Let's Play Crystal Project Wrong!

[Mani Kanina]

What's Crystal Project?
Crystal Project is an open world JRPG with a heavy focus on exploration. It came out in March 2022, so it's quite new at the time of writing. The focus of the game is to guide your party of four heroes on a journey through the land to find Adventure Crystals. The game is incredibly open ended in how you can beat it, and likewise is very free-form when it comes to party composition. The game takes quite readily from the Final Fantasy series, and in particular FF5; adopting it's job system. The game world is rendered from a slanted overhead view and is constructed entirely out of voxels (if you have played Minecraft or any other voxel game then the aesthetic is going to be immediately familiar). The game itself is, as far as I'm aware, a solo passion project by one Andrew Willman. With the exception of the music, which they licensed, the entirety of the game was made by them (unless I got my note wrongs somewhere).

If you at any point during this let's play find a craving for the game yourself, it's avalible on steam. There is even a quite meaty Demo for those who want to give it a try first.

How do you play a game "wrong"?
It's quite simple, most games are constructed in an intended way for players to experience them. Some developers take the time to make sure that the game has built in sequence breaks or other shenanigans to ensure players can get through it their way. Then there are those games which are so open ended that the path through it might seem more like a mere suggestion, Crystal Project fits that bill. But no matter how a game is constructed, there is always this notion of how it's "supposed" to be played. In this playthrough? I'm throwing that out of the window, we'll be going through the game in whatever way is possible, no matter how unintended or stupid it is; and trust me, things will be getting very dumb at times.

Who are you?
I'm Mani, amateur game designer and JRPG nut (frankly, that bit is probably more important here). I love JRPGs with options for building your party, Final Fantasy 5 is still up there as one of the peak examples in mind. I have played through all Etrian Odyssey titles, which is a series some of you here might be familiar with, gone through all three Bravely Default games, and more. Basically I have a soft spot for the genre, so when I was told of this game, it was not a very hard sell. I'll do my best to show the entirety of the game, even if it might be done in a silly order.


Updates:
Part 1: Welcome to Sequoia
Part 2: The First Campaign
Part 3: Oops, all plot!

Addenda:
The Warrior

[Mani Kanina]

Part 1: Welcome to Sequoia




Where else could the journey begin but the title screen?
We'll be starting this run on 1.2.1, which was the most contemporary version of the game when this run was started. The game is still getting balance updates and such, so it's worth noting that this is unlikely to be the version of the game the run ends on. On a tangent, if you played the game at launch, some pretty big balance changes have already happened.




First thing that happens when you start a new game is that you get taken to the party creation screen. This is very similar to Final Fantasy 1, we got four unnamed heroes and we get to decide both their name, and class... oh and sex to.




Our starting selection of jobs are: Warrior, Monk, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, and Red Mage Warlock. I will be going through them all in more details at a later time, but here is a quick rundown:
Warrior: Physical damage with a few utility abilities, including being able to draw agro.
Monk: Physical damage that goes unarmed, has a fair few utility abilities.
Rogue: Dagger stabbing and can steal items from enemies, and bosses.
Cleric: Pretty basic healing job, gets one or two damage and utility spells.
Wizard: Damage spells all the way.
Warlock: Has both healing spells, damage spells, utility spells, and can do decently well with rapiers.

Now, naturally as with any JRPG we want to make a balanced party that can do a little bit of everything, covering all our bases and being ready for anything the game could throw at us-




Perfect!

Anyway, meet our four protagonist that will enlighten us about this world, our warriors of light if you will:
Mani: Rogue
Sol: Rogue
Selene: Rogue
Helios: Warlock.
There is no cookie for guessing what the themed naming is. It's worth noting that not a single choice you make at character creation screen is permanent, yes, even that one.

Now, this might not be a great looking party in regards to balance, but given what I know I'll need to do later in the run, it makes the most sense to start the party like this.




The game has three difficulty options, for the average player of this game I'd probably recommend normal, and those less JRPG savvy, easy. Some people enjoy this game at hard, and perhaps that's for you. But I'm saying this as someone who play Etrian Odyssey titles on the highest difficulty: I really don't think it's worth it.

We'll be getting into the whys and hows of the different difficulties as the run goes on, but for now the important thing to note is this: We'll be starting the game on hard, and we'll most likely end the run on easy. The game lets you turn down the difficulty at any point, but it does not let you turn it up.




