Video Game / Crystal Project

Crystal Project is an indie block-based JRPG developed by Andrew Willman and released for PC on March 31, 2022. The game centers around exploration and platforming in a world that looks like it was crafted in Minecraft, but without the ability to actually mine anything in it. Combat-wise, the game is turn-based like older JRPG entries, with a job system similar to those used in Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy V, and Octopath Traveler, where characters will start with a chosen class, but be able to change classes and even re-spec later on down the line.

Story-wise, the game is a bit light, with the player mostly left to just wander around collecting crystals, finding mounts to access new areas, and leveling up until they are powerful enough to tackle the game's lategame content. Each crystal brings a new job class with it, and there are also diversions such as fishing, racing, quintar breeding, and so on if the player wants to forgo the main plot altogether.

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Crystal Project contains the following tropes:

• 0% Approval Rating: The current Grand Master, in their efforts to nudge adventurers towards finding the Crystals, is far less popular than their predecessors. Their reasons for being so pushy are not elaborated on, but their own actions suggest that they're trying to get someone to (violently) replace them out of annoyance, someone who's at least done some boss-fighting.
• Absurdly Low Level Cap: Downplayed with the main storyline, since the level cap of 60 is tuned for the Final Boss in the Very Definitely Final Dungeon. For most of the many optional fights, however, sixty levels won't carry.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Crystal Project has several implemented:
  • Dying against a boss flame will not give the player a monetary penalty. For that matter, dying to a normal enemy only inflicts a slight monetary penalty.
  • Missing a jump and falling into the water or lava or spikes will not reduce your HP.
  • Selling an item will have it available for repurchase. Furthermore, missing a stolen item by a boss will have it for sale.
  • If you're not happy with your character's current growths, you can change them later for a price.
  • Towns with more advanced shops, like the gold equipment crafters in the Sara Sara Bazaar, will have their wares added to the equivalent shop in Capital Sequoia after you visit them once so you don't have to go out of your way.
  • It's possible to buy missing information for your monster archive, sparing you from having to beat the same enemy over and over in the hopes that this time it'll reveal its drops.
  • If you start exploring a region before acquiring its map, the areas you've previously seen will already be filled in when you do get the map.
  • If you get into a battle that you have no hope of winning (or escaping), the game offers the option to give up and respawn, rather than waste time watching your poor characters get their No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Anti-Grinding: If an enemy Flame is gray, it's too far below your level and won't provide XP. It'll still provide Learning Points for the Job System, however, and it'll still have items to harvest or steal.
• Ban on Magic: Inverted while in the Ancient Labyrinth; if it doesn't cost MP, you can't do it while fighting.
• Beef Gate: While you're not strictly funneled down a certain route, especially not once you get some of the later-game mounts, there's not any Level Scaling to accommodate the wanderers. In fact, enemy Flames are extra eager to dine on under-leveled parties; you can tell if they'll be faster (and tougher) by their redness.
• Big Dumb Object: The Labyrinth is a fantasy version of this - a huge, absolutely massive mysterious cube taking up a significant portion of the map. Even figuring out how to get inside is a puzzle. The author has said that they specifically designed every part of it to be as mysterious and inexplicable as possible.
• Black Mage: The Wizard class, specializing in powerful offensive magic.
• Broken Bridge: Used rather extensively at the beginning of the game to force players to explore and search for crystals. Several NPCs block the path to other areas until a certain number of crystals have been found, and several literal broken bridges appear in the Greenshire Reprise and Salmon Pass to force the player to use the Quintar mount to jump the gap. Once the player gets access to a mount or two, all roadblocks disappear because it becomes a question of platforming and ability to handle the monsters in a given environment.
• Cast from Money: Skills learned as the Chemist and the Ninja both require items, which generally have to be bought from shops first (though some are farmable). They're also limited by inventory space for those items, giving a hard spamming-cap of sorts for each battle. Both classes, for example, can use items to get out of battle.
  • Chemist can use healing items in battle, and is the only class able to do so; as a trade-off, some of these items are far less efficient to use in battle, requiring two-to-four copies to be used at once for any effect. Chemist can also learn to use items for unintended purposes, such as getting random effects out of Potions, or converting someone's MP into AP with Ethers.
