Fans of Kemco’s RPGs are in luck this month. We only just saw the release of Soul Of Deva ($4.99) a couple of weeks ago, and here we are with another release already. Granted, this is Kemco trying to catch iOS up with previously released Android games, but let’s not look a potential gift horse in the mouth. Amazingly, Crystareino ($7.99) is done by the same team that did Deva, Hit-Point, who at this point are probably in dire need of a vacation. If you read my review of Deva, you know that I ended up liking it quite a bit thanks to its sharp 2D visuals and strategic, unique battle system. Well, I also like Crystareino quite a bit, but for almost entirely different reasons. This game plays things very safely, eschewing innovation in exchange for delivering a solid, content-rich adventure. If you’re tired of the tropes of the genre, it might not be the best choice, but if you thrive on them, you’ll find this to be a decent meal.
After firing up the game for the first time, my initial impression was a feeling of disappointment. Crystareino uses Hit-Point’s older game engine and assets, so the scrolling is pretty rough and the play area is bordered if you’re playing on a larger screen. After the slight eye candy of the last game, it’s a little hard to take a step back. The battles also feel pretty low-tech, with a head-on view that only shows your characters from the back in super-deformed form. Imagine something like Square’s SaGa games on the Game Boy, or Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, and you’ll have the idea. After spending more time with the game, it became apparent as to why they might have taken this approach, though.
In something of a change for Kemco games, your hero is a nameless protagonist. His destiny is to become a hero and save the world from the Demon King, and he’s training hard for that day. Unfortunately for him, the Demon King has other plans, and the hero is summoned early. On top of that, it seems like he’s been pulled into an entirely different world than his own. Obviously concerned for the well-being of his home, he’s eager to return, but the only way to do that seems to be helping out the people of this world with their problem. He’s joined by his spirit beast, trainer, and mouthpiece, Eppol, who looks a bit like a baby luck dragon. It doesn’t take long for nameless to make friends, however, and you’ll soon be swimming in more party member choices than you’ve ever seen before in a Kemco RPG.
Not all of these characters are important to the story, but it is kind of neat that with every town you roll into, you can pick up one or two new characters to use. You can only have four in your party at any one time, including the hero, and the game will frequently force characters on you, in the early part of the game especially. Once you’ve recruited a character for the first time, you can always call them back at any town’s tavern, so it’s not all that inconvenient to swap them around if you want to. This huge cast is as good an excuse as any for the simpler sprites, since there really are dozens of characters who could participate in battle. Huge rosters like this one aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, as it often leads to weak characterization, but characters have never really been Hit-Point’s strong area anyway, and it’s easily outweighed by how fun it is to try to find everyone.
That said, from a gameplay point of view, it’s not even remotely necessary to hunt down extra characters. The game includes a job system with 20 different classes, so you can more or less mold any one character into whatever you want them to be, apart from inherent equipment restrictions. Changing job classes modifies the character’s stats. Through battles, the character will learn skills from that class, and when they master it, they walk away with a bonus of some type that they can carry into another class along with all the learned skills. If you like character development systems that allow you near-total customization, you’ll be in heaven playing Crystareino. It’s weird having two gameplay elements that seem to work against each other like the class system and huge playable roster do. It’s in your best interests to stick with one group of characters and level them up to be tiny gods, so you can take or leave the extra characters as you like.
The pace of the adventure is generally good, and the plot is interesting though fairly predictable from moment-to-moment. The world map is a bit on the small side, so you will get sent back and forth a fair bit to pad things out, but there’s usually some halfway decent narrative reason for the backtracking. I enjoyed the way the “two worlds" plot played out, but again, I’d be awfully surprised if you didn’t guess where it was going before you’ve even left the first main dungeon. As usual for this developer, the localization is competent but thoroughly dry. There aren’t many moments where you’ll fail to understand what people are saying, but very little of the dialogue feels natural or fun to read. It’s definitely one of those RPGs where the plot is just there to keep you moving on to the next gameplay sequence, and in that capacity, it’s good enough.
The dungeons are a bit on the short side, but they have lots of hidden secrets and side paths to explore. Not all of them are mandatory, with several of them only there to host sub-quests and improve your relations with certain party members. You have to revisit a couple of them more times than I’d prefer, but their brevity at least keeps that from getting too annoying. Sub-quests are the usual type found in Hit-Point’s games, usually tasking you with killing a boss-type monster or defeating a certain number of regular enemies. The rewards for completing them are generally worth it, though the game itself isn’t all that difficult on the whole, so you certainly don’t need to indulge in them if you don’t want to.
I’m not a fan of how many sub-menus are involved in navigating Crystareino‘s user interface. You have to go four menus deep to use a simple heal spell outside of combat, and regular activities like that should never involve digging that far. That said, I’m very happy to see that the shops actually show you if equipment is an improvement for your characters or not, since the last couple of games from this developer haven’t bothered with that. As usual, you can play with touch controls or virtual buttons, easily switching between the two at the tap of a button. You can also use an MFi controller, provided you’re using a version of iOS where they actually work. The game also includes the usual Kemco IAP where you can earn or buy points that can be exchanged for cheat items at a special shop. The points are pretty easy to earn, the items aren’t all that expensive, and there’s nothing story- or content-related for sale, so they’re more or less there to make the game easier.
Crystareino is another solid effort from the hardest-working team Kemco publishes for. While it takes a few steps back from their previous effort in some ways, the robust job system, huge playable roster, and entertaining plot make for an enjoyable adventure anyway. I’ll reiterate what I said in the opening of this review, though. If you’re tired of JRPGs and their usual tricks, Crystareino is not going to change your mind at all. This one’s for the genre fans who are happy to just get something of reasonable quality, even if it doesn’t innovate, and in that role, it’s a good choice for those looking for their next quest.
