Cris Tales Analysis – Chronomagy in its purest form

Unincorporated dreams with Cris Tales he signs a beautiful tribute to the classic Jrpg with an impeccable design for the flag

Genre jrpg more classic is still very much alive today. Every now and then we have work that tries to capture with current technology those role titles that have given us hours of fun in Super Nintendo, Mega drive O Game Boy Advance, to only cite a few. Mana Secret, Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy they were such a great earthquake in their day that even today their aftershocks are felt. So, from these wickers, it comes to us Crystals, a clear homage to bygone times of the genre, executed with a exquisite graphic design, and with several successes in the playable.

We are facing an indie-style work, developed by the Colombian studio Unincorporated dreams, with the collaboration of SYCK and distributed by Fashion games. They put all their love for the genre into this work, becoming a heartfelt homage to classic JRPGs but was that enough? Join this journey through time to learn more about the crystal prophecy and its chosen one.

Ground by Cris Tales

We’re not going to be worthy of the Cris Tales plot, no matter how cliched it may be. We are talking about a tribute to the greats of the genre, and these already contained at the time quite typical arguments, where a chosen one emerged through a prophecy, which had to face a common enemy and save the world. This did not prevent them from becoming references of the genre.

Crystals it does not leave much of this axis, and it presents us Crisbell, an orphan girl, still oblivious to her powers as a chronmagician. Matías, an elegant and talkative frog who appears by surprise, will be the one who guides her to discover her strange potential and the prophecy of which she is the protagonist. As it is, it can control time, seeing both the past, the present and the future of its environment, being able to modify them according to its decisions. Willhelm, a cosmomago near the city will teach us and introduce us to the arts of chronomagic.

In the midst of it all emerges the Empress and her conspiracy to destroy the world and besiege her people. A strange character who we will learn more about as we advance in the story. Fortunately, we have the young warrior Cristopher to fight his soldiers and his formidable monsters. With the help of Matias, Cristopher and Willhelm, and more characters that we will get to know, Crisbell You will discover where her power comes from and how to fight the Empress and her dark machinations.

Gameplay – Time jumps

Crystals moves in a pattern of Classic gameplay, with turn-based combat, exploration, and some decisions in their dialogues and actions. In this connection we have some news, all related to the time crystals of Crisbell, who have impact on our fights or weight in our decisions and his consequences in the to come up of our characters and their environment.

Fight in the past, present and future

Thrown in battle, the most notable novelty are the crystals he uses Crisbell and that they allow us play with the past, present and future. Alternating time is a mechanic that, combined with magic, gives a lot of play, although over the hours it will lose a bit of freshness with the large number of random fights that we will be faced with.

Taking our enemies to the past or the future will help us modify your statistics or increase the effect of various states such as poison. One of the weirdest things I found is that this mechanic can be beneficial or counterproductive, and we’ll have to give it some thought. We will see the conception of enemies in time, being almost babies or old people.

We can too to sychronize to our characters to obtain new attacks, which, while interesting and adds a bit of dynamism to combat, lacks a bit more depth in its execution.

For the rest, it is still the usual pattern of attack, defense and skill, that it will be something monotonous in time, it lacked a little more novelty which would have given a greater conditioning to the whole. At least it is a success to include the system of blocking and empowering attacks, pressing A at the precise moment of taking a hit or attacking, which adds something more dynamism to the experience. In this sense, not everything will be to press a button and wait, because you will have to be attentive to what is happening on the screen to reduce the damage received or maximize the attacks.

Make no mistake, you must be careful in our combat strategy If we don’t want to bite the dust, we will come up against demanding enemies. This difficulty curve can sometimes be steep, sometimes even demanding. grindeo, but it breaks with the monotony from which many of these proposals suffer, even if it is not spared in certain sections.

Our characters will acquire new skills as experience and levels are addedSome more useful than others of course. Seems like a success to me that our protagonists accumulate experience despite having fallen in battle and not being revived at the end of it. They also participated, they deserve it! You can add to your development parameters pieces of equipment with various effects and states.

In short, your the system is working properly and he alternates positions in the battle, but do not rush and choose the direction of your attacks wisely. As we move forward we find irregularity in the difficulty curve this forced us to look for fights to level up with, which would prolong the experience, taking us to games over 25 hours of play. It can be a bit tedious for some users, as there are already a lot of Random Battles that hamper the adventure.

Exploration

Regarding prospecting, Crystals do not lavish too much, being rather limited and uninspired. We are in front of one of the the weak points of work of Unincorporated dreams. There aren’t any big areas to get lost in, and these are very limited, although it’s sometimes appreciated to speed up the flow of the game a bit, as opposed to random battles. But it’s a shame that nothing more is taken from his precious conception in this regard.

We have the possibility of start conversations with all the characters that we see on the cartography, most of them being the typical banalities of your daily tasks. There is not too much depth in this regard.

Some characters that we will meet on our way they will give us side missions with which to get marbles (the currency of the game) and experience. Also with them we have to apply the temporary spaces. Our friendly frog guide Matías will be responsible for executing these trips, which will allow us to help certain characters achieve certain goals in their life, which I will have effects on your becoming present.

There will be no shortage of supply stores and typical hostels to alleviate the fatigue and wear and tear of our trips, although we are also offered to camp in some places, using tents.

Technical aspects – Art in motion

Crystals enter through the eye without a doubt. obvious its beautiful and neat artistic design, with neat 2D environments, acquiring the depth of a “2.5D”because they can be walked in different directions. An undeniable aesthetic personality, pretty and colorful which leaves Beautiful postcard-worthy prints at every turn. But, not only are their environments full of detail, because their the characters wear a worked design according to the visual display staged. Too bad that as far as you are concerned personality do not see the same expense, turning, in general, to the typical cliché of these fantastic works.

In the most technical sense, there are no graphics issues, and apart from a slight tightness, the whole thing works fine. However, it should be emphasized tedious loading time, What they are abundant and tedious. As a result, every fight or map change will involve one, which means a huge reduction in the pace of adventure and action.

The The soundtrack of Cris Tales lags behind the visual, i.e. lines to a very high level. Its melodies blend perfectly with the action and instantly capture the player’s attention. He is evident the care given to the sound zone so that everything is perfectly combined. The work of Unincorporated dreams count with a dubbing in English and texts in Spanish, without translation errors and in good taste.

conclusion

Cris Tales is a very interesting jrpg proposition, with personality, capable of dazzling the more experienced of the genre, as well as becoming a very accessible gateway for newcomers. It might lack depth or originality in some of its aspects, like its plot, but it has an artistic design that makes you fall in love, and a level soundtrack, and manages to successfully implement the Time jumps mechanics and make it interesting and fun in the game. playable plane. Too bad its load times and excessive Random Battles take some of the rhythm off its proposition. For now, capture the essence of the past, have fun in the present, and reserve a bright future for Unincorporated dreams.