Crystal Project

THIS is what i've been looking for! The ultiamte Final Fantasy-like game, no long cutscenes, straight up gameplay focus, useful NPC dialogues, amazing exploration and a cheap price. What else can i say to convince you?

:D

Nice game got me playin like crazy

First I'll say that it's unfortunate that steam uses a yes/no system now, since my recommendation is neither - but will default to 'no' in this case. I really enjoy the job and combat system of this game. It's really quite good. And if that's all this game was it would get an immediate 'yes' ... however most of my time is spent on 'exploration' which isn't bad on its own except exploration is really just a bunch of platforming jumping puzzles. The kind of jumping puzzles where if you miss a jump - which you will - you're falling down and repeating the last bunch of jumps. And since it's a game that relies on save points, you can put in a bunch of effort getting to a boss, lose the fight, and then you're back to more jumping puzzles. The tags for the game are 'rpg' 'jrpg' 'adventure' etc... but really the first tag, in bold, all caps, 72 point font should be 'PLATFORMER' because that's what this game is first and foremost. You'll constantly have to do pixel perfect jumps where if you jump too soon, you fall and waste a bunch of time, and slightly too late and you just won't jump at all. There IS an 'auto-jump' feature which helps you time these jumps, and it *does* do a good job of that when having to deal with those types of jumps... the problem is that it will 'auto-jump' anytime you drop off a ledge, so if the puzzle requires you to drop down a ledge and you have auto-jump on (which you have to toggle in the menu, there's no quick hotkey to turn it on or off) your character will promptly hurl himself off a cliff and you once again have to repeat jumps. If you like jumping puzzles and platforming, as well as JRPGs with a job change system, you might well love this game. Personally, I hate platformers, especially 2.5D ones, and this game did not change that opinion. I find myself opening the game so I can enjoy the JRPG aspects only to inevitably close it after getting annoyed with prolonged platforming sections. And before someone gets their fanboy pants in a twist and goes 'something something metroidvania' let me be clear: in both metroid and castlevania, the platforming is an integral part of the core gameplay loop and intermingles with the combat. This game is not that. The combat takes part in a typical JRPG battle scene and so is completely removed from the platforming. This leaves you with two core gameplay loops: JRPG combat and character progression, and a platforming adventure/exploration game. Each one could be it's own game without the other, so if you're not a fan of one of those gameplay loops, it just ends up feeling like an obstacle to enjoying the thing you actually like.

This is the greatest Final Fantasy V that has ever been invented.

The correct choice if you are looking for old school SNES JRPG vibes with modern QOL and additions, as well as a huge exploration / parkour aspect. The game respects your time, combat is good, bosses are challenging, exploration is rewarding and fun. Story is not that interesting and you might lose the drive to continue towards the end but at this point you will already have a solid 20-30 hours of gameplay.

Have you ever thought, "man, I wish the original Final Fantasy NES games had no storyline, precision platforming, and random encounters which can't be run from"? No? Me neither, but apparently the developers did. This is more of an awkward platformer with JRPG elements. Supposedly there's a storyline somewhere, though I couldn't find a shred of it in 3 hours, which is generally not a good look for something that sells itself as an RPG. The extremely fast and agile monster encounters which appear as flames on the map will constantly chase you. You can bait them into drowning, but some of them can swim, are faster than you, jump higher than you, and will immediately stop all your momentum if you touch them, dropping you to the ground mid-jump. 90% of traversal in this game is platforming, but the enemy design seems to actively discourage it. As a platformer, it also lacks fast travel, which is unfortunate as it highly touts its exploration (even having its opening monologue being about how exploring should be hard, which is MAYBE valid, but doesn't make for a smooth gameplay experience), which ends up being a lot of tedious repetitive platforming. So not really adventure, more of a button-mashing experience. I was thinking this trouble I was having with enemies might be because the starting classes I picked for my party were bad, but after unlocking one, no, they're all just that bad! Skill trees are short and lack depth, and you WILL run out of both mana and mana restoring items CONSTANTLY if you use a casting class. Tutorials explain things which are obvious, and do not explain things which might actually need explaining, such as the taunt 'danger' system which two of the starting classes rely on as their main gimmicks. Healing items are capped, but not usable in battle for some reason, so if an enemy ambushes you (as is VERY common) and you forgot to heal, tough luck! I see the vision, and why so many people like this game, but this game trips over the hurdles in its game design and relies too heavily on a shoddy platforming system which is fundamentally just not enjoyable.

A great idea marred by poor world design and trial and error combat.