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If a generic crystal fades in an empty 3D forest…

  • NTC3
  • 02/26/2017 09:44 PM
  • 7402 views
Did it fade at all? Or rather, was it ever shining brightly, if no one was around to witness it before it conclusively turned into an dull chunk of solid tetrahydrally shaped mineral? I know I referred to the same philosophical line of inquiry in a recent review, but there’s not exactly much more to discuss here.

Aesthetics (art, design and sound)



Note the falling leaves.

Let’s be honest, if you’re playing Crystal of Destiny, you’re almost certainly doing it for its graphics, which are true, proper 3D, somehow achieved in MV. (I suppose the next step is for some crazed soul to see whether it can handle something like I Am Setsuna, though hopefully not ending up the way that game did.) Now, I do not believe a third dimension automatically makes a game look better, (would I really be here if I did?) If anything, I prefer the stylised 2D of Shadowruns and Darkest Dungeon to any AAA there is. However, I can’t deny that seeing the MV assets turned into textures over actual bulky models makes a welcome change visually, like in the screenshot above, where you can almost feel the lush treetops in all their glory. Most importantly, the third dimension essentially provides the game with a camera perspective, and the opportunity to change it on basically every screen, which is what helps it look fresh, whether you’re in a forest or in a cave. It doesn’t always work this well, though: the insides of the houses suddenly look very brutish, more like some turn-of-the millennium dark RPG, and much less inviting then typical rmk rendition of them. You could probably note other instances where default graphics might've looked better, like the murky water in the forest river, or the clearly rushed cave entrance.



Then, the maps themselves are certainly not complex by any means: a flipside of zooming in and getting to play around with perspectives a lot is that everything clearly becomes a corridor. Now that we know for sure that MV supports 3D graphics, it would interesting if they could be used to create some verticality in the level design, which certainly isn’t present in this game so far. As for the other stuff, the 3D models used to represent enemies on-map are really cool, and the custom main character models used in combat are not bad either. Enemies' in-battle models are just textured with their MV battlers, though: Slimes get some pretty cool animations, like the one where they literally toss a ball of themselves in an attempt to stun you, but everyone else is quite static, though the RTP attack/spell effects actually look a lot a better in 3D then one might’ve expected. Lastly, music is RTP, along with some custom tracks: the battle theme is almost certainly custom, and is pretty cool.

Gameplay



Since the demo is short and can be completed in half an hour at most, you only get to partake in battles across two areas and with three enemy types. The initial forest only houses Slimes, as usual, while Caves are shared by Scorpions and Widow spiders. All these battles are on-map encounters, which is good: the way they respawn in real time (rather then once you leave the area, which is the usual way) is not so good. If you have defeated an encounter but then didn’t move from where it spawned for some reason, you risk getting caught up in that same battle just 10-20 seconds later or so. This does make grinding very easy, but you obviously do not need to do this in the demo.

Your two characters, Soral and Leanne, are a Paladin-style warrior and jack-of-all-trades Sorceress. That means Soral’s next skills after the starting strong attack is a weak group heal, and then Taunt, then a multi-hit attack by the demo’s end, all of which are TP-based. Leanne uses the traditional MP, and starts with a heal and an Arcane Bolt, then gets some Fire and Ice spells. Enemies also get to do stuff: Slimes guard and have the aforementioned Slime Toss (which only seems to properly stun Leanne, for some reason), Widows have their web-based equivalent and Scorpions just hit much harder. And while Slimes just get insta-killed by either Soral’s strong attack or an Arcane Bolt, Scorpions and especially Widows can take a couple of powerful hits, so the cave battles require some thought, even if I was never at risk of legitimately dying due to the copious healing available. The one boss fight at the end is fought with Soral only, but is kinda underwhelming: you get buffed by the resident Crystal for its duration, and so you can afford to just alternate your multi-hit attack and your strong attack until you win.



Storyline

The name, Crystal of Destiny, has in all likelihood already told you what you were getting into. If you still have any doubts, though, then let me dispel them: the game is every bit as generic traditional as it sounds. Soral gets a dream of a comet falling down and wiping everything out, but the old man who adopted him and is the only one left in their village is hardly bothered by it, and sends him out onto another hunt in the forest. (Just what he was going to hunt is unclear, given that their forest doesn’t seem to possess any wildlife besides blue slimes.) He then finds Leanne laying about unconscious because of…something, and soon finds out that she’s obviously a princess. Her bodyguard (misspelled as bodygaurd), Bron, wants to take her away and back to the King for her safety, but she won’t have any of it once Soral tells her his dream (“That settles it! I wont take no as an answer!”). Notably, she is more bothered by it than he is, as he regales it with a simple “But things will come to an end soon enough.”: this nihilism is the closest the writing ever got to being interesting. Either way, though, they get to check out the Crystal at the cave, but then Bron the bodyguard chases them down, knocking out Leanne and providing the demo’s sole boss fight. I can’t say it makes much sense: the main reason he’s bothered by Leanne’s wandering is because he’s afraid the King will execute him for letting her get in danger, but he did he expect to talk his way out of manhandling her? Either way, he runs away voluntarily after witnessing the Crystal impart another revelation onto Soral, before promptly fading out. Once Leanne comes to her senses, they decide to search for the other crystals, presumably so that they can fade as well.

