Crystal Project
Crystal Project is a non-linear JRPG where you are the maker of your own adventure. Explore the world while you find Crystals, unlock classes, learn abilities, and create a strategy capable of taking down the world's toughest bosses. Or just stick to exploring; it's up to you.
Crystal Project is a rpg, adventure and jrpg game
developed and published by Andrew Willman.
Released on March 31st 2022 is available in English on Windows, MacOS and Linux.
It has received 2,054 reviews of which 1,906 were positive and 148 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.9 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 8.69€ on Steam and has a 25% discount.
The Steam community has classified Crystal Project into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Crystal Project through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 7 (64-bit), fully updated
- Processor: Intel Core i5-2000 Series
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 500 MB available space
- Additional Notes: Direct3D 11 support (feature level 10_0)
MacOS
- OS: 10.9 Mavericks and newer
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Storage: 500 MB available space
- Additional Notes: OpenGL 3.0+ support (2.1 with ARB extensions acceptable)
Linux
- OS: glibc 2.17+, 64-bit only
- Processor: Intel Core i5-2000 Series
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M
- Storage: 500 MB available space
- Additional Notes: OpenGL 3.0+ support (2.1 with ARB extensions acceptable)
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Crystal project is a game that you have to know what you're getting yourself into. In some sense it's a JRPG to it's core with surprising depth in it's class system and combinations. Almost as a result of this it also includes a fair amount of grinding. The game heavily encourages and rewards exploration of the entire map backed by surprisingly robust movement methods and tight platforming. On the other hand the things that are great can also be negatives. At times you may hit a spike and be grinding more than you might want, it is very likely you will get lost exploring and trying to find the next step, and the platforming can easily over stay it's welcome(especially when you miss a punishing jump). Overall I would still recommend if you enjoy JRPGs like the classic Final Fantasy games but be aware that this is by no means the perfect game and its flaws can at times be glaring.
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I bought the game on sale forever ago, not expecting all that much. It's actually pretty close to the classic Final Fantasy 3 experience. There's not much for story, but the world has tons of areas to explore and the battle mechanics go pretty deep. The soundtrack is fantastic IMO, perfectly straddling the line between classic design and modern quality. The world is pretty straight forward, not relying on much to keep you contained in early areas. The one thing you will do most in this game is platforming. Every area is filled with platforming sections that don't really punish you for failure, but they do slow you down in lieu of random encounters. You'll figure out fast if you're finishing the game with the first few platforming sections, because they only get harder. It's a lot like climbing a mountain in Minecraft, but you have no blocks and can break none. The dungeons just ask you to do it during night when the mobs are out and there's lava everywhere. It uses a Legend of Zelda style map system, where you don't get one for the area until you find it. Once you do, it's filled out with everywhere you've been. There are movement tools later that'll expand where you can go. The battle mechanics are designed so that most enemies have exploitable weaknesses. This is not a game where you can just mash the attack button and heal when necessary. You will need strategy to make it through. The bosses are especially difficult. I haven't encountered any that don't allow you to save and set your respawn right next to them, and you don't drop money when losing to bosses. You're allowed to use trial and error when finding boss weaknesses. There are no random encounters, all fights are little flames that run at you. They're color coded so you can anticipate how tough it'll be. Normal fights are blue, easy ones are green, and you're boned if it's red. The boss flames are larger and don't usually run at you, so you know to heal up and be ready. You will frequently stumble across red fights if you're exploring hard enough. Sometimes you can win these fights if you have the right strategy and tools, and the rest of the time leaves your party wiped without getting to take a turn. It doesn't string you along; you'll know what you can and can't do. You can also avoid most encounters using a movement technique the game shows you. I'm almost halfway to the level cap without having to grind, and the bosses are tough but fair. I'm not pretending like it's a game for everybody. It scratches an itch for me in a genre that has largely been forgotten by developers today. There's no harm in trying the demo or giving it just shy of 2 hours. You'll know for sure if you like it or not by the end. Edit: I've reached the endgame and am definitely not finishing it all. There's a tedious breeding minigame that I can't be bothered to do, on top of many of the areas having entrances that are way too hidden. I also hate the final boss, mostly because it doesn't make any sense for that to be the boss. My final score for the game is 9.5 out of 10. I'd guess half the content or more is optional, but pretty much anything that isn't the breeding minigame is worth it. My sole complaint is that the breeding minigame is mandatory for 100%, because it honestly sucks.
