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"Out of all the fanmade remakes or sequels to the NES game Crystalis out there, this is the only one that's actually happening."

Presentation
Crystalis was one of my first and favorite games on the NES back in the early 1990s. I decided to make it an RpgMaker project, rewriting many parts of the story while preserving the main storyline, dungeons, events and gameplay. So it could be considered as an oldschool game and fan-made remake of the original game.
Please note that this project is a remake, not a copy. It is to the original Crystalis what Oath in Felghana is to Wanderers from Ys: new story, new art style, new gameplay, etc.

Background storyline
1987: Scientists working under the Velyagun Empire accidentally create thermonuclear weapons. The Empire plans to develop and use these weapons to wage war against the great countries of the continent, all fighting for technological superiority.
1997: Tension climaxes between the most powerful countries and over half of the civilized world is ravaged by thermonuclear war thus resulting in the Earth’s axis shift. The surviving groups of soldiers and scientists struggle savagely for domination. Experiments are run by mad scientists on various animals to create armies of mutants. And yet the population tries to rebuild villages and live as best they can.
2007: A young woman, Misae, alchemist Xevu's pupil, manages to create the first weapon that can rival with post-apocalyptic weaponry: an elemental sword that draws on the magical powers of the spirits. Under the guidance of her master, she'll travel to the four corners of the continent to gather the powers of the other spirits and fight the evil Empire.

Gameplay
-Similar to the original game (itself similar to The Legend of Zelda and the Ys series). You move in 4 directions with the arrow keys and use three other keys to attack, charge your sword's power level, cast spells and bring up the subscreen.
-Action RPG gameplay lets you and your opponents attack at close range or at a distance with various spells and magic attacks.
-You can level up, buy and equip armors and accessories, use various items in the subscreen, find key items to reach new areas and find new spells and new swords throughout the game.
-The game relies mostly on the fun of exploiting your swords' power levels' attacks and solving puzzles inside dungeons. Most enemies also have specific elemental weaknesses you can take advantage of.

Latest Blog

Ditching the world map? ...and other ideas.

While I was working on Halloween Wars I thought about several design decisions I took about Crystalis and questioned them. My first intent about this remake was to make it as close to the original as possible despite trying to enhance it gameplay wise.

And so I'm considering to get rid of the world map.
Right now the world map's purpose is to travel between the main areas and to give you a glimpse at unexplored, nearby locations.
The original game instead features large outdoor enemy-filled areas that link the main areas to each other. I'm leaning towards doing that as it would offer more in terms of exploration, puzzles, enemy variety and it could soften the difficulty curve.

I'd also like to remake most dungeons. Most of them are enemy-filled labyrinths and feature only one or two puzzles. The original game did that, but that is something I'd like to change.
I'd like to make the dungeons shorter but have each room be more significant by having one of the following purposes:
1- battle area (enemy filled).
2- gate (meet the requirements to advance further).
3- challenge (a puzzle of some sort or an exploration segment).
4- loot (a treasure chest).
5- boss.
6- save room.
I believe it would be better for every room to have a distinctive feature and be memorable.

I've also been wondering whether I should add new equipment or not. Instead of each piece being a simple upgrade of the last one, I'd rather have more pieces with unique effects that would be more or less effective depending on the situation. Players would toggle armor and accessory more often, just like they do with swords.

Recoding the battle system to clean it up a little would be nice.
I could also add sword combo attacks that have different speeds and ranges.
And allowing the player to turn without taking a step.

What do you guys think about these changes?

Posts

More feedback:

-there is nothing special to indicate where the eastern forest location is on the world map.

-can't find any instructions anywhere on how to use items

-music is nice in a retro way

-inconsistencies in what is passable vs. impassible terrain. Some rocks and divots in the ground can be walked through. Others cannot. I get stuck on and killed by a lot of rocks.
Forest: Well, yes, nothing indicates where the forest is except for the big chunk of RTP forest tiles east of town that take less than 5 seconds to skim through if players don't deduce that the blank spots in the middle are where the teleports are.

Items: I'll make an early NPC explain how to use items in the next release. I thought it was pretty easy to figure out though, as you only have 3 action keys available, Z toggling the menu on/off and Shift doing nothing in the menu.
I understand that some players might enjoy spoonfeeder tutorials, but I personally don't support that.