It's time for our opening text scroll that sets the scene for the adventure. Don't worry if it sounds vague; it will all tie into the grand narrative by the end.




Welcome to Spawning Meadows; the game's opening zone and designated tutorial area.

We appear here descending from the sky, probably all the way from the moon or something, the game doesn't really clarify this at all. As soon as we land we are immediately approached by Nan. Now, you might be thinking Nan is a name, but it's more of a title.

"Hello there, lass!"
"It fills me with joy to see that you've joined us in the land of Sequoia! I assume that you have come seeking adventure?"
"Well naturally, you've come to the right place! But you look positively famished. As if you're about to dry up and blow away!"
"I invite you to come pay a visit to our lodge for a big helping of stew. There's nothing like a hearty bowl of stew for an empty stomach!"
She proceeds to take a few steps away before turning back to face the party: "Oh right, the lodge! Just follow this path until you're there. You can't miss it."

With that, Nan walks away and we are in full control. Out party rolled a nat 20 on the silent protagonist stat: not a single one will speak for the duration of the game. There are a few dialogue choices here and there (mostly a yes or no), but for the most part we'll spend the entirety of the game being talked to, rather than talking with anyone.

So Spawning Meadows! It's the first area of the game, how it's handled will vary greatly depending on if this is your first run of the game or not. Seeing as this is my second playthrough, things will get a bit crazy. First things first, see that squirrel on top of the tree in the lower left?




We can stuff that into our inventory. There's also two chests to the left of here, we can't actually reach the upper one from here, but I already raided the lower one. A big aspect of this game is 3D platforming, so it's all about figuring out how to get to places you can see, and sometimes not seen.

Spawning Meadows has a large amount of chests to collect, many things being items that are really good for this point in the game, including a few unique accessories. The majority of the chest in the game though, like the opened one seen here, only contain consumable items. I'll not list any chest loot unless it's significant, it would increase the number of screenshots in this let's play by an absurd amount for little to no gain.




Just north of where we floated down into this world there is another tree with a Squirrel. Our character can jump two blocks high, and clear gaps that are ~2.5 blocks wide at the same elevation. Once you get familiar with playing the game this all becomes second nature. What might take a little longer is getting used to the feel of the physics and collision, it can be a bit awkward.




We can pick a knife that is better than what we are starting with over here. I really do recommend anyone who picks up this game to fully explore Spawning Meadows: If you see it, you can get to it. There is not a single chest here that you have to come back for. The game can be super deceptive about that, in my first playthrough I didn't come back to clean this place up until much later, simply because I was convinced I couldn't.




Squirrel number three is over there on a tree. You might be wonder why we are collecting these buggers, but don't worry, I'm sure it will be worth it.




If we actually follow the main path we can chat some more with Nan. This is some good advice, the game really is all about exploration, there's even plenty of rewards for doing so.




You can chat to Nan every time she stops and she will give you some other bit or piece of advice. When she's done she will keep walking to her next designated spot. If you're feeling lazy or experimental you can jump up and stand on her head as she walks.

We now meet our second NPC of the game: Nan! She stands on the side of the road and will offer some tips and advice if you talk to her.




Admittedly, the entire area is Nans all the way down. All of them have some unique piece of hint to speak. But seeing as I'll be explaining the game anyway I don't think I'll capture most of their dialogue, it's simply not worth it.

Over here we have a flame, the game's version of enemies on the field. They'll move about and have different AI, though the most common will just charge towards you, if you make contact then a battle will start.




Our first enemy is a JRPG staple: Slime. I'll be covering the battle system in bits and pieces, but here's the gist:
The game uses linear time, when no one has an action it will keep subtracting everyone's time by one. When someone hits zero, then it's their turn to act. What time value they get after taking their action depends on a few factors, but the biggest being the speed stat. For most of the game this will mean each character in the battle will take one turn before it rolls back over to the first actor again, but there will be exceptions.

The slime is a very basic enemy, as such this encounter is really easy. The icon over the enemy's head indicates what action it will do when its turn comes around. The sword with the shiny sparkle is the basic attack icon.




