My experience with puzzle fighters can be narrowed down to roughly 30 minutes of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo on PS3. But then Crystal Crisis came along boasting a cast of characters I mostly recognised, and grabbed my intrigue enough to make me want to play it. Plus, it was on Switch so I could slam gems down on the go. Who wouldn’t want that?
You’re welcomed to Crystal Crisis by a frankly outstanding animated video to set the scene and give a glimpse into each character world. The roster features some indie legends like Quote from Cave Story or Isaac from The Binding of Isaac, but is rounded out with some unfamiliar faces (to me at least) such as Blackjack from Blackjack, and Johnny Turbo, who originates from three comic books advertising a console I’ve never heard of… Some of these characters are rather obscure. On the plus side, the narration is provided by Peter Cullen who has previously voiced Optimus Prime, which is pretty damn awesome.
There’s a variety of modes to unlock, but you start off with just the story and standard arcade modes available, and a tutorial to get you up to speed. This tutorial is invaluable as Crystal Crisis has a lot more to it than you might expect. Blocks of two gems descend from the top of your grid for you to rotate and even wrap across the sides for some real tricky plays. Placing same-coloured blocks together will build them up to bigger rectangles or chains, and when you’re blessed with a crystal, you can slam it down onto matching blocks to destroy them and drop blocks on your opponent. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that on the right of the screen is an opponent doing the same thing as you. Outside of the “simple” block-placing, each fighter also has unique offensive and defensive abilities which can be triggered using your power meter. This can clear blocks from your space, let you move blocks around, swap your board with the opponent’s board (not OP at all), and all manner of other things.
Once I’d had a go at the tutorial, I headed for the story mode first as I expected it’d provide a good place to get to grips with everything and possibly unlock some more of the roster. The story consists of about a dozen chapters where various characters meet up, talk a bit with their cute chibi faces in original Japanese voice-acting, and then inevitably end up battling. You often get to pick a side to fight as which adds some replay-ability to the mode, as your choices affect which battles you’ll have down the line. It took about an hour or so to clear the whole story, and it was worth it just to have a look at the broad range of arenas and fighters available. I know I’m harping on about it a lot, but I love the art-style and think this game looks gorgeous. It’s a shame it takes nearly a minute to load the assets as a result, but I think it was worth it.
Sadly though, the gameplay was a mixed bag for me. Something about the mixture of intense action and slow, methodical puzzling just didn’t sit right for me. I couldn’t tell if I was supposed to be pumped up and slamming gems down as fast as possible, or taking my time and trying to set up combos. The wild difficulty curve didn’t help either, as in arcade mode I’d find every stage easy and then lose several times to the final boss, on normal difficulty. I tried turning the game speed up to make it feel better, but then I couldn’t keep up any more. I suspect I’d need to put in many, many hours of practice to get to a point where Crystal Crisis feels satisfying to me, simply ’cause I’ve not got prior experience in this niche genre.
I wasn’t fond of the fact that you need a power crystal to break your blocks either. Waiting for one to come up in your queue can be incredibly frustrating, especially when you’re nearing the edge of defeat at the hands of your A.I. opponent. This is negated in the in-line mode, my personal favourite mode, where you just line up three of the same colour instead. To go with in-line, there is also online (applaud my smooth segway please). I’d love to tell you how the online is, but I couldn’t find a match and it’s not even two months after launch. You can versus your friends both online and in local versus though, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding players if you have friends with the game… unlike myself. Basically, there’s more than enough modes to shake a stick at.
Overall, Crystal Crisis has clearly had a lot of love put into it, and it shows. The range of fighters, worlds, modes, even settings is great, and you’re bound to recognise at least one character if you’re into your indie games. The music is banging, for lack of a better word, and I could spend all day browsing the concept art gallery to learn more about these characters and see the fantastic artwork behind the end result. Sadly, the gameplay isn’t for me personally, but if you’re a fan of this uncommon puzzle-fighting genre, this is a great entry to have in your collection.
A digital copy of Crystal Crisis for Switch was provided by the developer.
Find Crystal Crisis on Switch here: https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/crystal-crisis-switch/