Conclusion



The current build of Crystal of Destiny is entirely fine to play through, with unusual graphics for our platform and a reasonably fun combat. However, I think it would be very much a shame if the developer would build upon this foundation and do nothing but another classic tale that bores before it even begins. It’s not even the only recent game on here trying to do this, mind: it’s scarily similar to a recent demo of Blackened Souls, and not just to the idea of an idealized generic JRPG which clearly inspired them both. Really, right now Crystal of Destiny has 3D graphics and touch encounters, but Blackened Souls has somewhat better mapping and storytelling. Crystal of Destiny has better regular fights, but Blackened Souls has a better boss fight. This has crafting and Blackened Souls has block puzzles. I could go on, but the point is, they’re both highly similar in what they are going for, and in the relative level of execution. Moreover, I could hardly care less about either of them if they proceed with their current paths.

Posts

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Great review! While I don't disagree with the points you've made about the game\story itself, I do have to point out that these are pre-rendered 3D graphics. Meaning.... they are simply parallax (2D) images. So, until someone actually gets real 3D objects actively rendering in MV, there is still no proper 3D available in RPG Maker MV. The monsters on map are also 2D sprites. I did state some of this on my OP. It's nice to think that the game was a bit of an optical illusion for you though. =P

Another thing worth noting would be that I made this games' story and maps in a single week for a challenge on another website back in June, 2016. I didn't state that in my OP, but I should. The only things added to it since that point were the custom battle sprites.

I'd like to think I have some interesting ideas to expand upon, eventually, but only time can tell. The time I was limited to make this greatly decreased my story telling in this game. As I stated in my OP, if I did continue the game, it wouldn't be in RPG Maker either.

Thanks for the honest review! :D
Dafuq drass. My game´s been out for almost a year and your newly uploaded demo already has a review? Man, this some bull*!#%. I´m gonna PM this reviewer right now and send him a gamekey. (but like my last 2 reviewers, I´m sure he´ll agree to it and then forget about me... story of my life)

Anyways, good review, and drass, I hope your final product doesn't have the overly generic RPG story stuff. "I´m a mysterious woman with mysterious powers who mysteriously needs help by a young, lean, crazy haired man with a mysterious past. And yo check it, here´s a crystal!" Some of this is fine, and it´s definitely excused here for having a 1 week deadline, but I hope the final product takes some new turns after this demo.
author=lianderson
Dafuq drass. My game´s been out for almost a year and your newly uploaded demo already has a review? Man, this some bull*!#%. I´m gonna PM this reviewer right now and send him a gamekey. (but like my last 2 reviewers, I´m sure he´ll agree to it and then forget about me... story of my life)

Anyways, good review, and drass, I hope your final product doesn't have the overly generic RPG story stuff. "I´m a mysterious woman with mysterious powers who mysteriously needs help by a young, lean, crazy haired man with a mysterious past. And yo check it, here´s a crystal!" Some of this is fine, and it´s definitely excused here for having a 1 week deadline, but I hope the final product takes some new turns after this demo.

Lolol That is a bit strange! Also, thanks! I recognize the game has very generic themes, indeed. When I say "remake," it'll be just that. Much of how the story flows will be less rushed and more fleshed out and, hopefully, the characters will have some originality to them. In fact, I probably wont be the only one making the game, and I've already been changing much of how the game begins in writing. I may not be able to escape all of the generic themes here, but I'll, at the very least, try to make the game as interesting as bloody possible. :D
author=drassray
Great review! While I don't disagree with the points you've made about the game\story itself, I do have to point out that these are pre-rendered 3D graphics. Meaning.... they are simply parallax (2D) images. So, until someone actually gets real 3D objects actively rendering in MV, there is still no proper 3D available in RPG Maker MV. The monsters on map are also 2D sprites. I did state some of this on my OP. It's nice to think that the game was a bit of an optical illusion for you though.


Hm, I guess my thought process was "if MV managed to conquer one boundary by being portable to mobile, then true 3D can't be that farfetched for it (especially since GameMaker could it (or at least Doom-style first-person 2D) since forever)". Oh well, it still looked nice enough!

And I am a little afraid that the name itself, Crystal of Destiny, might well be the first thing that needs to be changed if you are going as far with it as to change the whole engine. Especially the "destiny" part: I think it's not far-fetched at all to say we live at a time when a lot of people want nothing more then to rebel against their supposed destinies!

author=NTC3
author=drassray
Great review! While I don't disagree with the points you've made about the game\story itself, I do have to point out that these are pre-rendered 3D graphics. Meaning.... they are simply parallax (2D) images. So, until someone actually gets real 3D objects actively rendering in MV, there is still no proper 3D available in RPG Maker MV. The monsters on map are also 2D sprites. I did state some of this on my OP. It's nice to think that the game was a bit of an optical illusion for you though.
Hm, I guess my thought process was "if MV managed to conquer one boundary by being portable to mobile, then true 3D can't be that farfetched for it (especially since GameMaker could it (or at least Doom-style first-person 2D) since forever)". Oh well, it still looked nice enough!

And I am a little afraid that the name itself, Crystal of Destiny, might well be the first thing that needs to be changed if you are going as far with it as to change the whole engine. Especially the "destiny" part: I think it's not far-fetched at all to say we live at a time when a lot of people want nothing more then to rebel against their supposed destinies!


Well put, and I'll put this on my list of considerations! Your review was super helpful, thanks again!
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