Here's a fourth squirrel, in case you didn't find one of the first three. We only need three of them. You might be wondering how I got all the way up here if I can only jump two blocks high, but it's not that big of a deal. Most of the trees in the meadow are climbable in some capacity, it might just be really tricky to see how from the camera angle.




Down and to the right of the squirrel tree we have this. Shiny spots on the ground are free standing items, you just walk into them. In this case it's some "Secret Herbs".




Further to the right... We meet this strapping person. We'll need to come back here once we have the summoner job, it seems. A thing the game does is that if an NPC corresponds to a job that exists in the game, it will list their job and their level. I'm not entirely sure why this is a feature, but here we are. The tree that the summon spirit rests in is also excellent climbing material.




It let's us jump up on this wall which will allow us to walk back around most of the area, but at a higher elevation. If you're starting to get confused about where exactly we are, don't worry about it for now. I'd post a map, but we don't have one.




Looping back around, we can reach that other chest near the start that I noted earlier. This shield isn't extremely remarkable, I don't think. But free gear is really important in this game.




Here's our tutorial for being able to jump two tiles high. Nan is a bit behind on the agenda, but what can you do?




But then, why should I jump when Nan can do the jumping for me?




Spawning Meadows only have five or so encounters, this is the second one. After you have killed an enemy once it's health bar will display for all future encounters.

Our rogues can't do that much yet, but we do start with the ability to steal. A nice thing this game does is list the percentage chance of success for things that aren't guaranteed.




As far as I can tell from my playing: There's two types of steals in the game. Common steals: in which case every single member of the party can steal it once. Rare steals: Once stolen the enemy has nothing, these also have a fixed percentage chance to be stolen, and the only things that can change that is items that explicitly boosts steal rate.

Tonic is just our basic HP restoring item.




Speaking of which, here's a Tonic Pouch. Some people describe Crystal Project as having "Metroidvania elements". I don't think that description is incorrect, but it can be misleading, which is why I didn't describe it as such at the top. This item here is what could be considered your missile expansion equivalent.

Healing items in the game has a max limit on how many you can carry around with you, any excess you get will just be trashed. Pouches increase your carrying capacity for that specific consumable item.




This chest right here has one of the most important items in the entire area.




This increase steal rate by 15%. It's not flat though. Given that you have next to no accessories early game, there is no reason to not use this to help with boss steals, if nothing else.




Our next encounter features a new enemy: Wisp. I will not go into detail of every single enemy in the game, there are several hundreds of them. But for now, it's interesting to note that it's casting some flavour of white magic.




When we're in control of the menus in battle we can press left to inspect. This let's us see all enemy stats and if they have any special abilities or weaknesses. The game is very upfront about giving you practically all information about your foes.




If you press left again you can see a list of the given enemy's moves. Wisp can do a basic attack or heal an ally. Cure is, I believe, cleric's basic healing spell, it's not shocking to see moves that both the player and enemies can have.




The steal from them is ye basic mana potion. These are vastly more useful than the HP potion, and pricier to buy. So stealing a few is not an awful idea, but also not required in the slightest.




Near the enemy we can jump up at this waterfall. It's a pretty good place to get elevation in this area.




This is a pretty good staff to pick up, but we can also loop back to the left of here to cross the waterfall at a higher elevation than we did the first time.




That let's us access this and get an axe, which we'll never use. I should probably have sold it, selling axes is a good notion.




If we keep hugging the wall going to the left we'll eventually run into this guy. Because I already knew of it, I had already collected the squirrels. In my first playthrough I didn't at all understand this guys deal. It might not have been noticeable, but there are plenty of gray squirrels running around all over the place in this meadow, so even noticing that the black ones exist can be a bit iffy. His line is something along the lines of "Black Squirrels aren't real!" if you don't have three in your inventory.




We give him his three squirrels and don't question what he plans on doing with them.




Eww?




This is a unique accessory, only one of them in the entire game. It's also one of the very few accessories that can boost the luck stat. Luck... does stuff, what kind of stuff? I'm not entirely sure. I have a vague idea of some of things that it can affect, like for example making it less likely that you'll miss several times in a row, but I don't know anything about the internal workings of the game. Probably boosts crit rate and such though, as in other rpgs.




Speaking of which, just like with stealing, your hit chance and crit chance are both listed when you select a target to attack. It also lists the damage outcome of a regular attack and a crit. This is a predetermined number, most things don't have damage variance in this game: The main exception being axes.




