FuRyu has made a reputation for itself in recent times of being a writer that does a fantastic job of churning out RPGs that you simply’ll definitely like, however most likely not love. Video games like Monark, Caligula Impact, and Crystar have all supplied gamers some respectable but flawed experiences, and now the corporate has introduced us one more entry on this lengthy line known as Crymachina. Although it appears to take some cues from Crystar, Crymachina is a brand-new IP set within the far future that sees you combating a seemingly limitless horde of creepy robots with a bunch of depressed ladies. It’s ridiculous, it’s enjoyable, and it’s not nice, however it could nonetheless be value your time.
The narrative locations you within the function of Leben, a lady who promptly dies of a mysterious sickness within the first 10 seconds after cursing on the world and all of the individuals who reside in it. She is then resuscitated 2000 years sooner or later by a mysterious AI named Enoa, who has introduced again a few different highschool ladies, too. Enoa explains that people went extinct on account of a world warfare over dwindling sources, however a crew of scientists launched a spaceship known as Eden simply earlier than the top within the hopes that sooner or later humanity may rise once more.
Eden is ruled by eight godlike AI (Enoa being certainly one of them) who every have a task to play in reviving humanity, however issues have come aside within the millennia because the ship’s launch, and a few of the AI have gone rogue. Leben and the opposite ladies are form of ‘partial people’ introduced again by Enoa from the encoded recollections of individuals from earlier than the warfare, and if they will kill sufficient robots, they’ll achieve sufficient “ExP” to lastly be acknowledged as actual people, which might permit them to quell the unrest and produce again humanity in full.
It is a considerably sophisticated narrative, and this isn’t helped by the large quantity of exposition and dialogue sequences within the first few hours, most of which is written in a quite stiff and awkward vogue. That’s to say nothing of the comically angsty tone—most character interactions really feel like they had been devised by a moody teenager who often slams their door once they storm off to their room to sulk. One of many first issues Leben says to her friends when she meets them is “I’m a moody loner, so don’t anticipate to get together with me proper off the bat,” and we’re consistently reminded that there isn’t a God, humanity is lifeless, Leben hates different individuals, and all the pieces sucks. And all this brooding is performed fully straight, which may result in many unintentionally humorous moments the place you may’t assist however chuckle and roll your eyes on the absurdity.
Gameplay oscillates between motion fight segments bookended with visible novel sequences for furthering the plot. Again on the base, you may stage up characters, change loadouts, improve skills, and take part in necessary or optionally available dialogues along with your crew members. Then, when you’re able to battle, you decide a stage to drop into and set out on a mission, often taking not more than 10 minutes every. Dungeon designs in every stage are fairly fundamental, that includes largely linear environments to discover with a number of facet paths containing treasures or stronger foes. When you get into the rhythm of it, this gameplay loop feels fairly satisfying, although it could get repetitive in longer periods—particularly given how samey many dungeons are.
Fight is dealt with by way of a live-action system that feels a bit like a rougher tackle Nier Automata’s fight. The principle thrust of it’s that you simply mash the ‘Y’ button to get in a flurry of sunshine assaults on an enemy and construct up their launch bar. As soon as that’s full, you may then double faucet ‘X’ to launch them into the air and spike them again down, which tees them up so you may hit along with your highly effective finisher transfer. To complement your melee combating, you even have two ranged weapons over your left and proper shoulders that may be triggered independently of one another, together with a dodge and a counter that can be utilized to get you out of hassle.
Fight is pleasurable, although it may be slightly inconsistent. If you’re combating with a small group of enemies, it largely feels nice to be deftly dodging assaults, managing ranged cooldowns, and juggling launch gauges. But if you’re combating boss enemies, it turns into a tiresome train of slowly whittling down an enormous HP bar by simply wailing away at them whereas button-mashing. The issue right here is that characters lack combos—this isn’t like Bayonetta the place creatively mixing up gentle and heavy assaults can create all kinds of cool combo strings—and the dearth of them implies that fight ultimately begins to get very repetitive.
One other vital concern is the overall lack of significant hitstun animations for assaults. It will possibly usually really feel like your slashes are going via your enemies quite than connecting with them, and we encountered a number of cases the place bosses dealt us 1000’s of HP injury as a result of it took a number of seconds to acknowledge that an assault was even going down on account of our character not visibly reacting. This will likely sound like a minor concern, but it surely has the impact of constructing fight really feel very weightless, such as you and your foes are battling one another with pool noodles and squirt weapons.
Even given these drawbacks, it may be good to simply mindlessly grind in a comparatively shallow fight system like this. And character development and tools high quality enhance at an exhilarating fee that basically feeds into the facility fantasy. Plus, sources for upgrades are simply scarce sufficient that you simply at all times really feel like it’s important to make some powerful selections between what you wish to shore up subsequent, encouraging you to plan out your builds slightly extra than simply snapping up no matter’s obtainable subsequent.
By way of presentation, Crymachina sticks with a darkish, sci-fi aesthetic that feels well-realized, although slightly fundamental in some facets. Character and enemy designs are fairly memorable and all the ladies fall neatly into an eerie, uncanny valley territory that feels becoming for the usually creepy tone. Environments additionally do a fantastic job of giving off oppressive and hostile vibes as you rush throughout dimly lit metallic surfaces beneath the chilly gaze of big purple robotic eyes. The one concern right here is that stage selection ranges from ‘generic darkish blue cyberland’ to ‘generic darkish inexperienced cyberland’. We’d have favored to have seen extra cautious surroundings design right here, because it doesn’t take lengthy earlier than the novelty wears off and all of the high-tech set dressing blends collectively in an enormous super-advanced blob of edgy unhappiness.
In case you haven’t picked up on it but, Crymachina struggles an terrible lot with repetition. It’s acquired a fantastic fight system, till you notice it depends an terrible lot on button mashing. The visuals are hanging and unsettling, till you run via one more darkish dungeon that appears precisely just like the final six you completed. That is the type of recreation that tries its hardest to get extra from much less, and whereas it nonetheless seems like an total worthwhile expertise, it doesn’t execute on its ‘moody futuristic motion RPG’ aspirations in addition to one thing like Astral Chain.
Conclusion
Crymachina is just like the RC Cola of motion RPGs; it’ll do in case you’re determined for one thing to fulfill your craving, but it surely’d be powerful to argue that it is anybody’s best choice. The so-bad-it’s-good story and fast-paced fight in the end make this one well worth the punt, however the recreation’s overreliance on repetition wears off its sheen earlier than too lengthy. We’d give Crymachina a light-weight advice to any followers of FuRyu’s earlier work or anybody in search of a low-investment motion RPG that’s all type and little substance. Crymachina is an honest outing, however it’s possible you’ll wish to look ahead to a fairly deep sale on this one.