Crystal Crisis Game Sample - PC/Indie
37At what point does a company stop being labeled as Indie? Crystal Crisis is brought to us by the small development and publishing outlet, Nicalis, who first rose to fame for adapting Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya's brilliant 2004 freeware game, "Cave Story", to the Nintendo Wii and DS, bringing the title to a wider audience.
From there, they've gone on to publish many Indie darlings such as "NightSky", "La-Mulana", "VVVVVV (Vee)" "Ikachan", "1001 Spikes", "RemiLore: Lost Girl in the Lands of Lore", and "The Binding of Isaac (Rebirth)", just to name a few. They've gone on to publish somewhat higher profile titles such as "Code of Princess EX" and "Umihara Kawase Fresh!". They're even backing ambitious cross-over titles such as "Blade Strangers" and this title, bringing together an all-star Indie cast and even some not-so-Indie names ("Black Jack" is quite popular in Japan and "Astro Boy" is popular worldwide and practically a household name in Japan). I remember when Doujin was really taking off and seeing franchises like "Fate/stay night" and "Corpse Party" with their humble origins explode into these huge franchises and companies like Watanabe Seisakujo evolve into French Bread and start producing high quality, full-priced games like Melty Blood and their own IP, Under Night In-Birth... I guess what I'm saying is, the line between casual and mainstream is gradually blurring with more ways to access games than ever before and, thankfully, you don't need to be affiliated with a major group to be successful.
Crystal Crisis is the spiritual successor to one of the better long-forgotten puzzle games, Capcom's 1997 "Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo". While it's not fair to say that Crystal Crisis has been the closest thing to SPF2T in more than twenty years, it is fair to say that it's the successor that fans of the game deserve... there was an HD update to SPF2T in 2007 (which was a toss-up with new features but also missing content and errors) and a very half-hearted reboot called "Puzzle Fighter" for mobile devices in 2017, but Crystal Crisis expands on the formula with much-needed additional features like tightened gameplay (without the gatcha nonsense of the mobile game), more than twenty characters each with new offensive and defensive abilities, a whimsical story with branching paths, additional modes (Tag Battle is fun while Survival, Inline and Memory separate the boys from the Grandmasters), various galleries, a colorblind mode, and the new ability to split gems by wrapping the sides (which is a game-changer for expert players). It's also a brilliant way to further market the characters within as the vast majority of them are fairly unknown... if you didn't care about characters like Isaac, Solange, and the gang before, you might give them a look-see after playing this.
Outside of that, its guts are SPF2T all the way. The basic gameplay involves connecting same-colored gems, forming clusters (which doubles your attack modifier) and using Spark Crystals to detonate them. Stacking and creating layers allows you to make chains, but the competitive core of SPF2T doesn't lie in the biggest chains or largest clusters, but balance and a keen eye; most puzzlers don't require you to monitor your opponents field, but it's absolutely essential in this game to move up the ranks due to character's burst abilities, attack patterns and countdown crystals. You need to learn everyone's abilities (though you CAN disable bursts) and orchestrating a large chain can easily be offset by smaller rapid attacks in succession, snatching away victory in the the most unlikely scenarios. That's part of what makes the game fun... don't be fooled though, this doesn't mean that a novice can overthrow a pro -- there's a definite learning curve.
You won't get good from playing the Story Mode unfortunately, as the difficulty is locked to what seems to be the most basic setting for folks who want to unlock stuff with minimal stress, but you can go into the training mode and switch between various difficulties to prepare for the Arcade Mode and Online Tournaments (Normal, Advanced, Expert, Master and Grandmaster). I'll wrap this up by saying the game first released for the Nintendo Switch and was an excellent on-the-go title, but the Steam version runs like a dream with additional graphics configurations (including increasing the graphics to Ultra settings as shown here and up to 4K resolution) and looks great, but you're still reminded of its Indie roots here and there (facial animations, lip sync, etc.). I'd also like to point out the cool opening/ending and awesome soundtrack that the game has.
All in all, if you loved SPF2T, you owe it to yourself to try this game out. At $20, the Steam version is a steal for what you get. This is a video of the tutorial and one Story playthrough illustrating different things. My skill is somewhere between Expert and Master, though I refrain from using certain tactics to show off the game. Enjoy.