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This is the best game ever. Period. I'm in my mid-30's and I have been gaming since I was like 5 on the NES. Platformers, MMOs, RPGs, FPSes, RTSes, literally anything. High-end hardcore gaming, GMing of massive MMO guilds, casual BSing, game developing, even reversing games and selling trainers. I've done it all. I've played a LOT of games. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of hours worth. Yet here's something I've never done before: written a review for a game on Steam. I could rant for hours and give you far more text than you'd ever care to read, but I'll keep it simple: this game is incredible. It. Just. Keeps. Going. If you don't spoil yourself, you will think you are "probably like 80% of the way done" when you are like 5% of the way done. I almost couldn't believe when it ended, actually - I was honestly expecting the Dev to suddenly whip out another 50% of a game by that point. I'm a rather serious completionist in games in general, and I "completed" (100% everything, not just all achievements but also all monsters/items in the journals) around the 120-130 hour mark. I undoubtedly could have gone faster if I were rushing, but I actually think that is a very impressive pace if you are taking your time and actually exploring actively. I am an excellent platformer and rarely had an issue downing any boss (in Hard) in more than just a few attempts. I was never blocked. I never was confused. In fact, I was constantly overwhelmed. I always had a mental list (sometimes a PHYSICAL list) of places I could go next that I was putting off to explore other areas. Seriously. This is the best game ever. It needs more marketing or something. Mark my words, when this game catches on to everybody, it will kick off an entire genre of games that attempt to capture its spirit. Nothing compares to this. After having played this game, I was 50/50 on whether I should quit my job to full-time game develop now or whether I should forever give up bothering to game dev, since the perfect game has now been made. I have recommended it to everyone who will listen and I could not speak more highly of this game.
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This game is incredible. It keeps surprising me in wonderful ways. Popular retro-inspired RPGs like Octopath Traveler, Chained Echoes, and Sea of Stars get a lot of things right. Great music, solid overall design, graphics, etc. But they lack that sense of wonder that games in the early days had. Crystal Project has that sense of wonder. You never really know what's coming, you are always figuring out new mechanics and realising new things about the level design you didn't notice before. It feels a lot more like playing Link to the Past for the first time, where you can genuinely be surprised when you go from one map to another, and are constantly seeing new mysterious things and trying to guess what they will ultimately be used for. Combine that with precise combat mechanics that have transparent calculations, and you get a huge open world with infinite (but precise and fair) combat options. I also love the game engine. When I play RPGMaker and Unity games, I can always "feel" the engine and all games from the same engine tend to have a similar feeling. But this game's engine feels novel and makes you feel like you are interacting directly with the game, rather than interacting with a common game making engine.
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A virtually perfect game that not only champions the spirit of classic JRPGs, but innovates on the entire experience JRPG veterans have come to expect. Combat In my opinion, the timeless JRPGs - those that we can play at any time after their initial release with great enjoyment - are those that innovate upon the initial winning formula that progenitor games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest started, with their own unique twists. Final Fantasy 10 gave us a visible turn order, Octopath Traveller gave us the shield-break (quasi stagger) mechanic, SMT3 gave us enemies with multiple turns (my reference range is short), and many others with other changes. Crystal Project gives us all the battle information needed - turn orders, enemy stats, enemy abilities, ally ability hit percentages and damage, etc - to justify their approach to combat: strategy and (on the higher difficulty) careful preparation for success. This might not sound too enticing, but the end result is probably exactly what you want from a JRPG: it's strategic, ruthless at times, and gives you a real sense of reward when you beat a difficult enemy or boss. Exploration Where Crystal Project's combat seems dated (it's perfect if you enjoy turn-based combat and i'll die on this hill) the open-world exploration and immersive experience of the world therein, definitely is not. To have a JRPG with this level of satisfying exploration is an absolute game-changer; to the point of this being the new standard for enjoyable world exploration for me. It begins innocuous, in the sense that you're a regular character in a world that can jump and traverse the environment to a certain degree, but it progresses into you mastering the landscapes you traverse, finding hidden treasures only available through a keen eye, inquisitive mind, and patient resolve. The beauty of the entire