One of the cooler little games shown during Microsoft’s E3 press conference was a vibrant little RPG named Cris Tales which promises to be a love letter to JRPGs from all eras. I wanted to know more about it as the video looked neat, but I needed to get my hands on it, so I downloaded the demo from Steam.
Upon loading up the demo, I immediately noticed how heavily the game is inspired by the visual styles of games like Transistor and Persona 5, while also borrowing heavily from Persona 5‘s combat system, with voice acting and music that remind me of the Tales series. The animations are simple, yet delightful and cheery. If I had any immediate complaints, it would be that the character portraits don’t move their mouths. It’s a demo, so hopefully, that’s fixed by the time the game is released.
The demo kicks off with a short combat tutorial before being dropped into the story. So far, the story is fairly silly – Crisbell is pruning roses in front of a large house when suddenly a frog shows up and takes one of her flowers. Suddenly she stops doing what she’s doing to talk to a character named Mother Superior who tells her to chase down the frog to get the one flower back, even though there’s an entire flower bed (two, actually). Rose petals led the way into the next area where the search begins. Not sure how much time it takes to peel enough petals off of a rose to leave a trail, but here we are. Chasing the frog leads to a conversation with the Mayor and his guests, which unveils a deeper rooted problem in which a farmer is struggling, but all our hero cares about is that frog and the flower.
We can quickly check to see what your objective is by pressing the Y button on the controller, but for the intents of the demo, it’s not really necessary. Following the trail of the frog leads to a church, which Crissbell is apparently not allowed to visit without her Mother Superior. Walking in we find the rose and the stained glass starts to glow in our presence. The frog introduces himself as Matias and informs that Crissbell has awakened some Crystals.
Immediately a triangle takes over the center of the display, which isn’t explained. He then instructs us to go to a hut outside the city where we meet Willhelm, the Time Mage, who explains the similar to his own powers that Crissbell possesses. He has her plant a seed which shows that her power is actually the ability to see what could potentially be if things are done correctly – such as the seed growing into a Glowfruit Tree. Now that we realize she can see what might happen (past on the left, current in the center, and future on the right) we can use the crystal’s borders to see babies grown-up or old people missing because they’ve died. It’s an interesting idea to say the least. This mechanic allows Crissbell to prevent future disasters from happening and allows her to take on side quests which have her sending the magic frog friend through time to help investigate issues or find answers that typically she would have no way to get.
While the story didn’t immediately hook me, this mechanic is a nod to Chrono Trigger, and it’s considerably better executed than people being able to just magically have eidetic memories or be miraculously omniscient.
Going back or forward in time allows one to gather materials and bring them back to the present, but the trick here is that Crissbell can only help so many people so players are forced to make a choice on who to help. Time hopping is also used in battle, which makes for some interesting combat mechanics – such as meeting a guy named Cristopher (I get it, playable heroes all named Cris) who can use Water and then Crisbell can create a future shard, which creates rust and weakens the enemy shield.
The Cris Tales demo shows a lot of promise after a rocky start, but I’m super interested in checking out the rest of the game later on in the future.
For more information, check out the Steam store page or the official website.
