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 Crystal Project is the bizarre lovechild of a JRPG and a 3D Platformer, toting an open world that you can explore at your leisure with a job system similar to that of Final Fantasy V's, where you have your current job and can also use the abilities of another job. There's a huge emphasis on exploration, whether for crystals (which grant you jobs), treasure, or something even more awesome. It's surprising how well it all works together.  There's a pretty extensive demo on the Steam page if this sounds at all interesting to you! You start off in a tutorial area where you learn the ropes, then you get a bit of an area to explore with the mission of finding three crystals before you get to the real meat of the game. There's a plot, though it takes awhile to kick in and from what I've played so far it doesn't have a huge presence, but it's there.  At first, all you have for exploration is your trusty jump, but as you progress in the game you'll find items that expand your exploration abilities. There's a limited fast travel system, where you can always pick one save point as your "Home Point" that you can fast travel to whenever, and as you play you may find shrines where you can buy items (including a permanent item) that lets you fast travel to said shrine. But if that sounds limiting, there's Assist Options to give you more flexibility in fast travel, among other things. Also, you have to find or buy maps to be able to track where you are and see what you've explored.  This game really shines in its combat. First off, no random encounters, all encounters, including bosses, show up as flames in the overworld, and if you're skilled or observant enough you can dodge them completely. If you do go into combat, you go into your standard JRPG battle system, though the nice thing about this is that you have almost perfect information. You can see turn order, see what attacks the enemies will use, who they're going to target, how much damage they'll do, how much damage you'll do to the enemy, the chance to hit and crit, all of that is information the game actively gives you. On top of that, debuffs always hit, so no worrying about whether a foe is immune to a status effect or if you're just whiffing on a 55% chance or whatever. And of course, there's the jobs. You start off with six (think the six jobs available in FF1 and that's pretty much it), but will gain a lot more as you explore and find more crystals. As you'd expect, there's a variety of both your usual staples (dual-wielding Ninja, the Scholar that learns and uses enemy magic, the Chemist which is the only way to use items in battle) as well as some more interesting and unique jobs. Each job has a variety of abilities to learn, with skills using AP (which you gain during battle from attacking and being attacked), MP (your standard magic pool of points), or having a cooldown (you have to wait X turns to use that skill again). There's also passives you can equip, letting you use additional weapons in battle, boosting AP generation, giving buffs at the start of combat, and so on. There's a good bit of flexibility as you'd expect, and the foes are tuned so that random encounters will require thought and use of resources, while bosses may take some cunning to take down, especially later in the game. While it's a complete product, the developer is still working on it, doing fixes and balancing and such, even planning features like randomization and such. I haven't finished this yet, but this is already probably my favorite game of the year, and it does a lot of stuff that I always dreamed my ideal JRPG would do were I to ever make one. I'm constantly impressed with the scope and ambition of this game, and that's mostly why I made this thread, to increase exposure to this gem of a game. As mentioned, there's a demo available, so if you're at all interested check it out!
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Jun 17, 2022 20:26
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 11:01 |
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Jun 17, 2022 20:26
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Your demo save carries over to the final game, too! (game's good I 100%'d it)
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Jun 17, 2022 20:27
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Haven't played since launch week when they rebalanced a bunch of stuff but this game is very good. If you're like me and enjoy all the parts of JRPGs except the story you will probably love this.
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Jun 17, 2022 20:28
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I played for a few weeks, got to the final boss, and stopped. Not because of difficulty, but, uh... This game, like FFV, has a whole LOT of ways to break it. I personally didn't find combat that busted, but we probably don't know about a bunch of weird glitches and edge case interactions yet, either. The big thing is that the platforming is just as janky. It's more than happy to let you sequence break if you know where you're going - or if you have absolutely no clue where you're going but are drat good at getting there. The wonky thing about sequence breaking in this game is that unlike in a lot of games, it actually breaks the sequence; if you hit a place where a new scenario flag happens, sometimes it leapfrogs all prior scenario flags, assuming you meant to get here and know what you're skipping; other times it just doesn't do whatever it was supposed to do there because the previous stuff didn't happen. There's a few places it catches itself (key-type items being left in a place where you'd get it from a cutscene with now-invalid characters, etc), but for the most part it'll happily chug along. So what does this all mean? Well, in my specific case, I missed the plot in its entirety!  I kept finding places out of order, so people kept referencing events I'd never seen. I could draw some conclusions but was mostly lost in terms of plot. I never saw what was supposedly the big driving force behind the plot (people getting banished), but everyone was panicking over it and like half the non-shop NPCs ended up gone, like FF2 but without a cool tornado dreadnaught piloted by an angel demon emperor back from both heaven and hell.I even managed to find the final boss! ...except I got there before I was supposed to, too, so I missed the boss immediately before it that probably would've told me what was going on, or revealed the twist that the game thought I already knew when I arrived. It was kind of amazing how much it let me gently caress up the story, I couldn't believe it! Don't take this as negative criticism, because this is actually totally hilarious and I am super glad it lets you do this. I just kinda wish there was some better signposting as to where you're supposed to go first!
