A step in the right direction…. Until you trip
I wasn’t that big of a fan of crystar by the end, while its story, ost and artwork was good everything else about the gameplay fell flat. I was hoping with Crymachina swooping around they would iron out some of the issues and we would finally get a good game from FuRyu. Crymachina is for sure an improvement over Crystar but it still falls flat in some departments really leaving this to be a forgettable experience by the end.
Let's start with the good !
Crymachina in a very similar fashion to Crystar has a good story , amazing artwork and a very good OST. This time around I actually didn’t find myself hating the combat as much. It felt more fluid and landing off combos were fun but I will get more into combat later. Furthermore the characters were good and were flushed out ENOUGH by the end making you care for the main cast as they go through this journey of becoming “real humans”. It’s really interesting though because I pretty much like and dislike the same exact things I did with Crystar as I do with Crymachina. It's just this time around Crymachina improves on some of Crystars bad aspects A LITTLE.
Let's get into the bad
While I did compliment the combat it's still far off from being as good as it should be. The loot pool is better in this title giving you side weapons you can use alongside your main weapon which once again is not changeable. Hell this time around you can’t even equip new main weapons that will change its look you only get number upgrades for your main weapons. The side weapons you collect you activate by pressing L1 and R1 and it will start an automatic use of those weapons. Furthermore you collect skills/ buffs that you can equip to your side weapons that will give you more of an edge in fights. It sounds fun on paper but it quickly feels pointless as the game is extremely easy making you not really think about what you NEED to use. These titles could really use some sort of buff / debuff system because everything just feels so basic in that aspect. In addition, while you collect a good amount of side weapons to use there are only a handful of variants which once again you will not care about what you will use by the end. Furthermore the EXP system is downright weird in this game. To explain , you don’t earn EXP until you finish a mission which sounds normal so far right?. Well EXP isn’t automatically distributed amongst the characters you will simply earn the number and will have to give the EXP to the character you want meaning. What this means is if you dump all your EXP into one character not knowing the next mission you will need to use someone else you just screwed yourself over. Thus starting a boring little grind you will need to do to catch them up to the story level because level scaling is extremely weird in this game. To explain , if you are even 1 level below the recommended level the game wants you to play, the monsters will literally 1 shot you like you are 999 levels below. While the grind isn’t terrible it's just weird and doesn’t add anything to the gameplay loop. Moving on , I was really hoping they would improve on level design but somehow it got worse in this game????. To explain, the backgrounds are extremely boring to look at, the level designs are literally now a straight line. Sometimes you will literally just walk down the aisle to fight the boss with no sub enemies on the way. Furthermore , there are side missions you can do by finding coordinate points that you put into a screen. This sounds cool as you feel like you will have to search hard for these codes but they are simply in the archive section for you to get. On top of these side missions are extremely boring and literally are the same really giving you ZERO reason to do these missions.
While the story is nice the way it's presented is pretty boring at times. You will have the usual cutscene fair but this game throws in a “tea” talk section where you get A LOT of the lore/ character learning from. This becomes an issue quickly as these cutscenes ALL LOOK THE SAME having the characters just sit down and do literally nothing. You will not see them move or anything just sit and you read the bubble text which can go on FOREVER sometimes …. Sounds fun right?. Furthermore, the story, while good, ended abruptly, really not leaving me satisfied at all for these characters and everything they had gone through up to this point. You don’t see ANY of the aftermath for anyone past one short true ending cutscene and it just really leaves you hanging. It’s a shame because I really felt like a rug got pulled out from under me at the end for what was a good story up until that point.
They truly can make an amazing game
If FuRyu has proven anything is that they can truly make/ publish an emotional story mixed with great artwork and awesome characters. I Simply believe if they can just really work in the gameplay field and really flush out their combat , world design and level design we can get a genuinely amazing game from them. I feel as if they need to get better devs for the combat portions of the games seeing as Aquaria worked on this title which they make the SAO titles which are not that great. It’s really a shame because this and Crystar both honestly should have been amazing games but really just fall flat in specific fields by the end.
I 100% do not recommend this game at full price however if you still want to give it a go I do think it would be worth it when it gets a deep sale.
