Game:

Crystalis (1990)

Duration: 24:16

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16

Nathaniel plays and talks his way through Crystalis for the Game Boy Color, which is a remake of the NES cult classic RPG. Part 2 of 10.

Returning to the swamp, Jack (our hero-in-the-making) disrupts a delicate ecosystem by slaying every creature that crosses his path, unwittingly causing a chain reaction where the swamp's larger, unseen predators will have no recourse but to devour the villagers of Oak in a few years when their food supply of regular monsters runs out prematurely.

Jack makes his way back to the town of Brynmaer to purchase a Bronze Shield, which he quickly learns is useless for deflecting projectiles, though the comfort of holding the shield makes getting hit in the face by yet another throwing axe feel somehow less painful. Once more, he breaks into the wise man Tornel's house and finds that he is still no match for Tornel's state-of-the-art Stom Security System.

Defeated and dejected, Jack gives up his dream of becoming a hero and disappears into the mountains, where he'll live out his days as a hermit, and no one will ever poke or compare him to children again. Except he runs into a zombie and gets badly injured, so goes back to the inn to heal and completely forgets about being a hermit. So he barges into Tornel's house again.

Jack draws his sword and manages drive Stom to the back wall without killing him, which means either Stom has a ridiculous number of hit points or Jack was repeatedly slapping him with the flat part. Tornel, who condones violence and enjoys watching men fight each other for sport, teaches Jack the magic of Telepathy, which allows him to speak and interpret any language and telepathically contact other people for advice. Instead pursuing a career in international diplomacy, Jack basically forgets he has this spell and goes back outside to stab things.

Jack retraces his steps to Oak, where the villagers have pulled all the dots out of their mouths and are speaking with words for a change. Jack is informed of two unsettling things: First, a dwarf child is missing. Second, and more importantly, he smells terrible. WELL, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT, DWARF PEOPLE? YOU BUILD YOUR HOME IN A SWAMP! Yeah, he'll go find your kid.

Evidently all the dwarves went to the Akahana School of Locating Lost Things, because it takes Jack exactly 14 seconds after leaving the village to find the missing child. This incredible feat makes Jack a local hero when he returns with the uninjured dwarfling in tow. As a sign of deepest gratitude, the boy's mother gives Jack the Insect Flute, which summons the true horrors of the swamp, as a gift. Dwarf Christmas must be horrible.

Shortly thereafter, the cuddly and adorable village elder hands Jack the Sword of Fire, believing Jack is qualified to kill a gigantic monster on the basis of him having just saved a small child. I mean, the skill set's pretty much the same for both, right?

With flute and sword in hand, Jack arrives at the appointed place and summons the true horror of the swamp, an ugly clump of pixels that kinda looks like a bug. Don't look at it; you'll go blind. He defeats the insect monster and claims the great Ball of Fire. Goodness gracious, and all that.

Tornel, whose covert surveillance network extends even into the deepest parts of the swamp, sees Jack's victory and appears to instruct him on his next task: finding the Tornado Bracelet on Mt. Sabre. When Jack contacts Tornel and the other Wise Men telepathically for further guidance, he gets through to their answering machines, which are still telling him where to find the bug monster, what the Insect Flute does, and that he should try using Telepathy magic sometime.

Jack spends the next several minutes backtracking, grinding, shopping, and dungeon crawling, like this is an RPG or something.

The frigid tunnels of Mt. Sabre are filled with turtlepods, dragonsnakes, eyespiders, and other monsters whose names I just made up. Jack finds the Tornado Bracelet, puts it on, and proceeds to TEAR EVERYTHING APART with the Sword of Fire because it's still better.

He meets up with Tornel, learns the magic of Teleport, listens to a story about how the villagers of Leaf were all abducted by the bad guys, and is urged to teleport immediately back to Leaf so he can do absolutely nothing about it because everybody's already gone.

Filled with a sense of urgency, Jack takes Tornel's advice under advisement and finds a nice icy slope to slide down for the fun of it. Then it's off to Brynmaer for a nap, followed by a quick romp through the killing fields again. Once the abductors have been given a sporting head start, Jack teleports back to Leaf to find that, GASP!, everyone is gone! Except a rabbit, who knows more about geography than your average middle schooler.

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