  • Ninja can use up Scrolls to perform Ninjutsu; these range from guaranteeing that MP-using skills will miss against them twice, to making four illusory copies of themselves (assuming a Final Fantasy XI reference based on the skill's name) that foes will typically aim at instead of them, to making a foe extra-vulnerable to a certain element for the next time they take damage, to just really pissing an enemy off with a written joke.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Mostly averted; You can afflict bosses with just about any status ailment. They just don't last very long and many can only be afflicted once in any battle. Instant Death immunity is consistent, however.
  • With Damage Over Time effects, most bosses, and even some mini-bosses, get significant damage resistance against them, but in practice, this is because those effects are normally percentage-based; the resistance reduces the absolute damage they take from it each turn to about what a normal enemy would take. Since boss battles tend to last much longer than normal ones, such effects are still extremely effective against them.
• Difficulty Levels: Crystal Project handles difficulty per save file. While it can be decreased, it can never be increased. The same goes for the Assist Options, once those are turned on, they can't be turned back off and will have an icon attached to the save file.
• Down the Drain: The Jojo Sewers beneath Sequoia, which connect to several locations, including the Underpass, the Capitol Jail, and the Quintar Nest. Similarly, the Ancient Reservoir beneath the Poko Poko Desert pyramid.
• Dungeon Bypass: Several dungeons can be completely skipped with the right platforming skills or mounts. In particular, it's possible to completely bypass Okimoto N.S. and its boss by slipping in from the mountain in the back to grab the crystal without fighting anyone.
• Endgame+: After the credits roll, you're immediately shunted back to where you started the game at, with the 10-Gold reward for winning and whatever damage you sustained from the boss-fight. Astley and co. are inexplicably back where they were, and still saying Astley is Grand Master. Crystal Project does have New Game Plus, however; the Nan who welcomed you in the first place tells you that, by completing your adventure, you have the ability to "Reawaken" and restart with some-or-all of your collected stuff.
• Excuse Plot: Why are you here? Because you can be. Why are you exploring? To fill out your map and collect Crystals. Why are you collecting Crystals? To get through barriers and unlock mounts at first, for more exploring. The main story driver later becomes defeating the Grand Master so they stop being a stick-in-the-mud, but ultimately there's nothing super grave in the story. Some instances make the world out to be a sandbox, and the Grand Masters to be a series of God Modders who sometimes took "life" in their world too seriously, but not even that is said outright.
• Fate Worse than Death: Death Is a Slap on the Wrist in this game, even in-universe, but Banishment prevents you from coming back. The True Final Boss will spam Banishments on your party, but fortunately un-Banishing seems to be a thing.
• Featureless Protagonist: The player starts with four party members of selectable (and changeable) gender that are just dropped into a starting area with no backstories or involvement to speak of.
• Force and Finesse: The Warrior, Reaper and Fencer jobs, which are all offensive classes. While the Warrior is a Tank with potential for high damage, the Fencer focuses a lot more on its abilities and uses rapiers and medium armor.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The few fights with other adventurers in-game don't let you see your foe's next moves, because they (like the player) have free will.
• The Ghost: The Grandmaster that Reid, Astley, Talon, and Chloe keep bringing up is anonymous, and only communicates through bulletin board decrees. This is because Astley is the Grandmaster, trying to indirectly groom someone strong enough to challenge her, and she doesn't tell her friends until you're ready to fight her.
• Global Airship: While it can only be used to glide and not truly fly, the owl still qualifies as this, since you unlock it by reaching the highest point on the entire map and gain a Warp Whistle to there at the same time, effectively allowing you to glide to almost any point in the world any time you please.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: There's a party of four adventurers that show up every so often to ambush the party, but they're usually pushovers. They seem to be Expys of the main protagonists from KonoSuba, especially given the extremely flowery Magical Incantation their wizard makes before using fire spells.
• Green Hill Zone: The Spawning Meadows, which serve as the player's first introduction to the game, help them come to grips with the controls, and then lead into the first full region, Delende.
• Guide Dang It!: The game is very hands-off when it comes to letting you figure out where to go next or solving puzzles. The first area is fairly linear, preventing you from progressing unless you have three crystals. Still, the game starts to open up after that point, until you eventually have all mounts and can access basically anywhere.