Terrain passability was mentioned by other players but thanks for pointing it out. I already made changes there for the next release.
I'm not looking for an arduous tutorial, but some kind of appended help file would be really welcome. This key configuration is really different from what I'm used to (the confirm key being the same as the menu key), but I played around with attempting to use items, and was not able to get them to go.
Hey guys!
I'm just wondering who downloaded the french translation of this game (three downloads as of now)?
Just curious ^^
A few words on what was, what is and what's coming up:

It's already been a year now since v0.1 (english) has been available.
The amount of attention, feedback, good words and love I've received so far from you all on RMN has by far exceeded my expectations. I'm very grateful to all of you who gave the game a try and also to those who let me know what you think of it.

I love this project and am working hard to make it has fun and compelling as I can. The game will definitely be completed one day... unless I unexpectedly lose both arms, eyes, or the Mayan calendar is right or something like that, I guess...

Anyway, I'm usually pretty bad at foreseeing deadlines, but I am quite confident I can finish v0.2, which will include about half of the completed game, before the new year.

So thanks again everyone and I hope you'll keep on enjoying the future releases of Crystalis: Sonata of the Far-Away Sky!
I cant figure out where to go after killing the second boss. I cant seem to open the wall in the kids cell.
Make sure to equip Azurslayer (the wind sword) and have replenished your MP by staying at the village's Inn.
Notice the 3x3 boulder against the wall in the kids' cell (it makes a striking sound when you attack it) and have Misae face its center.
Charge your sword to Level 3 and release. Three whirlwinds should move upward towards the boulder and smash it to dust. A door will appear.

Hope this helps!
Yes I tried a charged attack but only level 2. LOL thanks.
This is SOOOOOO awesome! My favorite game of all time is getting a quality remake! I love the demo - it feels so much like the original in a very good way. Very high quality!

My only complaints would be in the movement and controls. They feel a little clunky and not like the original. It feels very wrong that you move one tile at a time rather than pixel by pixel. There also seems to be some bugs in the charging of your sword, as it fires all the time without you releasing. It fires every time when you get to the 3rd charge level without releasing it. And moving, charging a little, moving a little more doesn't seem to work well. One more little nitpicky thing - it just feels wrong to have an overworld map in Crystalis. I can live with it though if I have to. I'm just excited to finally have a sequel/remake of Crystalis that's high high quality!

Anyway, I'm so excited for this and you're doing a wonderful job! The graphics and gameplay and story and writing so far are spot on and great!
@dillydadally: Thank you for the kind words :)
Crystalis is also one of my favorite NES game of all times and holds a special place in my heart since childhood.

I know what you mean regarding the issues with pixel movement and charged attacks mechanics. It was simply impossible for me to recreate those faithfully, or at least it would have required a lot of difficult programming and the engine, RPG Maker 2003, is actually not suited for this type of action-oriented game.
I'm afraid you'll have to bear with me here.

As for the world map, I thought it was a good idea :P
I didn't see why I'd need the original outdoor areas in this remake, so I decided not to include them. Besides it cuts down on the amount of work I have to do, which is already considerable.
Some areas won't be there, such as the Wind Valley and Brynmaer's forest area, but others will remain, like the Angry Sea (the dolphin riding area) and Mount Hydra.

This remake is not without flaws and bugs. Mostly, I'm trying to make the story more interesting for the next release and increase the variety in monster behavior.
Anyway, thank you for your support and stay tuned for the next version ;)
Crystalis is easily one of the most underrated games of all time, and easily one of my favorites =D
It's possibly my favorite NES game without "Megaman" in the title.
The music was perfectly fitting and catchy, the plot was dark-toned and complex at the time, the gameplay was super fun and it had plenty of exploration even if the level grinding hindered the game slightly, the graphics were colorful and pretty, and damn it I have so many NEStalgic memories of it.
I'll have to check this out.
This should get Kickstarted. I'm sure with the right funds, it can become an even more awesome game!
Awesome!!! What a great old school action RPG! And it is HARD in a good manner. That giant flying swamp monster kicked my a** for quite a wile until I more or less mastered the charge attack.

The controls are very good except an issue on charge attack: some times the charge attack gets released while I still hold the 0 key.

The long quiz gets quite tedious. But I managed to get the Iron Necklace, playing the quiz as a mastermind game.