The victory screen lists how much level experience we get and how much LXP we get. This sounds really confusing now when I type it out, come to think of it, but that was never anything I struggled with as I played the game. Probably because I just kept mentally thinking of it as "job experience".

Anyway, requirements for levels keeps going up, the requirements for job levels is always 100. This means you can grind job levels anywhere in the game should you feel like it. In fact, one of the best places to do so is rather early on.




Eventually, following Nan all the way we reach their tavern. If you talked to the Nan that walks at every opportunity she will give you a consumable.

More importantly, that blue floaty square over there...




This is a home stone. You can set a single on of these as your home point. If you die, you will respawn at that home stone, likewise, if you load your save you will load in at your home point. You don't need to be at a home stone to save, you can do that whenever from your pause menu; but it will not save your location in the world.

Home stones have a more important feature though: You can change your job and sub job here.




As such, we might as well assign sub jobs to the entire party. Since all classes start with at least one ability they can do, there is no reason not to do this. Unless you're doing some weird challenge run where you're not using sub classes, but who'd do something like that?




If we talk to this Nan in here we'll get the map for Spawning Meadows. If you have the map for an area then the minimap will also display.




This shows the entirety of Spawning Meadows... or at least how we have explored it; it's basically all of it though.

So, in this game you have to walk somewhere in order to fill in that on the map... BUT you also need to have the map for that respective area or you can't view your progress. This means you'll go into most areas blind and then eventually get your hands on a map to help with further exploration and to piece it in with the rest of the greater world. Map progressed is tracked even before you get the map, so at least there is no worries there.




If we head right of the tavern there is a bunch of signs written by Nan with various motivational statements.




If we keep going right and up we reach this cliff we can scale. Up this way is the intended second area of the game: Delende.

But there is something else...




If we go back a bit, there is this overhang. You can either get up on it from here, or from the tree just in frame to the south.




This can get us some more gear, it's the same stuff that is sold in Nan's tavern, but money is scarce at this point in the game, so.




Back at the overhang there is this spot. The cliff looks a bit steep, but we can make these jumps.




This one being especially tricky, trying to land on the ledge to the left; But it's very much possible! I ended up doing this sort of thing back when I first played the demo for this game.




The path goes left, and we can gain more elevation.

That being said, it's a bit excessive, for what we are doing we can just use the waterfall from earlier.




Either way, we want to be as high up as possible and head back west. It's a bit of a walk, and has a few tricky jumps on a few trees, but eventually you'll reach a ravine in the mountain going north...




Which leads to: Poko Poko Desert.

This is a much later area in the game, but it has the potential to be the second one you stumble into. I don't think casual players will get confused, the enemies ganking you with one shots should be enough dissuasion.


And that, my friends is as far as we'll go in update one. In the next update we'll finally escape the tutorial zone and step into what will be our second area in the game (feel free to guess which one)! This update ended up a bit intense, but there is a lot more to cover early on, so that's just how it goes.

This is also my first LP, so, I'm no expert on how these things go.

[Mani Kanina]

Addendum 1: The Warrior

I'll be doing a through look at every single class in the entire game, generally looking at the latest one that has been acquired. Since we just started the game, we have six of them, so there is somewhat of a backlog.

The plan is to look at them each individually, listing what they can do, how they work, and then my personal thoughts on the class. This first one will be a bit meatier than what most of these will be, since I'll be discussing some of the more general things related to classes. Regardless, let's get going with the first job in the game: Warrior.




Passive: +2 AP per turn.
Weapons: Swords, Axes, Daggers, and spears.
Armour: Shields, Heavy Helmets, Heavy Armour.

So, there is a lot to break down here. The growth chart on the right indicates two very different things on the same time.
The first of those things is this: When you set your character to this class, this is how your stats will be modified. Two and a half stars is the average and middle ground, if Crystal Project had a freelancer equivalent, their stat spread would likely be all 2.5 stars.
The second thing is this: Your stats will grow in these directions.

Your level in Crystal Project increases all stats in a manner, this is then modified by the job. However, you have a different separate stat growth which is dependant on what job you are when you level up. So if you level up as Warrior here a lot, you'll get a lot of extra HP, and next to no extra MP. This does mean that it actually matters a fair bit what job you use when you level up. Thankfully, the game does allow you to re-spec these class levels once you're further into the game, albeit at a price.