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Jun 17, 2022 20:43
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Oh, speaking of combat being broken, what's the deal with the "prevent all fire damage for 3 turns" spell? The Steam forums were acting like it was the most broken thing in existence but I didn't see any way to en-fire the enemies' hits.
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Jun 17, 2022 20:50
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Just to make one clarification, some bosses ARE immune to certain status effects but it’ll tell you if you go their info page, even without using Track to reveal their stats. I just got the skeleton key so I’m curious to find a good place to use it (I have a place in mind, I’m just not sure if it’s a one use key) I’ve only unlocked two other summons so far, I think I just need to keep beefing up the party. Also I forgot where half the summon trees were lol (currently I get shreked by Life, Shadow, Storm, and Earth summons but maybe there’s easier fights) The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Jun 17, 2022 |
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Jun 17, 2022 20:51
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The 7th Guest posted:I just got the skeleton key so I’m curious to find a good place to use it (I have a place in mind, I’m just not sure if it’s a one use key) ...that said, I only used it once, because there's only one door I hadn't found the key for at that point (it's a huge troll that a NPC appears and says "drat, someone already got in there" and gives you the key, but only after you go in) e: Life and Earth were both mega-difficult for me compared to the other ones, Lightning/Wind are the best two to get to use on the others
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Jun 17, 2022 20:56
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Played through and beat it on hard awhile ago, it's a fun game overall even if the class balance is a bit wonk at places. Enemy damage also scales out of control lategame compared to defenses so a lot of it winds up being figuring out how to just not let the encounter do anything at all, including many random encounters not just bosses. Some of these issues might be alleviated by not playing on hard to be fair.DACK FAYDEN posted:Oh, speaking of combat being broken, what's the deal with the "prevent all fire damage for 3 turns" spell? The Steam forums were acting like it was the most broken thing in existence but I didn't see any way to en-fire the enemies' hits. There's a few bosses where their big dangerous attack is fire damage so it trivializes/makes possible those encounters, it's pretty useless other than those exceptions though.
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Jun 17, 2022 20:59
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Einwand posted:Played through and beat it on hard awhile ago, it's a fun game overall even if the class balance is a bit wonk at places. Enemy damage also scales out of control lategame compared to defenses so a lot of it winds up being figuring out how to just not let the encounter do anything at all, including many random encounters not just bosses. Some of these issues might be alleviated by not playing on hard to be fair. That said, I still had a huge amount of fun with the game, and for a (basically) one-person passion project it is a goddamned achievement. Anyone who enjoyed FFV or games with similar systems should pick this up.
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Jun 17, 2022 21:07
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Shoutouts to the Dream Eater bow, nerfed into uniqueness because having four of them was way too stupid (hell, having one of them makes the Sky Arena trivial, so it's still got its main use)
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Jun 17, 2022 21:24
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I super love this game, it's what I've spent the most time playing on my Deck I want to get back to it at some point this summer. I'm sure I'm somewhat near the end of the game, the castle is open to me and I have the owl, but there's lots of hooks I've found around the map for stuff I can do, but not enough about how to do them I can't suggest this game enough to anyone who loves FF5 and wants a game that feels like the next level of that system
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Jun 17, 2022 21:53
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One thing that's impressing me as I play on is the dungeon variety. Yeah, it starts with some generic settings like caves and such, but later on you get stuff like a Zelda love letter complete with static screens ala Zelda 1 and vertical dungeon puzzles like later Zeldas, as well as a weird 2D platforming stage involving slopes. And the music is pretty banger for these areas as well, which always helps.
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Jun 18, 2022 21:12
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Finally coming back to this after deciding I need a break from Symphony of War, just got to the desert and man do I not like these rhinos.
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Jun 19, 2022 00:21
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finished crystal project at the 50 hour mark! so, i tried to cheat past by the final boss by using assist mode to give me extra job points in battles so i could quickly adjust classes, forgetting that there's a respec building in the castle town. so i guess i didn't cheat so much as gave myself extra grinding work for the last couple of hours. the big difference in the final fight was bringing a rogue in, just because the rogue's attacks are so devastating when he's bottom threat. nothing else i shifted about in the party (bringing back a chemist subclass for one character, learning warlock as another) made as big a difference. i actually forgot to switch my 4th party member's subclass from beatsmith to summoner and it didn't matter, i even used rhythm break a few times. atmosphear also helped to scatter targets but that was in my build coming into this already. just basically, relying on Weaver/Hunter to use Quick and stack damage, Rogue/Scholar to use their attacks when they were bottom threat as well as staggering sleep and casting atmosphear, and valkyrie/chemist & warlock/beatsmith as mixed offense/defense
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Jun 19, 2022 01:43
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i wonder if this game would support a four job fiesta approach? i doubt all of the optional endgame bosses would be possible in every configuration, but the main plot would probably be just on the inside edge of reasonable with most job combinations. It'd be nice to have an option to start with all jobs unlocked for this purpose
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Jun 19, 2022 05:14
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How did I just learn of this a few hours ago this game owns. Bouncing around with my little JRPG Ladies squad, cleared a main dungeon to get a new job and a minidungeon. The job system looks great, and the combat is really good. Also it's just the perfect PS1 aesthetic.
