Crystal Project - Turn Based RPG with Classes/builds

[Arthandas]

Grampy_Bone
WTF are you rambling about dude. On the highest difficulty (hard chaos) with no custom settings (and you can bump the difficulty even higher) this is probably the hardest jrpg ever created. Every move in every turn matters, you need very specialized teams to kill bosses, which in turn forces you to unlock other classes, skills and gather all kinds of equipment. The early enemies will wipe your entire party in one or two turns, so you need to explore the surrounding zones to hunt some chests with better equipment and gather money to buy stuff, all while trying to stay alive and avoid any encounters until you're strong enough. The threat mechanics are very fun and fit the systems like a glove. You're not even required to have a tank and if you do, it's much more complex than braindead tanking in MMOs - you can't tank multiple target attacks (and they're very common) and there are skills requiring you to be either at the top or bottom of the threat list.

Please show us how good you are and kill the first boss on hard chaos, and then we'll talk.

 

[welly321]

This game is amazing. I cant believe its not talked about on this forum more. Anyway I love this quote from it and I believe many game devs would do well in heeding these words.

 

[HoboForEternity]

This game is amazing. I cant believe its not talked about on this forum more. Anyway I love this quote from it and I believe many game devs would do well in heeding these words.

honestly it's one of the very few non-story based games i still think about even months after completing it. the feeling of adventure and discovery is unbeatable

 

[Cyberarmy]

It is really a charming and fun RPG, 'dexers probably didn't care because it is a JRPG and its graphics. It has real 3d exploration with many gimmicks, nice amount of customization via classes and good battle system. Boss fights are a treat too. Only part bothered me was racing and thats because I'm not fond of racing of any kind. Other than that this is a great RPG.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Quintar breeding still give me nightmares

 

[notpl]

It is really a charming and fun RPG, 'dexers probably didn't care because it is a JRPG and its graphics. It has real 3d exploration with many gimmicks, nice amount of customization via classes and good battle system. Boss fights are a treat too. Only part bothered me was racing and thats because I'm not fond of racing of any kind. Other than that this is a great RPG.

The charm is really what elevates it from a competent 8/10 to something great. Funny without being tedious, intriguing without being up its own ass, uplifting without being saccharine - you can tell the creator truly loves his work, and games in general.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Once I finish up with X-Piratez this is on my todo list for a LP. Shame I can't do a blind one; will definitely do one if the dev ever releases another similar game. For a LP of this, I'll probably do some kind of challenge run. Randomizer + some kind of self imposed restrictions voted on by the peanut gallery perhaps.

 

[pakoito]

I'm 6 Crystals in and about to embark to the desert biome. I was very excited about the game for the first couple of hours but it's been kinda mid ever since. The broad job system is meh when the enemies, and specially the bosses, don't have any interesting strategies going on. I was expecting a kind of Labyrinth of Touhou 2 experience, where bosses had multiple phases, DPS checks, 1HK moves to avoid, required exploiting the right immunity and generally experimenting with builds. But nope, cookie cutter holy trinity strategy kinda makes it so far. Heck, even Fell Seal had more meat in the way you could build teams, and it was easy to experiment with mercenaries and respecs.

I like the parkour but not enough to justify the rest. Should I continue or have I gazed into this game's soul already?

 

[Arthandas]

I'm 6 Crystals in and about to embark to the desert biome. I was very excited about the game for the first couple of hours but it's been kinda mid ever since. The broad job system is meh when the enemies, and specially the bosses, don't have any interesting strategies going on. I was expecting a kind of Labyrinth of Touhou 2 experience, where bosses had multiple phases, DPS checks, 1HK moves to avoid, required exploiting the right immunity and generally experimenting with builds. But nope, cookie cutter holy trinity strategy kinda makes it so far. Heck, even Fell Seal had more meat in the way you could build teams, and it was easy to experiment with mercenaries and respecs.

I like the parkour but not enough to justify the rest. Should I continue or have I gazed into this game's soul already?

Play Chaos Mode.

 

[pakoito]

I'm 6 Crystals in and about to embark to the desert biome. I was very excited about the game for the first couple of hours but it's been kinda mid ever since. The broad job system is meh when the enemies, and specially the bosses, don't have any interesting strategies going on. I was expecting a kind of Labyrinth of Touhou 2 experience, where bosses had multiple phases, DPS checks, 1HK moves to avoid, required exploiting the right immunity and generally experimenting with builds. But nope, cookie cutter holy trinity strategy kinda makes it so far. Heck, even Fell Seal had more meat in the way you could build teams, and it was easy to experiment with mercenaries and respecs.

I like the parkour but not enough to justify the rest. Should I continue or have I gazed into this game's soul already?

Play Chaos Mode.

It makes it harder, but does it make it interesting? And most importantly, does it require to grind? I played LoH2 only at the boss' level cap and it was great. I dropped the game only because of the rando enemy grinding to progress.

 

[Arthandas]

It makes it harder, but does it make it interesting?

It turns the game upside down, probably the hardest mode I've ever played in an rpg.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'm 6 Crystals in and about to embark to the desert biome. I was very excited about the game for the first couple of hours but it's been kinda mid ever since. The broad job system is meh when the enemies, and specially the bosses, don't have any interesting strategies going on. I was expecting a kind of Labyrinth of Touhou 2 experience, where bosses had multiple phases, DPS checks, 1HK moves to avoid, required exploiting the right immunity and generally experimenting with builds. But nope, cookie cutter holy trinity strategy kinda makes it so far. Heck, even Fell Seal had more meat in the way you could build teams, and it was easy to experiment with mercenaries and respecs.

I like the parkour but not enough to justify the rest. Should I continue or have I gazed into this game's soul already?

Play Chaos Mode.

It makes it harder, but does it make it interesting? And most importantly, does it require to grind? I played LoH2 only at the boss' level cap and it was great. I dropped the game only because of the rando enemy grinding to progress.

Chaos mode is an absolute dick punch, it's intended to be played NG+. People have done it from the start, but it'd require absolute expertise and a fair share of luck. I wouldn't recommend it.

Are you playing on hard mode? I can't speak for the easier settings, but on hard mode the difficulty does spike later on. Also question: have you been fighting optional bosses? I find it unlikely you casually strolled through the crag demon or even Grandma. The bosses do have LotH2 gimmicks, but depending on your relative power level you can brute force the earlier ones. I recall the extra bosses around the castle were the first spot I started losing fights regularly (I skipped some shit on the way there) and it was after the desert I regularly started just outright leaving places and coming back later because I couldn't think of a way to win. Finishing the desert will unlock a fuckton of new territory, you'll probably find some solid challenges after that even if you've scraped everything clean in order up to that point to max out your strength.

 

[pakoito]

I'm playing on Normal, to be fair.

Because the parkour was enjoyable I have found a handful of those optional bosses, Grandma included. Given how the rest of the game is laid out I just thought I was underleveled for them, rather than them being a puzzle fight.

I will give it another go this evening, see if it works for me.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'd say it's quite similar to LoTH in that respect- you can of course some back later, but doing stuff early is often viable with the right strategy, and might open up cool shit. Parkour is like that too; it's possible to visit all sorts of places, even ones much further than where you're at now, before you've even gotten a single crystal.