• Heroic Mime: Aside from answering some yes/no questions or buying things, the party members don't talk at all.
• Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: Averted. The base character can hop over anything over two voxels high. An Ibek mount can be charged up to three voxels, though some clever platforming allows for all sorts of skips.
• Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: In some dungeons, consumable keys can be found and used on any door, but there is typically a specific key for actual progress or a boss key.
• Knight in Shining Armor: The Aegis class, a defensive tank designed to cover weaker members and get enemies' attention.
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Lava is just water with a different color and texture, that nothing can swim in.
• Layered World: Grandmaster Astley's "New World" is built underground, separated from everything else so only those who've conquered Castle Sequoia can visit it. There's also the "Old World", now limited to a single cave.
• Lethal Lava Land: Beaurior Volcano, particularly the temple inside.
• Let's Meet the Meat: Played with. There's a gardening minigame, but your crops have reservations... and magic. Some of them drop "Secret Meat".
• Life Drain: The Shaman class gets this with every spell they use. The Reaper class, on the other hand, gains maximum HP with each hit they land; how they fill their bigger health bar is up to them.
• The Lost Woods: Greenshire Reprise, west of the capital, grows on a mountainside and is extremely misty.
• Magic Staff: One type of equipment, usually one that allows for physical attacks by magic classes.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Zig-zagged. Other adventurers are at work, calling the game's plot into question or just doing their own thing when you stumble upon them, but the players are the only ones who will actually make any progress.
  • The adventurers you follow around over the course of the game make a bid to take on The Big Bad, with most of them doing it to back up one of their own. It turns out that one who proposed the bid is the Big Bad, however, and they all end up fighting your party.
• The Medic: The Chemist class, which allows a party member to combine items and use them on other party members mid-battle.
• Min-Maxing: Encouraged. You can re-spec your characters to ensure you have perfect builds, several weak items still offer utility in the form of damage nullification or latent abilities, and the game offers a system where the player can equip abilities and secondary action commands to create a build that best suits them.
• Munchkin: This playstyle is fully facilitated. You can change your party members' jobs at any save point. If that's not enough, you can fast-travel from that save point to an easier area to grind in, and then fast-travel straight back. If that's still not enough, one of the fast-travel destinations is basically right next to a respeccing facility, where you can fine-tune basically everything about your character within your XP total.
• Optional Boss: Quite a few; some are rather out-of-the-way, whether in Bonus Dungeons or just places not particularly easy to reach, but others can be stumbled upon very early. The latter is invoked with aptly-named "Demons", which are meant to be outmaneuvered or snuck around.
• Permanently Missable Content: Intentionally averted, to the point where the Steam store page lists this as a major feature. No matter what you do, every item, map, enemy compendium entry, and so on is still obtainable. If you somehow create a situation where an item can't be obtained (such as failing to steal it from a boss) it becomes purchasable at the lost-and-found, while missed enemy entries can be purchased at the library. The only things you can miss forever are a few conversations and cutscenes, and in that case any items that you would have gotten from them will be found on the ground where they would have been.
• Puzzle Boss: The game provides turn orders, damage estimates, and even what your foes will do next, making some bosses work like this.
  • One otherwise-difficult hidden boss uses an HP-doubling move to heal themselves, which can be turned into a suicide move with a Monster spell that converts healing into damage (and vice-versa).
• Ret-Gone: The fate of those Banished by a Grand Master, including every Grand Master that's defeated. Supposedly. What each Grand Master makes remains, however, minus their names on the projects.
• The Rival: There are four of the Pokémon variety, always just ahead of you in levels and progression, though they're reasonably friendly and they aren't fought until the end of the game.
• Shifting Sand Land: The Poko Poko Desert, complete with cacti, a pyramid, and a bazaar town.
• Shout-Out:
  • Many to the Final Fantasy series.
    • The first six classes are the same six starting classes as Final Fantasy, albeit with some different names.
    • The Scholar class is essentially a Blue Mage.
    • Enemies inspired by the Cactuar recurring enemy appear in the Poko Poko Desert.