I have not delved very deep into the combat system yet, but in regards to the passive shown here we need to talk about AP. AP stands for Adrenalin Points, each class get 6 per turn, and can get more by basic attacking or getting hit. You can store up to 30 at a time, and each battle starts the party off with 0. This is essentially what a fair few non-magic classes uses as their special ability resource, Warrior's passive let them acquire more of these points passively.




Freebie: Taunt.

The meat of any job in Crystal Project is the skill tree. In a lot of other games that uses this type of class system, job progression is quite linear, with pre-set gains at milestones. Here you instead get one LP every 100 LXP, it's up to you how you want to spend these points. Some abilities only cost one, others cost several. In regards to the iconography: Icons with Crystals are passives, everything else is some flavour of combat ability.

I will be covering the skill tree's grid by going left to right, top to bottom. Arrows as seen in the image are pre-requisites. Don't be fooled by the funny shapes and such, the skill tree is a four by six grid, you can even move the cursor over to squares that are empty.

Skill Tree:





























My thoughts:
A Tier.
Warrior is really good early game, being able to equip the meatiest armour sets will generally have all the upsides and no downsides at this point in the game. Likewise, a lot of their toolkit, especially early on in the tree, is extremely useful. Taunt will eventually stop being useful, for a variety of reasons, but early on it's a very good tool to direct agro towards someone meatier. Their innate passive can also be decent to have early on, but basically stops being useful outside of very niche builds once you get into the game proper.

The class will generally feel less good in the mid game, mostly because you get more interesting options to play around with (and those are worth playing around with), but to be perfectly honest; warrior is a top tier job in this game. No matter where you are in the game, warrior is excellent, but they excel mainly as a sub-class to something else. This is the first class we are looking at, so it will not be obvious yet, but most attack skills in the game have weapon requirements. That means that you're locked into a certain type of weapon, and means cross-class play becomes harder. Warrior avoids this completely, all their abilities are usable with any weapon in the game. This means you can slot in their utility moves into any other attacking build or even a support class, since some of these moves are good even if they don't hit hard. The reverse is also true, warrior can be a great primary job to fuel the abilities of a different class, in those cases where you prefer the warrior's gear options or stat spread.

Armor break and power break are especially good moves, as being able to put debuffing capabilities on basically any other job is swell. This debuff infliction is guaranteed, it will proc on every hit (as long as the attack hits at all), and enemies in this game do not build up immunity towards debuffs (with one exception). Stances are also useful in a variety of ways, if an enemy attacks with magic attacks only, then there is no downside to just sit in berserker stance the entire fight. A stance lasts forever, and I believe they even persists through death (which otherwise clears all buffs and debuffs). I would not quote me on that note, but even if they don't survive a character dying, these ones are cheap and easy to put back up.

It could also be worth mentioning that how late one gets a job in this game is not an indictment of power. It's entirely feasible to use the starting classes in this game up to and including the final boss, though you'll want to diversify at least a little bit with a sub-class and passives. I had a primary class warrior in the team I used to defeat the game's final boss in my first playthrough.

[Count Revier]

I wish this game started off with a stronger hook, I genuinely like the idea of taking FF5's job system and expanding on it in a honest to god RPG, but so far the start has been extremely slow.

[Mani Kanina]

I wish this game started off with a stronger hook, I genuinely like the idea of taking FF5's job system and expanding on it in a honest to god RPG, but so far the start has been extremely slow.

Is unfortunately one of the sticking points of this game. If I am to speak bluntly: the story is not one of the game's strong suits. Most JRPGs, even lesser ones, usually at least have some level of plot, even if it's throw away. This game is kinda below that, and is really a gameplay only title.

Is worth mentioning that this LP is probably not a good indication of the plot though, we'll be doing some weird skips and such, this means some event flags will be set without scenes playing out; ergo, we'll be skipping some plot encounters. I will, eventually, cover the entirety of the plot of the game in this LP, but I think it's worth getting word out there that this game is no-no if one wants a plot rich RPG.

[Count Revier]

Indeed, I do think this game would have had way more interest if it didn't have such a generic opening. I'm also not particularly fond of the Minecraft esque look, though I'm not too picky about that considering it is an indie game made with a limited budget after all.

