Cris Tales

amazon Cris Tales reviews

Cris Tales – Time travel, plus Japanese RPG (JRPG)…. Sound familiar? There is no shortage of famous games with enough of these “combo,” briefly including Chrono Trigger, Radiant Historia, Tales of Graces F, Final Fantasy XIII-2…

Recently, Dreams Uncorporated, an indie game developer in Columbia, brought us a JRPG (?) called Cris Tales, which, in their words, was inspired by JRPG titles classics mentioned above.

So, will they succeed? Does the game live up to gamers’ expectations after being introduced to a very attractive trial version during the Steam Game Festival?

Publisher Dreams Uncorporated claims Cris Tales is their “love letter” to the JRPG genre, even though the game maker isn’t in Japan!

However, just 5 minutes of playing the game are enough to realize that they are not “fake,” and longtime JRPG players can already see familiar motifs. They will see more throughout the experience that game title.

The story opens with a cute little girl Crisbell, orphaned at a young age and living in the cathedral city of Narim with her Mother Superior.

Suddenly, a talking frog named Matias jumps out from nowhere and steals a rose from the cathedral garden, warning Crisbell to chase the frog.

A series of events followed one after another, ending with Crisbell entering the cathedral and suddenly finding herself “the chosen one.” She became the Witch of Time and opened up the ability to observe the past, now, and future.

As Uncle Ben once told Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility,” now, Crisbell must carry the responsibility… to save the world from the hands of the Queen of Time, who has the Intent to rule the kingdom of Crysallis.

To reach the castle of Crysallis, the player will lead the team through 4 large cities (very similar to Final Fantasy I, where the player defeats four monsters corresponding to the four elements – Lich/Earth, Marilith /Fire, Kraken/Water, Tiamat/Wind – four great cities seem to have “appearance” of those elements, perhaps Narim for Wind, St. Clarity for Water, Neva Tulira for Earth and Cinder is Fire).

In each of these cities, Crisbell not only participates in normal JRPG activities such as eating and sleeping, shopping to upgrade equipment, but thanks to Crisbell’s special ability. She can simultaneously see the past, present, and future of that city, including buildings, roads, and inhabitants throughout its development from past to future.

Imagine you have just walked on a beautiful flowery street, met a handsome guy who plays the violin at the top. In the future, when the city is ruined, the guy who played violin today became a thief on the street, just for a living.

Of course, you’ll want to change that dark future!

Fortunately, although the reason is unknown, the frog god Matias can “transmigrate” to the time you specify, thereby influencing the present and the future.

You can donate money to the violin guy to make him famous and rich, or make some remedy to save the house of a low-income family, save them from homelessness.

However, Crisbell can’t save everyone, and sometimes she will have to make choices, and the future can change according to her choices. However, players should not expect too much from a complicated butterfly effect system; it seems that each choice has only a small effect and does not affect the overall world.

In any case, seeing one’s fruition immediately, seeing future city dwellers’ lives bright is a joy for the writer, gradually finding and finding ways to help other people in each city become “addicted,” exploring the nooks and crannies of the city. All three dimensions of time gave rise to an interesting experience that the writer feels is no longer felt in many of the previous years’ recently released JRPG games.

In general, the plot of Cris Tales is not something new, but it is not bad and attractive enough with many twists to lead the writer through the journey.

Unfortunately, a big minus point is that the plot’s pacing is uneven, and sometimes the developer seems to overuse the buffers, the silence between the plot twists, causing the plot to be thinned and unnecessarily stretched, and may frustrate some fans.

By the way, you should complete all the side quests. Not only because these side quests help you discover more about the world and the people of the kingdoms, but if you don’t do it, the consequences will be right in front of your eyes!

Cris Tales’ combat is turn-based, where the player controls three characters that stand in the center of the screen and fight enemies on the left or right side of the screen – or both sides.

Why emphasize the left or right enemy? Because the Crisbell in combat, in addition to the usual JRPG actions like attacking or casting spells, can use her abilities and send enemies through time, the enemies on the left side will be sent in the past. Enemies on the right will be sent to the future if the player chooses to use Crisbell’s power.

That makes combat transformative and requires players to use their tactical abilities to a high degree while challenging their creativity and ability to imagine situations.

For example, the player can spray water on metal monsters, then send them to the future, so the water will cause them to rust and make them much weaker. Or the player can plant a poisonous plant seed in the past, then “pull” the enemy to the present time, the poisonous seed will immediately sprout and explode, causing all enemies to be poisoned and die.

where can you get a Cris Tales online

Cris Tales (NSW) – Nintendo Switch: Buy it now

Cris Tales (PS5): Buy it now

Cris Tales – [PlayStation 4]: Buy it now

Cris Tales Standard – Switch [Digital Code]: Buy it now

It should be noted that sending an enemy to the future or the generally invisible past can strengthen the enemy. For example, if the enemy is a fledgling monster, send them to the future, and boom, the monster The animal becomes a powerful giant monster capable of “fighting” your entire team.

Dreams Uncorporated also includes a quick reaction mechanism, when you attack, if you press A at the right time, you will deal more damage to the enemy, and when the enemy attacks. If you press A as soon as the Switch handle vibrates, you will reduce the damage quite a bit.

That may seem a bit “strange” to someone who is used to pure turn-based play. Timing is sometimes quite difficult because the enemy’s moves are not the same execution time, but once you get the hang of its version, this mechanism. However, it feels a bit boring and sometimes annoying, is not too annoying for the writer, although the writer prefers “pure” games.

Although it is said to be “inspired” by JRPG, Cris Tales does not follow the usual anime style but uses a very personal style, which the writer feels like a European fairy tale book for children.

The character drawings in Cris Tales have a very “personal” feel, making the character become soulful and revealing many emotions and personalities.

However, sometimes it is because of this graphic style that some lands (mainly forest areas) become quite monotonous and one-color!

Fortunately, these lands do not appear much, and the cities are still bright and alive with all kinds of colors.

With all the good points mentioned above, the writer still has to use a lot of patience to play Cris Tales.

Why? There are many reasons, but the biggest reason is that the loading time is said to be “too terrific” on the Switch.

As you explore, you will randomly encounter enemies like classic JRPGs. You will have to sit and look at the screen each time, waiting for… 10-15 seconds! After the fight is over, you will have to sit back and wait for the screen… 10-15 seconds, a total of 20 to 30 seconds to wait for the right battle!

And the frequency of encountering the enemy is not low; on average, every 15-20 steps, it takes you 30 seconds to wait.

In the city, the waiting time is even worse! Going from one area to another, the writer had a case where it took… 30 seconds to wait for the transition. Worse, the side quests mainly require the player to run back and forth to collect information or necessary items, so completing a side quest also takes up to a quarter of the time to look at the waiting screen.

The game also has many problems with the character’s movement speed because sometimes the writer feels that Crisbell moves too slowly, and Matias, the frog, jumps slower.

Because of moving so slow, the player often has already controlled Crisbell to the destination but still has to wait for Matias to jump there because if Matias is too far away from Crisbell, this frog will not be able to jump to the dimension of time is different.

In short, the game will become a lot better if players don’t have to wait too long; they are really time-consuming and extremely frustrating for many people.

Another rather strange problem is that the game does not allow taking photos or recording videos on the Switch, so if you want to capture beautiful moments, beautiful scenes, then you need to prepare a set of “captures” cards” for the Switch. Otherwise, there is no way.