Arction RPG? on the NES?
1997, October 1, END DAY. Salvage war engulfs the world... civilization is destroyed... An evolution has taken place. The earth's axis shifted and all creatures mutated. Life would never be the same. Those surviving vowed not to repeat their mistake of the past and erected a great tower in the sky. To oppress evil forever...
100 years has past, most of the earth has become dominated by mutated creatures. Peoples worked together to rebuild their villages and their lives, but they still lived in fear. As they feared the rebirth of evil, they remembered the construction of the tower and of its consequences once activation has begun. Once evil emerged, would they still stand a chance? There was still hope...
So that is the premise to Crystalis. Pretty cheesy story indeed, but the game was a real breath of fresh air at the time. It appeared late in the NES life cycle and did not get the spot it deserved.
To explain the game in a couple of words, I would go and say that it was an action RPG before action RPG became a real genre. The action part of the game was kind of a copycat of the first zelda in that you slashed enemy with a sword from top view. The RPG elements where more of the grinding kind. You need to grind a bit until you are ready for that specific dungeon. You also had a full inventory system and magic spells that was attached to the A button.
The world was primarly made of three part.; Village, overworld and dungeon.
In a certain way, the power of the game is the same that you get from all current anction RPG. You get more powerfull by leveling up and you get addicted by it. And since you can get pretty powerfull by grinding, you can't never get stuck. It might not sound like a big deal but in the NES era, it was. Game where tuff back then, it was often tht a game got you stuck at the 3/4 mark. This one was fun. A pretty tallented player could pass thru the game without too much grinding and the novice one could get thru by levelling a lot.
The game looked great and now, it is still playable. Of course, we talk about 8-bit so you need as much imagination than you need nostalgia.
I still play a bit of it and have a lot of fun with it. If you can find it, or emulate it, go for it. It is a great experience that make you wonder where is the sequel.
