SNK's 1990 video game Crystalis has some standing as a cult game, very fondly remembered by some, but by others not really remembered at all.
Arguably one disadvantage the game faced was in the timing of its release. It came after the 16-bit era had not only dawned, but got well underway. By April 1990, not only were the NEC-Hudson Soft Turbo Grafx 16 and Sega Genesis out for quite some time, but that very same month Crystalis' own maker, SNK, was breaking into the console market with its own 16-bit entry, the Neo Geo--and the release of the Super Nintendo was mere months away.
This was not a market conducive to even the most advanced use of 8-bit technology making a splash.
Another was, apparently, the tendency to see Crystalis as a Zelda clone, apparently still alive and well, and perhaps reinforced by the development of gaming since then. After all, not only was the Zelda series one of the icons of the 8-bit era, so much so that it was easy for it to overshadow the rest of what was still a new and small action RPG market, but the series has gone from strength to strength to remain as current as ever. By contrast, there was little in the way of follow-ups or remakes to the original Crystalis, limited to a Game Boy Color port back in 2000, with no edition ever released even for the Virtual Console (apparently on account of the idiot wrangles specialized in by holders of law degrees).
And of course the massive increase in the sophistication of gaming, the action RPG genre in particular, makes it harder for someone whose standard is set by newer gaming to take a nuanced view of the differences among games of a much earlier generation, made within rather narrower technical limits than those with which today's designers work. It would seem that for many one 8-bit game of this type is pretty much the same as another--reinforcing the "clone" charge.
For my part, however, I would say that Crystalis was the best action RPG of the 8-bit era, deserving of much greater recognition than it has received.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Why Crystalis is Not a Zelda Clone
I have often seen Crystalis called a Zelda II clone.
While The Adventure of Link remains a favorite of mine from the NES era, the claim strikes me as simplistic.
The player's experience of the worlds of these two games seems a logical place to begin the comparison. Where Zelda shifted between an overworld map and side-scrolling gameplay, Crystalis uses a 3-D overhead view throughout.
This is reinforced by the range of movement throughout the game's world. Where in Zelda the player always starts from the North Castle, in Crystalis one can save their location at any settlement--and with the purchase of a pair of inexpensive warp boots or the expenditure of a small amount of magic, instantly teleport to any one of them that they have previously visited, even if lost in the deepest dungeon. The ability to navigate the sea on a dolphin's back, and later, to overfly obstacles, also make the experience of navigating the game's version of post-apocalyptic Earth far more varied.
One should note, too, that the RPG elements are considerably more advanced. The game affords a more complex system for managing a larger inventory of weapons and other items (not just found, but purchased), and incorporates a number of charmingly innovative features, like the telepathic connection that the protagonist enjoys with the various teachers he encounters in his adventure. Non-player characters often display touches of humanity and humor (some of the villagers you rescue from Mt. Sabre proving real ingrates, and dealing with Kensu often a trial), while helping to make the storyline much more elaborate. And the miniature quests one undertakes are not just considerably more dramatic (mere water-fetching will not suffice to make a basement-lurking wizard teach you a spell), but more closely integrated with the larger adventure, which achieves something of an epic quality (most pronounced in the events at Shyron). Naturally the gameplay is far, far less repetitive than the conquest of Gannon's palaces.
All of this gives the game rather a deeply different feel--in many ways, a more attractive one, given our fuller immersion in a better-developed and more freely navigated world, and more fully fleshed-out story, superior to what any other 8-bit game offers us.
While The Adventure of Link remains a favorite of mine from the NES era, the claim strikes me as simplistic.
The player's experience of the worlds of these two games seems a logical place to begin the comparison. Where Zelda shifted between an overworld map and side-scrolling gameplay, Crystalis uses a 3-D overhead view throughout.
This is reinforced by the range of movement throughout the game's world. Where in Zelda the player always starts from the North Castle, in Crystalis one can save their location at any settlement--and with the purchase of a pair of inexpensive warp boots or the expenditure of a small amount of magic, instantly teleport to any one of them that they have previously visited, even if lost in the deepest dungeon. The ability to navigate the sea on a dolphin's back, and later, to overfly obstacles, also make the experience of navigating the game's version of post-apocalyptic Earth far more varied.
One should note, too, that the RPG elements are considerably more advanced. The game affords a more complex system for managing a larger inventory of weapons and other items (not just found, but purchased), and incorporates a number of charmingly innovative features, like the telepathic connection that the protagonist enjoys with the various teachers he encounters in his adventure. Non-player characters often display touches of humanity and humor (some of the villagers you rescue from Mt. Sabre proving real ingrates, and dealing with Kensu often a trial), while helping to make the storyline much more elaborate. And the miniature quests one undertakes are not just considerably more dramatic (mere water-fetching will not suffice to make a basement-lurking wizard teach you a spell), but more closely integrated with the larger adventure, which achieves something of an epic quality (most pronounced in the events at Shyron). Naturally the gameplay is far, far less repetitive than the conquest of Gannon's palaces.
All of this gives the game rather a deeply different feel--in many ways, a more attractive one, given our fuller immersion in a better-developed and more freely navigated world, and more fully fleshed-out story, superior to what any other 8-bit game offers us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
