Crystal Project Review

Enter the lands of Sequoia, a world where adventurers are forced to look for Crystals to unlock new classes and have fun by law; when the residents refuse to oblige, they mysteriously disappear. It is up to you to find Crystals, become the strongest adventurer, and storm the castle to free everyone!... Or don't.

Crystal Project strongly encourages you to make your own adventure, whether that is exploring the lands of Sequoia in search of every monster, defeating the strongest bosses in the game, or finding all of the Crystals and finishing the main storyline. And when the Steam page tells you that you can do whatever you want, it really means this. Sure, typical limitations are present that force you to stick to a more linear route — since travelling into an endgame area will get you one shot — but it doesn't feel restrictive. The main selling point for Crystal Project is the notion of "do whatever the hell you want", and the game stays true to that.

Starting the game, you have four party members, all of which you can customise the name, class (from a selection of six), and gender of. Whether you want an entire party of the strongest classes to deal the highest damage and build a glass-cannon team or make the optimal strategy is up to you. In fact, if you want all four to be in the same class, you can do that too, and that's part of Crystal Project's charm: despite knowing what I was supposed to do, it didn't mean I had to.

Exploring the overworld is very fun. You get to run rampant around any area you want with no random encounters, as every foe you'll find is a flame in the overworld for you to face. Early in the game, I was excited to explore any area given to me because they're filled with parkouring secrets, new enemies, and hidden bosses to fight. The world is pretty (for a voxel-style game), but nothing stands in comparison to the soundtracks. The audio of each new area was a delight to listen to; I thoroughly enjoyed just running around some of my favourites purely to listen to the music present in them — specifically Rolling Quintar Fields.

Although the story left much to be desired, as it is practically non-existent, it didn't detract from the experience because it allowed you to — once again — do whatever you want. Sure, you have the main story you have to follow through with, but the lack of character depth and captivating storyline didn't feel like such a hindrance because the game allows you such freedom in your choices; a plot to follow would have damaged that notion. Instead of feeling forced to advance through the story because it's what I'm "supposed" to do, I explored things at my pace and searched for Crystals as the law asked me to because it was genuinely fun to do so, which meant I didn't need a story... for a while.

I've never been able to finish a JRPG simply because they are too long, and Crystal Project is no different. With 18 Crystals to find (and thus 24 total classes to play), Crystal Project is a behemoth; that is excluding all optional bosses and objectives you can acquire. Naturally, as a collector and completionist, this burnt me through 40 hours of non-stop gameplay, but I found a lack of drive occurring after I'd found 10 Crystals — I had a very nicely-rounded party with phenomenal abilities, and I didn't want to ruin the symmetry. Without wanting to change characters and anxiously looking forward to the next class, the game became stale due to the lack of story. Afterwards, I felt aimless in Sequoia because I didn't care to overthrow the government, I didn't care to find all of the Crystals, and I was already strong enough to face all of the most intriguing bosses I'd found early. This doesn't make Crystal Project a bad game, as I know that — soon enough — I'll be heading right back to the lands of Sequoia in search of the strongest foes, and perhaps it'll still be the first JRPG I finish, it's just unfortunate that I was unable to do so in one go due to dying interest.

I loved my time with Crystal Project, exploring the world for Crystals, secret treasures, and hidden bosses is an exhilarating feeling. Forming a well-rounded party with 24 different classes to dual-spec feels fantastic, and fighting is very enjoyable. That said, the lack of a captivating story puts a mild dent in the drive to continue exploring once you've felt you finally accomplished your goal.