experience can be summed up as: the world is a pleasure to explore. There are no invisible walls, no locked-off areas - the whole world is yours to explore. You'll find hidden end-game bosses accidentally, areas that require certain "mounts" that you'll find later, areas that have enemies that are definitely too strong for you, and points of interest that you won't know what to do with for dozens of hours. You'll intuitively gain a sense for what the world and terrain requires of you, and this constant expanding of the explorative potential of the world you're a part of guides a fantastically enjoyable experience for the whole game. Puzzles are all over the place: platforming sequences, time-dependant movements, classical puzzles, etc. - these elements of Crystal Project are never too laborious, but rather flavour the explorative element of the game. The random encounters that you would expect from a JRPG aren't random: every encounter is represented on the overworld as a sprite that you can avoid through movement, baiting their movement, etc. You can tell which encounters are bosses by their different sprite appearance, and eventually you'll be able to tell which sprite is which encounter by their map placements and movements. This gives the explorative element an oddly stealth-like approach, where certain areas have you moving in a particular way because the enemies are sensitive to movement or sight, for example. It sounds weird, but it adds yet another enjoyable element to your journey in Crystal Project. As the world opens up to you, you'll gain an appreciation for the verticality of the areas you've previously explored. As you continue to venture through the world and touch the open sea, you'll gain a new found fear for the water and depths below it. With the ability to traverse the world vertically, and the option of underwater and deep-sea exploration, the later side of Crystal Project is for me the most anxiety inducing world exploration i've had in a JRPG. For a 3D, fixed-perspective game, it's about as enjoyable as it gets. The only fault (and, really, it's hardly a fault and i'm just nitpicking at this point) is that progression in points of interest (dungeons, caves, etc.) is expressly linear, so on paper it's "not ideal" but in reality it's familiar and wonderfully executed. RPG Elements The combat is perfect for turn-based enjoyers, they've heralded in a new era of world exploration, but what about the quintessential element of the JRPG? The RPG! Crystal Project has you control 4 party members, each with the freedom to be any class and take any role. What these 4 party members are for you is, well, up to you. The game presupposes that you'll follow the classic tank-dps-healer-support (roughly) team setup, and as such provides you with a whole host of 24 discoverable classes to construct your party with. Each party member has a primary class and a secondary class, the only difference being the passive abilities that are afforded to each party member by virtue of their primary class. For example, the Wizard gives the character a 15% bonus to fire and lightning damage, the Shaman provides a 25% spell lifesteal to the character, and the Reaper converts 40% of physical damage done into temporary max HP that slowly degrades over time. You'll equip your party members with equipment and accessories that have certain effects, tailor your party member primary and secondary class combinations to be useful for your desired party composition, and overall just have a great time doing this as you progress through the game. As you progress, you'll find certain bosses require a more tailored approach to beating them - for example, the cleric (white mage) has an ability that negates all fire damage for a few turns - so expect to fight a boss a couple of times. This is counter to, most likely, what a lot of JRPG enjoyers have come to expect with the difficulty of JRPGs where you can brute-force your way through the game. This is not necessarily the case here, as your party composition (equipment included) play a huge role in your success. The Optional Stuff Chocobo Hot and Cold, Monster Arena, Chocobo Racing, Golden Saucer... shit, is it only Final Fantasy that have these things? The optional elements of JRPGs are those quirky, eccentric mini-games or side-stuff that keep you occupied along your journey or are extracurricular goals post-game goals, are definitely here in Crystal Project. The most notable is the acquisition of the "best mount" which is a long-winded experience of doing an optional minigame that if you're not expediting it, is a real grindy and frustrating experience - perfect for the JRPG sadist. Crystal Project has it's own series of optional content - from mini-games and secret areas, to super-bosses that will make you want to tear your eyes out. JRPGs that have a sea (literally) of optional end-game content just show me that the developers really appreciate and understand the journey of a JRPG, and it's done exactly how you would want it to be here. Conclusion BUY
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 17 November 2024 07:21 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 19 December 2024 18:09 |
| Steam price | 23 December 2024 12:48 |
| Steam reviews | 23 December 2024 11:47 |
Online players
44
Developer
Andrew Willman
Publisher
Andrew Willman
Release
31 Mar 2022
Platforms