    • Quintar Breeding forms a lengthy sidequest, similar to Chocobo Breeding.
    • The Quintar themselves are very Chocobo-esque, even going "Qwei" when spoken with.
    • A dagger called the Mage Masher exists.
    • The accessory that grants immunity to all status effects is the Ribbon.
    • There's also a reference to the recurring Final Fantasy sword "Save the Queen", called "Help the Prince" instead.
  • Also, several to The Legend of Zelda:
    • The "Boomer Society" are a reference to the Bomber Society of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. You find several wandering around the capital, they have a secret base in the sewers that leads to a scholars' haven, and even their name is only slightly respelled.
    • The Tall Tall Heights make an appearance.
    • A 1-handed sword called the Master Sword makes an appearance.
  • A sword exists called Aunduril, as does Balrog.
  • There are bat-like enemies named Zoo Bats.
  • One NPC offers to trade you a Stone of Jodan for a Crag Demon Horn.
  • As noted above, Expys of the KonoSuba protagonists appear to ambush you in the Rolling Quintar Fields.
• Shmuck Bait: Adventurers afraid of being Banished from the realm flock to Shoudu Province, which they've heard is safe, only for them to be the first guys to get poofed.
  • There is no free treasure in the Basement, unless you count the digested head of someone else who took the bait. There is some loot beyond the trap-setting "Gran", though.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Land's End, the ice biome atop the mountains north of Sequoia.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: In-Universe example; the first time you examine the bulletin board in Castle Town, there's a notice about how the requirement for an adventurer to obtain a Quintar mount pass has increased from four crystals to seven, stating that, quote, "this is not an inconvenience. As long as this nudges all of our reluctant citizens in the direction of discovering true fun (i.e., finding Crystals), this is a benefit to us all". Later, the people in charge start outright banishing adventures from the realm for slacking off and finding other ways to entertain themselves besides finding crystals.
• Superboss: A great many; just over half of the Optional Bosses are scaled for endgame parties, and another good chunk need parties approaching that point unless you have a particularly-good team composition. Most of the Summons are like this, for instance.
• Super Drowning Skills: In a non-lethal example, falling into deep water deals no damage and the character resurfaces at the last platform they were on.
• There Are No Tents: You can save the game anywhere, but you can only switch classes at Save Points. You're also teleported back to the Save Point set as a "Home Point", if you leave the game and reload from a save file.
• Trauma Inn: Standard inn mechanics apply. Dead party members are revived, all HP and MP is regained, all for a small fee.
• True Final Boss: Fought by taking on a series of Bonus Bosses, acquiring a Proof of Merit from the sixth one in the series, and showing it to the standard Final Boss to reassure them that you're ready. Fortunately you don't have to handle them all in one sitting.
• Underground Level: Several areas take place in caverns where enemies tend to roam.
• Warp Whistle: In addition to being able to warp back to the most recent save point interacted with, the player can visit various Shrines across the world map, which sell two forms of these: a cheap consumable one, and a more expensive version that can be used forever.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Reid, Astley, Talon, and Chloe are all Banished after you defeat them, winking out of existence. Astley is Banished because she's the Grandmaster (and she even disappears first), but why the others are Banished is uncertain.
• White Mage: The Cleric class, specializing in healing magic and support.
• Worldbuilding: Every Grand Master has left some mark upon the world with their own creations, as though it were a sandbox, ranging from bosses to entire regions. For example, a decent portion of the ocean floor has grass and buildings, giving the feeling that one Grand Master flooded the world for fun. Some of these projects were abandoned halfway, however, whether due to a change in Grand Masters or running into sinister corruption seeded by one of the first.
• World Tree: There is a Sequoia in the world, to the northwest of the continent on the world map. It has all sorts of loot, but it's clearly designed as a Bonus Dungeon accessed even after the Labyrinth, requiring either the Golden Quintar mount or insane skill with the Owl and Salmon to climb. At the top is Gungnir itself and a super-cool accessory that gives you 250% more cash for monster-mashing, though both are guarded by a Wendigo-like beast and plenty of wicked tree spirits.
• Wutai: The Shoudu Province and Okimoto N.S., two locations right next to each other clearly inspired by medieval Japan.

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