****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
The package came about a month ago and everything is in good shape when I received it.If you remember Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, Crystal Crisis is an updated version of that game. In the game, you are given pairs of blocks at a time, and sometimes a "spark crystal" to land on the same color to destroy it and send garbage to the opponent. The bigger the color grouping, the more damage given. In the game, there are 20 characters, about half of which are unlockable through playing the game, story mode, and so on. (Quick tip: I think Isaac is unlocked by losing 10 times. I did this through versus mode with 1 cpu bot and just hard dropped quickly). All the characters have their own unique garbage counters, which is how the garbage sent to the opponent will look. Most of the characters have decent garbage drop patterns, but if you can get clever you can use these drop patterns and where the colors land to your advantage. One of the most obvious examples is Zombie, whose garbage drop pattern looks like a green skull. Pretty much dropping a green spark crystal on that will send back massive damage to Zombie. The characters also have their own offensive and defensive abilities, activated by pressing the zR or zL buttons 1, 2, or 3 times depending on what strength you want to use. I haven't played with all of the characters, but I like Astro Boy's abilites because you can use his "Reprogram!" offensive ability to shift your opponents block board 1, 2, or 3 columns to the right at a time. If you use this when one of their left-side columns are full, then it can KO them pretty easily by moving that column to where they spawn the pieces. Many of the characters have unique abilities like this and feels that the game was made around it, but you can turn this off in the options if you want. Be sure to play this game's tutorial for a better understanding of this game and unlock a character.I bought this for $40 and to me it was worth it. I've gotten a good amount of playtime with this game. Falling block puzzle game fans who like Dr. Mario, Columns, and the previously mentioned Super Puzzle Fighter, will very much enjoy this.This game also exists as a digital Nintendo eShop title for $30. However, I bought this physically because I wanted the physical game cartridge and also got a neat little cube desk toy with it. I'll admit I have been messing with it quite often and enjoy it whenever I have something load or when I am waiting for something. I wonder if this "Crystal Cluster" toy can be purchased elsewhere? I'd like to give some of these out as gifts.The only actual negative I have with the game is the loading time. It can take approximately 20 to 30 seconds to load a new match with the computer, depending on the mode. This doesn't bother me too much however, although it would be nice if there were some way to speed it up. When I have been playing, I tend to go to survival mode, where you keep your board, while you KO progressively harder enemies until you get KO'd yourself. The loading time in Survival is kinda there, but compared to loading a completely new match in 20 seconds, it takes maybe 5 or 6 seconds to load a new opponent in Survival. One other very minor gripe is the grid perspective option. When the game first boots and plays, you will see the grids at an 3d angle, which kinda throws me off a bit. You can turn this off in the options thankfully.As a side note, the inline game mode is pretty neat. Inline plays a lot like Columns, but lacks any character abilities that I am aware of. You could honestly make Inline mode its own game maybe.