Here is how I did it:
I noticed that 7 wrong answers terminate the quiz. So I intentionally gave wrong answers to questions 1 to 6. Then the quiz stops at the first new wrong answer. Getting the next question indicates that the answer I just gave was correct.
Thank you for your support, everyone ^^

@EliroX904: I do remember having to grind in several areas in the NES game, especially in Mount Saber and before taking on the Goa Fortress. I tried to reduce grinding to a minimum in this remake. Not only has the maximum Level been increased from 16 to 30, but if you ever find yourself in need of an extra Level or two, grinding shouldn't take more than 2~5 minutes per Level at any given time.

@RaptorZX3: Thanks for the thought, but I don't think money could really help :P This remake is fueled by free time and love only ^^ People should totally have a right to donate though! (hehe!)

@Irog: I'm glad that you find the game challenging in a good way. Make sure to watch the How to Beat videos in the Media section of this page for hints and strategies on how to beat the bosses ;)
The issue about the attack key has been raised before, and honestly I don't really know how to fix it, but it seldom happens and shouldn't be too much of a problem overall. About that quiz, I guess you managed to work around all the observation task I intended the players to do :P
you're right, but the best developers out here are also fueled by love of making games. Though it does need resources, and they do have bills to pay and all that. This is why Kickstarter do exist, because publishers wouldn't take the risk to publish this game and lose money because in the end the game wasn't as popular as they thought.

But then again, when developers go thru Kickstarter, boxed version of games cost like between 70-100$, and that really suck to pay that much for a boxed game...when you know you can get a digital version of this game for 20$...*sighs*

Though by donating for this game, you'll know that peoples support you and want you to make it a real awesome remake/reboot of the game. It's a shame SNK never did a remake of this game. And also, you might even have SNK Playmore's blessing for your remake, like Bungie did at the time for the Atari 2600 version of Halo.
Here's a bit of news (too small to make a blog entry out of it):

I gave another read to the complete scenario today and noticed some things I had to rewrite and alter. The scenario was already completed a long time ago and I just made sure everything came together nicely. I'm quite satisfied with the result ^^
The full game's storyline will feature some major, fun plot twists but those won't be the main focus of the story. I will rather try to put the emphasis on the expression of several opinions and viewpoints on modern subjects.

Also, the addition of several cutscenes and, hopefully, a cool opening sequence for the coming up version 0.2 will now properly introduce the main plot and actors.
author=RaptorZX3
you're right, but the best developers out here are also fueled by love of making games. Though it does need resources, and they do have bills to pay and all that. This is why Kickstarter do exist, because publishers wouldn't take the risk to publish this game and lose money because in the end the game wasn't as popular as they thought.

But then again, when developers go thru Kickstarter, boxed version of games cost like between 70-100$, and that really suck to pay that much for a boxed game...when you know you can get a digital version of this game for 20$...*sighs*

Though by donating for this game, you'll know that peoples support you and want you to make it a real awesome remake/reboot of the game. It's a shame SNK never did a remake of this game. And also, you might even have SNK Playmore's blessing for your remake, like Bungie did at the time for the Atari 2600 version of Halo.


It's a fangame, so the developer can't make money on it. Plus it's using a product that was never legally released outside of Japan (ie., RM2K3 is illegal to use unless you purchased the Japanese version). Even making donations on a fangame using what's considered illegal software is likely to cause a stir.

All of that aside, Crystalis was probably one of my all-time faves and it's a shame it never did receive a proper remake or sequel... outside of the horrible gba drivel.
Well, at least the OP wasn't encouraging it...

Crystalis was basically the game that introduced me to the fun (and frustration) of RPGs. Having to use special items to solve puzzles (that damn alarm clock, I used it a couple times not being close enough, or talking first, and wasted a few). But (twenty years) later I found the game and beat it.

I didn't understand the ending but that opening...


Pure awesome. Btw, did you know the world ended in 1997?
Fond memories. I'll start working on the opening sequence soon and will use a similar presentation style :)
There will be two main scenes in the intro: The tale of the war that ravaged the world and Xevu's taking care of Misae as a child.
I can't really remember much of the end, but if memory serves me correct (from the NES version):


The hero was part of the team that initially erected the tower. They placed a computer inside so that if evil ever stirred, it would eliminate the threat completely, which I believe would have included innocent people as well... sort of like a cleansing. Science was outlawed, magic had returned. The hero was frozen in cryonic sleep until a time he is needed again (although that revelation comes at the end).

Dracon wanted global power and had amassed a large military. He wanted to combine magic with science, and I believe he was trying to access the tower to gain complete control.

The hero destroyed Dracon, and then was led to the tower to stop it from eradicating earth, since the threat was eliminated.

something of the sort.