I wasn’t that big of a fan of crystar by the end, while its story, ost and artwork was good everything else about the gameplay fell flat. I was hoping with Crymachina swooping around they would iron out some of the issues and we would finally get a good game from FuRyu. Crymachina is for sure an improvement over Crystar but it still falls flat in some departments really leaving this to be a forgettable experience by the end.
Let's start with the good !
Crymachina in a very similar fashion to Crystar has a good story , amazing artwork and a very good OST. This time around I actually didn’t find myself hating the combat as much. It felt more fluid and landing off combos were fun but I will get more into combat later. Furthermore the characters were good and were flushed out ENOUGH by the end making you care for the main cast as they go through this journey of becoming “real humans”. It’s really interesting though because I pretty much like and dislike the same exact things I did with Crystar as I do with Crymachina. It's just this time around Crymachina improves on some of Crystars bad aspects A LITTLE.
Let's get into the bad
While I did compliment the combat it's still far off from being as good as it should be. The loot pool is better in this title giving you side weapons you can use alongside your main weapon which once again is not changeable. Hell this time around you can’t even equip new main weapons that will change its look you only get number upgrades for your main weapons. The side weapons you collect you activate by pressing L1 and R1 and it will start an automatic use of those weapons. Furthermore you collect skills/ buffs that you can equip to your side weapons that will give you more of an edge in fights. It sounds fun on paper but it quickly feels pointless as the game is extremely easy making you not really think about what you NEED to use. These titles could really use some sort of buff / debuff system because everything just feels so basic in that aspect. In addition, while you collect a good amount of side weapons to use there are only a handful of variants which once again you will not care about what you will use by the end. Furthermore the EXP system is downright weird in this game. To explain , you don’t earn EXP until you finish a mission which sounds normal so far right?. Well EXP isn’t automatically distributed amongst the characters you will simply earn the number and will have to give the EXP to the character you want meaning. What this means is if you dump all your EXP into one character not knowing the next mission you will need to use someone else you just screwed yourself over. Thus starting a boring little grind you will need to do to catch them up to the story level because level scaling is extremely weird in this game. To explain , if you are even 1 level below the recommended level the game wants you to play, the monsters will literally 1 shot you like you are 999 levels below. While the grind isn’t terrible it's just weird and doesn’t add anything to the gameplay loop. Moving on , I was really hoping they would improve on level design but somehow it got worse in this game????. To explain, the backgrounds are extremely boring to look at, the level designs are literally now a straight line. Sometimes you will literally just walk down the aisle to fight the boss with no sub enemies on the way. Furthermore , there are side missions you can do by finding coordinate points that you put into a screen. This sounds cool as you feel like you will have to search hard for these codes but they are simply in the archive section for you to get. On top of these side missions are extremely boring and literally are the same really giving you ZERO reason to do these missions.
While the story is nice the way it's presented is pretty boring at times. You will have the usual cutscene fair but this game throws in a “tea” talk section where you get A LOT of the lore/ character learning from. This becomes an issue quickly as these cutscenes ALL LOOK THE SAME having the characters just sit down and do literally nothing. You will not see them move or anything just sit and you read the bubble text which can go on FOREVER sometimes …. Sounds fun right?. Furthermore, the story, while good, ended abruptly, really not leaving me satisfied at all for these characters and everything they had gone through up to this point. You don’t see ANY of the aftermath for anyone past one short true ending cutscene and it just really leaves you hanging. It’s a shame because I really felt like a rug got pulled out from under me at the end for what was a good story up until that point.
They truly can make an amazing game
If FuRyu has proven anything is that they can truly make/ publish an emotional story mixed with great artwork and awesome characters. I Simply believe if they can just really work in the gameplay field and really flush out their combat , world design and level design we can get a genuinely amazing game from them. I feel as if they need to get better devs for the combat portions of the games seeing as Aquaria worked on this title which they make the SAO titles which are not that great. It’s really a shame because this and Crystar both honestly should have been amazing games but really just fall flat in specific fields by the end.
I 100% do not recommend this game at full price however if you still want to give it a go I do think it would be worth it when it gets a deep sale.