[Mani Kanina]

Part 2: The First Campaign



Now I'm sorry to say that, if you expected me to go to either of the two mentioned areas then you'd be wrong. This is Yamagawa M.A., the local mountains. How did we get here? It's quite simple, from the overhang next to Nan's place in update one, there were some tricky jumps we could make to get higher elevation. Doing those is not required to get over to the desert, but it is to get here. From that cliff, it's just a short few hops along the well to get to here.

This gap in the wall is perfect, as it lets us just barely get up into the new area proper. Yamagawa is an earlier area than the desert, but it's still fair bit later than where we are supposed to be going in the game.




Clearing this jump is no easy matter, most platforming games let's you get a jump off for a short while after you step off an edge, if Crystal Project has such mechanic implemented, then it's incredibly minimal. Turning around mid air back the way you came is also not the easiest task, we can only very barely make jumps like these.

Up here is another guy, if we head right then he'll ignore us completely and run away to the left. For now though, we'll head right, which is actually the way out of this area and towards Delende.




The reason why is that there is a save point here, setting this as our home point means we'll not have to do the annoying platforming again to get up here. There is also a shack here with a sign, we'll elect to leave that for later.




Heading back to the left, we are now entering what amounts to a platforming level. The rogue guy from earlier will keep being out of our reach, and when we eventually get to where they are standing, they'll have proceeded further up.

You might be asking, why are we heading into this area first instead of the other two options? And the reason for that is quite simple: we are attempting to proceed through this game in an unconventional manner. Delende is the obvious intentional path that guide us further into the game. But Poko Poko Desert is actually an built in sequence break; the game has built in dependencies should you go there way earlier than intended. We'll still be heading there shortly, but I figured this is a worthwhile side trek to do first.




To the right and up, we have a chest with some chum change. More importantly though: A red flame. Regular enemies on the field come in different flame colours, but most of that is just an indication of your own level:
Red: Enemy is higher level than you, avoid.
Orange: Enemy is slightly higher level than you.
Blue: Enemy is around your level.
Green: Enemy is lower level than you.
Gray: Enemy is far lower level than you.

As far as I'm aware, Gray is the only colour that changes their behaviour. Once you're extremely over leveled, flames stop chasing you. Enemies in gray flame encounters will also not give you any EXP, though they will still give you LXP.




Since we are sitting here at around level 5 with starting gear (essentially), we really don't want to fight these guys. As such, I attempt to bait them to jump down, allowing me to pass freely.




To the right is a sword that is useful for warriors, this is probably our strongest weapon at this point, but we aren't using any class that can wield it.




We are now back over here, but on this side of the waterfall. There's gonna be quite a bit of zigzagging back and forth here.

Something else about flames that are worth noting: They all have different AI. The most common kind chase you once you enter their proximity and they have line of sight to you. Interruption the line of sight will not stop them from chasing you once they have already spotted you, however. What the proximity is and their movement speed varies quite a bit, but is generally consistent within the same zone of the game.




Sadly I was not able to avoid that flame there on the first attempt, but that's just how it goes. If I were to guess then the enemies in this zone are inspired by Japanese folklore? I'm not that knowledgeable on the subject, but that's the impression I got.




If you press right in combat while you have control, you can open up the turn menu. Here you can see current time lapsing perspective. In this case the enemy is going to use Sun Bath on its turn. Some spells have cast time, or CT for short, this means it takes that much time before the spell actually goes off (other casting costs are only payed upon cast).




Now, the main issue with being under leveled isn't necessarily even our damage, it's that we have so low accuracy that we can barely hit. More levels is by far the best way to fix this issue, but seeing as we'll be diving into even higher level territory soon, I see no reason to start grinding.




Naturally, we die.




Further attempts to sneak past the enemies in this zone end up being a lot more successful.




As we continue up we loot what could be considered one of the best early game accessories.




+80 Attack is bonkers at this point in the game, but of course, there is the downside. With each level a character takes, that bonus is lowered by 3; not to mention that it can go into the negative. Even assuming one wants to do a traditional playthrough and head on into Delende, taking this short trek to get this is well worth it.




That flame there used to be up on the ledge by the waterfall before I baited it. This area plays weirdly like a 2D but not 2D platformer. I like it, it's somewhat unique, and not at all an indictment of the rest of the game. There are only two other areas that are sorta similar in style, yet they are quite different, and all three of them are short.