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Jun 19, 2022 08:42
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Tried the demo, bought the game as soon as I was done (had not yet finished the demo) This game rocks
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Jun 19, 2022 08:54
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I haven't bought the game yet, but I remember really liking the demo. Though there are some chests that I'm not sure how you're supposed to get them. Like the ones visible around the newbie zone that are way up on the super high ledges.
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Jun 19, 2022 16:49
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DoubleNegative posted:I haven't bought the game yet, but I remember really liking the demo. Though there are some chests that I'm not sure how you're supposed to get them. Like the ones visible around the newbie zone that are way up on the super high ledges.
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Jun 19, 2022 17:00
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DoubleNegative posted:I haven't bought the game yet, but I remember really liking the demo. Though there are some chests that I'm not sure how you're supposed to get them. Like the ones visible around the newbie zone that are way up on the super high ledges.
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Jun 19, 2022 17:00
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DoubleNegative posted:I haven't bought the game yet, but I remember really liking the demo. Though there are some chests that I'm not sure how you're supposed to get them. Like the ones visible around the newbie zone that are way up on the super high ledges. I started over and played for a couple of hours when people started talking about it again, so I can say confidently that every chest you can see in the starting area can be obtained without any of the mounts. (Plus at least three of the four black squirrels you need for a prize.) Some of them are a walk, but you don't even need to change zones to get them. You get the mounts for a platforming improvement, but you also definitely get better at it yourself as you play this game. I got basically all of those chests by coming back later my first time through, but the routes were easy this time.
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Jun 19, 2022 18:15
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OK I've found one Gripe. Scholar spell learning is fixed to each character. This is a downgrade from its inspiration in Blue Mage, especially since the class seems heavily support based with all the spells I've seen thus far being support.
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Jun 19, 2022 21:33
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Dr Pepper posted:OK I've found one Gripe. And like the developer knows it's awkward because the 25 point Scholar passive is just "gently caress it, you don't have to be Scholar" and everything! It should definitely change. (Aero's at least interesting as a damage spell with native variance, for the variance-heavy builds)
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Jun 19, 2022 21:57
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Oh yeah, you learn blue magic just by seeing it in this game. Can you learn it from seeing a party member cast it?
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Jun 19, 2022 22:14
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It specially says you learn Scholar spells when an enemy casts them Also lol the FFXI influence in this game is clear
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Jun 19, 2022 23:58
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Oh hey I have the Ibex now I think I’ll check out that castl— oh god no.
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Jun 20, 2022 00:05
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Bussamove posted:Oh hey I have the Ibex now I think I’ll check out that castl— oh god no. also the give up menu option is an incredible innovation.
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Jun 20, 2022 00:53
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I'm playing through the demo and really liking the attitude of "just go wherever and find stuff, we're not gonna waste your time with a plot". But at the same time... Seriously?  in the stat blocks? In twenty twenty-loving-two?
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Jun 20, 2022 09:39
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Whybird posted:I'm playing through the demo and really liking the attitude of "just go wherever and find stuff, we're not gonna waste your time with a plot".
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Jun 20, 2022 11:55
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Dr Pepper posted:It specially says you learn Scholar spells when an enemy casts them I just unlocked Ninja and it's a dodge tank with rotating elemental nukes and Utsusemi, this guy 100% played FFXI
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Jun 21, 2022 08:39
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Whybird posted:I'm playing through the demo and really liking the attitude of "just go wherever and find stuff, we're not gonna waste your time with a plot". What's it saying?
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Jun 21, 2022 09:08
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Bloodly posted:What's it saying?
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Jun 21, 2022 12:20
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It's be cool if instead of doing it by gender, have the option to do slight stat bonuses per character like FF5 does, but make it random.
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Jun 21, 2022 14:05
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DACK FAYDEN posted:men get 100 HP and... I think strength? and then women get something and speed so obviously I was all-woman Males get a slight boost to HP, Healing Power and Luck. Females get slight boost to MP, Accuracy/Evasion, and Speed.
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Jun 21, 2022 15:13
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...That doesn't seem any weirder than FFT's Male slightly better PA, Female slightly better MA.
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Jun 21, 2022 18:08
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I mean, also the game lets you freely choose between gender. Which is nice from a stat perspective, but really could have been executed in a non bio truths way. Enjoying the crap out of this game otherwise, but that part is definitely annoying.
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Jun 21, 2022 18:19
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is that really "biotruths" i thought that generally referred to really stupid evopsych arguments and not like, slight bonuses to MP or something
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Jun 21, 2022 18:32
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Feels Villeneuve posted:is that really "biotruths" i thought that generally referred to really stupid evopsych arguments and not like, slight bonuses to MP or something I think biotruths is taken to be any difference in stats by sex but I think in this case it's mainly just some min/max stuff you can change at will and for nothing. nbd to me but I'm cis
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Jun 21, 2022 18:44
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 11:01 |
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Welcome to internet history class! was created in response to a (reddit?) post where someone explained that women inherently liked the color pink because in prehistoric times they collected berries in the woods. That post was so stupid that someone felt the need to bless us with this emote.
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Jun 21, 2022 18:52
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