, allowing you to heal yourself at any time, teleport back to any town you've visited, and telepathically communicate with the wise men when you're completely stumped about what to do next

Still, though, Crystalis isn't perfect. The menu system, the mechanic for charging up your weapons, somewhat frequent graphics flickering, some instances of excessive monster battling (especially at the end), and a wimpy final boss might draw criticism from some gamers, but if you can overlook these minor or relatively minor issues, there is a truly great game to be played, if you can get your hands on a copy of it.

One that's even better than Zelda.

...And I'm already bracing myself for the terrible wrath of the hardcore Zelda fans I've just offended who haven't even played Crystalis.

Happy End Day!

[Cover art photo from www.racketboy.com; screenshots from www.gamefaqs.com and www.mobygames.com]