A bit more platforming and we reach the top. Excuse the dummied out minimap, I forgot to take a screenshot at this scene on my first trip through. The peak of this mountain, or as close to the peak as we'll get, is a round flat area with a water pond in the middle. There is also water endlessly flowing out a tree in the middle.




Walking past that we finally catch up to the rogue that has been speeding past us, his name is Talon.

Talon: "You made it up here, huh?"
he turns away before continuing: "...Not like anybody couldn't."

After we have talked to him he'll proceed to sod off if we go too far away from this place. This shouldn't have been our first encounter with this character, they show up elsewhere first. By going here first though, we likely made it so that we cannot ever enjoy those scenes in this save file. Talon is one of the few reoccurring characters in this game, he's another adventurer who is just out doing his own thing. If you were to ask me what his main character trait is, I couldn't tell you, he tries to be nice to his friends, that's about it. An issue here is probably just that he didn't leave much of any lasting impact on me during my first playthrough, so I'm just kinda struggling to recall anything about him.

More importantly...




Home stones work as platforms that you can stand on, and are one block tall, same as all other NPCs in the game. That might sound like an "no duh" moment, but there are so many of them that they kinda become inconspicuous. I didn't realise I could jump up here until quite a lot later during my first playthrough.

We'll leave the ominous looking portal for later.




Heading up and north east here, we reach this cliff. We can either start heading down, or hug the cliff to the right, we'll be doing both.




First things first, we'll start heading down. Now that we have set our home point at the top of Yamagawa, we're just one death (or save and quit) away from being back there. These cliffs we drop down are quite steep, we are unable to jump back up the way we came, though that will not be an issue.




Down at the bottom we reach Lake Delende. This is a separate area from Delende, having it's own title card and map.




At the middle of the dried out lake we find the deity of Earth. Just like the previous one we have found, there is nothing to it until we have summoner. Summoner is probably the class the game spoils the earliest for players, it's practically impossible to miss all the deity locations.




Over in the top left corner of the lake we find the Float Shoes.




Now this accessory sounds really good. Yet throughout my first playthrough I never found myself using them. There is another accessory, one that reduces damage from Earth Elemental attacks, that one is less powerful but equally baffling. There are simply very few enemies in this game that uses Earth based attacks or spells. Like, this is a very specialised tool, and I believe there are only two of them in the entire game, yet there is next to no situation where it can be used. I feel like this is the sort of thing that could be used to reward clever players much later in the game for thinking of them and putting them to use, not to mention also rewarding players who even found them in the first place. All that would be needed is a dungeon where most enemies have earth attacks in their movesets.

Maybe there is something I missed, but I never actually ended up using these to any effect, even though I did put them on due to a lack of other accessories.




The maps is also nearby, which is more immediately useful.




I took a lap around the entire area (as far as we can jump anyway), and this is the result. Lake Delende is a very tiny zone, really, there are only three things of note here:
1. It has a summon creature.
2. It has the Float Shoes
3. It has landrunners.

What are landrunners? I'm glad you asked!




It's the zone's only enemy, there are four or so encounters here. These things are way higher level than even things in Poko Poko Desert, really, there isn't much of note with them. Except...

They exist in the demo. Crystal Project has a demo, I don't know exactly how it works in regards to what content is physically there on disk, but the way the demo works is that if you step into a zone that isn't white listed, you get thrown back to your home point. Poko Poko Desert is not white listed in the demo, you can not go there. Lake Delende, however,is. This is one of the highest level enemies avalible in demo, so if you're one of those crazy people, like me, that wants to see just how far you can push a limited demo, this guy right here is the key to reaching higher levels. Because enemies eventually stop giving EXP if you're too overleveled, if you want to keep leveling you'll have to keep facing harder threats.

Naturally, it's gonna be hard to kill this guy with any of the gear avalible to you in the demo, but there is a trick strat, one that we'll be exploiting later in this run on other enemies.

(And if it wasn't clear, we get pasted by the landrunner).




So back up the mountain, it's time to head east.




Looping around we can see into Delende, though the fog gets a bit in the way. There's some stuff we could access that would be hard otherwise if we descend from here, but I decided to save Delende for later. There really isn't much else to the mountain here, if we keep following this elevation around we'll eventually reach the front of the mountain again and the water pond.

