Crystal Story: Dawn of Dusk Review

Crystal Story: Dawn of Dusk was designed to be a love letter to the RPGs of old, and I can certainly see how it shows this. With pixelated graphics, I was brought back to the old Legend of Zelda days. I can’t deny that the music is wonderful, but how does Crystal Story: Dawn of Dusk hold up?

Well, the world was interesting. The player takes on the role of a young girl called Mina, whose brother disappeared four years ago. Her family and her entire town are devastated by this, and as the game begins, she and her mother (who is also a spider-woman) are celebrating her birthday whilst mourning the absence of their loved one.

However, this doesn’t stop Mina from celebrating her birthday in a way that she’ll enjoy. Her cousin, Claude (an anthropomorphic cat), takes her to the Matterhorn to collect apples for her birthday cake. Unbeknownst to her family, Mina has been having dreams of a place called the Duskside, wherein she is called there by her missing brother. As she begins to imagine him in reality, she is encouraged to travel to the Dusk, where she embarks on a quest to defeat the Beast.

Admittedly, I did get a little frustrated with the puzzles. While you’re introduced to the controls early on, there are few hints as to where and what you should do. The setting layout suggests you can go anywhere, however, this isn’t the case. There’s a very linear way of doing things, and it can be annoying to run back and forth, knowing you were right about something but at the wrong time.

The boss fights also required a bit of a learning curve. While the combat is described as turn-based, it’s turn-based in the same way Undertale is. There’s no doubt Undertale served as some inspiration here, but I didn’t realise how much until I finally got to my first boss fight. It wouldn’t have been so much of a problem if it wasn’t for the fact that I had to reset the game because it crashed on my death screen, which, although it didn’t happen again, was still irritating.

I especially didn’t like that to charge AP, I would have to do a separate mini-game, and there wouldn’t be enough time to do it. All I wanted to do was have more of a chance than to miss with my melee attack. So, it took a few attempts before I got through the first boss… Also after rage-quitting a few times. And going through a lot of potions and ensuring that I didn’t waste my valuable turns on items that I could quickly spam while dodging attacks.

After this, I was able to return to the Fortress Ruins and get a Cardinal aerocycle, a flying motorcycle that could allow me to travel to the Duskside. Considering the Itch version did not consider that I was using a PlayStation controller, I had to figure out what the hell I was doing and how to accelerate because I was only told about the shift key. Could I have switched to my keyboard for this? Probably. But since moving to the controller, I wanted to stick to it.

Flying around on the Cardinal was actually pretty nostalgic, as the map layout reminded me of when I used to fly around in the Legacy of Goku games. So, I couldn’t complain. All I had to do was get to another Crystal Nexus, which is a type of checkpoint.

I then went onto a snowy mountain, where I happened to unlock my favourite of all my Arts: the Fire Bomb. Upon arriving there I was possessed by a Kaboo, which is a type of ghost, and so I could then use bombs to remove obstacles, including some enemies. However, here is where I found a surprisingly unique problem: Mina vanished. She was still there, but she had also disappeared upon me clicking off the game to check my Discord notifications, so I had to reset my game again.

Personally, I don’t want to go into too much detail about the main storyline, as this is only the first part of an episodic adventure, but let it be known that it only takes between three and six hours to complete. Once I got the hang of the controls, the puzzles were a lot easier, but they could still be frustrating at times. However, this is also very much a me-problem. I did find the story interesting, and I do look forward to what happens next.

However, I do believe that considering the game that we get, there are some bugs that need to be sorted. If I leave the game and find Mina gone, I will be more than a little annoyed. As it is the first in an epic saga, I do see the amount of love that’s gone into this. By all accounts, it’s not bad, but as it’s not the full experience, I can agree that it would be a let-down for anyone who did pay that price.