good game! simple rock-paper-scissors tactics, charming and fun. the primary focus of the game is on using different characters to battle teams of enemies across sixteen rounds in sixteen different arenas. the maps are diverse but only a few of them require more than superficial tactical thinking, and the game isn't very hard past the first several rounds. the biggest challenges in crystal warriors are that the first couple of battles feel unintuitive given the lack of information on the screen at any given time, and that there is some rigidity in controlling characters and committing to actions in battle.
for example, the only thing on the battle screen itself is the map and the placement of the characters on that map. to learn more about the health status of a character, their elemental association, or the tools they can use in battle, you have to go through a couple of layers of menus separate from the battle screen. this is more tedious than it sounds when there are nine characters to check on and command in each turn!!
also, crystal warriors forces players to commit to actions pretty early. once the player has moved a character and opened their action menu, that character's movements become locked, even if a battle action hasn't been chosen yet. this means that the only options they have are to select something from the action menu or to do nothing at all -- they can't move anywhere else. this prevents the player from checking the potential range of attacks before committing to battle, forcing some memorization and directed attention prior to engaging enemies.
although it makes the game feel a little clunky at the start, i ultimately ended up enjoying these quirks a lot. at first, the lack of information on the battle screen was frustrating and forced me to focus harder than usual, double-checking my strategies and diligently clicking through menus rather than speeding through each fight. over time, i developed an intuition for what was important to look out for and remember. by the end of the game, i knew that i needed to keep an eye on health during duels themselves to avoid going through layers of menus after the fact, i had memorized attack ranges, and i knew what element each enemy sprite represented. i had become much more efficient and i found that adapting to the game was pretty satisfying! it seems unusual to compliment a game for forcing the player to meet its pace, but it was something that i felt good about anyway.
in addition to fighting enemies on the field, there are monsters that non-magic users in the party can tame and later use as damage sponges when they're caught in fights with an elemental disadvantage. this is fun and useful in the early game but becomes obsolete fast. monster attacks are weak enough to be negligible by halfway through the game, so it's more efficient for party members with enough HP to take down enemies quickly and get healed afterward than to try and avoid damage entirely by using monsters. i wish this mechanic had more utility throughout the entire game; it had the potential to add a lot of depth to battles but it feels like it didn't come out fully developed.
after fights, the player sometimes has the opportunity to recruit new members, choose spells to buy for mages and healers, and upgrade weapons for fighters. as far as i can tell, there's no information about the spells or weapons in the game besides their names and prices, so it's only through a process of assumption and experience that the player discovers what the spells do and how different weapons impact their fighters' performance. there's also a fortune teller who will give the player a hint about the composition of the next round's enemies, which i think is cute.
closing thought: i appreciate that this game didn't waste my time by foregrounding a lame story or giving party members much dialogue. the character sprites are adorable, and it's more fun to imagine what the characters are like and what their dynamics might be than to have some tropey bullshit forced down your throat. relatedly, i can forgive the plainness of the setting -- princess, crystals, evil, monsters, whatever -- because it's laid out in thirty seconds of scrolling text at the beginning of the game and otherwise irrelevant. thank god.
for example, the only thing on the battle screen itself is the map and the placement of the characters on that map. to learn more about the health status of a character, their elemental association, or the tools they can use in battle, you have to go through a couple of layers of menus separate from the battle screen. this is more tedious than it sounds when there are nine characters to check on and command in each turn!!
also, crystal warriors forces players to commit to actions pretty early. once the player has moved a character and opened their action menu, that character's movements become locked, even if a battle action hasn't been chosen yet. this means that the only options they have are to select something from the action menu or to do nothing at all -- they can't move anywhere else. this prevents the player from checking the potential range of attacks before committing to battle, forcing some memorization and directed attention prior to engaging enemies.
although it makes the game feel a little clunky at the start, i ultimately ended up enjoying these quirks a lot. at first, the lack of information on the battle screen was frustrating and forced me to focus harder than usual, double-checking my strategies and diligently clicking through menus rather than speeding through each fight. over time, i developed an intuition for what was important to look out for and remember. by the end of the game, i knew that i needed to keep an eye on health during duels themselves to avoid going through layers of menus after the fact, i had memorized attack ranges, and i knew what element each enemy sprite represented. i had become much more efficient and i found that adapting to the game was pretty satisfying! it seems unusual to compliment a game for forcing the player to meet its pace, but it was something that i felt good about anyway.
in addition to fighting enemies on the field, there are monsters that non-magic users in the party can tame and later use as damage sponges when they're caught in fights with an elemental disadvantage. this is fun and useful in the early game but becomes obsolete fast. monster attacks are weak enough to be negligible by halfway through the game, so it's more efficient for party members with enough HP to take down enemies quickly and get healed afterward than to try and avoid damage entirely by using monsters. i wish this mechanic had more utility throughout the entire game; it had the potential to add a lot of depth to battles but it feels like it didn't come out fully developed.
after fights, the player sometimes has the opportunity to recruit new members, choose spells to buy for mages and healers, and upgrade weapons for fighters. as far as i can tell, there's no information about the spells or weapons in the game besides their names and prices, so it's only through a process of assumption and experience that the player discovers what the spells do and how different weapons impact their fighters' performance. there's also a fortune teller who will give the player a hint about the composition of the next round's enemies, which i think is cute.
closing thought: i appreciate that this game didn't waste my time by foregrounding a lame story or giving party members much dialogue. the character sprites are adorable, and it's more fun to imagine what the characters are like and what their dynamics might be than to have some tropey bullshit forced down your throat. relatedly, i can forgive the plainness of the setting -- princess, crystals, evil, monsters, whatever -- because it's laid out in thirty seconds of scrolling text at the beginning of the game and otherwise irrelevant. thank god.
-Most basic SRPG I've probably ever played. Still fun to pick up and play for a few battles.
-Limited music variety.
-Super basic story with no character development.
-Sprite designs were nice.
-Used a party of 2 Lords, 2 Mages, 2 Healers, 1 Fighter, 1 Rogue, 1 Princess.
-Leveling of healers was annoying. I should have used Silence to have them be more offensive in battle.
-Monster catching element was underutilized and monsters were used at XP farm for healers instead of being captured.
-Played on Analogue Pocket using a ROM.
-Limited music variety.
-Super basic story with no character development.
-Sprite designs were nice.
-Used a party of 2 Lords, 2 Mages, 2 Healers, 1 Fighter, 1 Rogue, 1 Princess.
-Leveling of healers was annoying. I should have used Silence to have them be more offensive in battle.
-Monster catching element was underutilized and monsters were used at XP farm for healers instead of being captured.
-Played on Analogue Pocket using a ROM.
Mi primer juego en la Gamegear
A very derivative and visually bland strategy RPG.
Tiny Tactics!
One I didn't play for long to be honest. I had apparently bought it on 3DS ages ago and figured I'd check it out on a relatively long car ride. It's hard to play. There's little to distinguish how your characters can engage the field beyond memorization, battles take entirely too long, and the maps themselves don't have any unique qualities to make them memorable. I'm already not super into SRPGs, but this one in particular is quite dull. Not sure the Game Gear was good enough to support anything much more substantial but other people would know better than me. 2/6