Instead, we'll simply head inside the ominous portal.




As soon as we head inside there is an immediate drop. The only way back up is to either die, or reach the end of whatever tunnel this is. Heading south into the shadows of this square room is a bad idea, however...




Introducing Sepulchra, the first boss we're encountering in this run. It'll not be the first boss we kill, however. We are playing on hard and are both under leveled and under geared for this oversized spider. While I wouldn't recommend being buried alive, that is currently our only option here.




This guy has a slow, two magic spells, a strong physical attack, and a utility spell. Spells in the "rainbow" category are a bit all over the place, the one we saw earlier was a heal, Reverse Polarity is a utility spell. What it does is that once cast, the next damaging or healing move that hits the target, will instead heal or deal damage respectively. Enemies just it defensively to soak up a hit as a heal instead, I have not encountered an enemy that uses it offensively.

Sticky Web is the big thing to watch out for in this fight, it costs 30 AP, so it's gonna be a while into the fight before it comes out, but when it does, your entire party will get less turns. AP has the same rules on enemies as for you, so if you hit it, it'll get AP.




It's steal is an axe, which isn't terribly useful to us. It's even less useful to us on account of not getting to keep it. If you die or run away from a fight (not applicable in boss fights), then any steal is considered null and void. You can still go back to the encounter and steal it again though.




Now, if you want to quickly get out of a fight by losing, the game has an option for that. Just open the main menu and hit Give Up, this will kill the entire party and take you back to your home point.




I attempted a few times to bait the boss flame around this pillar to try and get past it, but I had no success, sadly. It might be possible, but it wasn't anything I managed in this run.




Instead, we jump down the mountain and head west, in the next update we'll be venturing into Poko Poko Desert. The trip up Yamagawa might not seem like it amounted to much, but the accessories will come in handy. Most importantly though is just the notion of doing the area at a point in time where it was not intended. If you're wondering about the map for the mountain, we didn't miss it, we simply can not get it yet.

[Mani Kanina]

Part 3: Oops, all plot!




Well then, here we are. Poko Poko Desert, or just the Desert from now on, it's probably the game's second biggest area in regards to breadth (and discounting the ocean). As such, it's going to be kinda hard to follow where I go from here while I'm in the area, we won't have a map for this place for a good while, and it's huge.

Everything here will one-shot us though, so this trip will be as expedient as possible.




Walking a bit north through the ravine, if it can be called that, and we reach the main area. Currently we are located on the east most edge of the area at a fairly high cliff elevation. We needed to drop down a three block tall cliff to properly enter, however, meaning that we are now without a way out; sans dying, of course.

As you can see from the picture though, this half of the area has a constant sand storm. This makes it hard to see, but can also cause slowdown on lower end PCs, I'd know.




Our first goal in the desert is to complete a side quest which we have not actually seen the start of yet in this playthrough: A child has gone missing in the desert, we need to find em. Thankfully, from the Spawning Meadows entrance, our objective is fairly close by. We need to head north while hugging the east wall and clearing a few jumps.




Eventually we reach a point where there is a side path to the east between two mountains. The sandstorm lets up here, mostly because we are getting some distance between us and the desert proper, which has been on a lower elevation than ours.




It's a dead-end before short, but the kid is here. While it's a higher elevation up, so we can't reach it, the path continues east and eventually connects to Lake Delende.




"Hmm. If only I had some blue overalls. I hear they're pretty lit."
"Oh, hi! You don't have cooties, do you?"
"Wait... Ugh, oh shoot! How long have I been out here?!"
"My mom's gonna kill me!!!"
"Sorry, gotta run!"

And then they run away to the west, so much for kid in distress; nonetheless, we got our quest.

The kid honestly comes across as a bit of an air head, but sometimes it's hard to tell what characteristics the game intends to impart. We are never really given much of a reason why this random kid wandered out into the desert like this. Gameplay really comes before story in this game.




Anyway, getting back on track and heading west. On the opposite side of the path towards Lake Delende, we have this rock outcrop that you can jump across.




It's not very hard to do this platforming, you just got to be careful as to not agro any of the enemies; they can see down elevation.

Our reward here is some Gold Ore, it's a crafting ingredients, of sorts. It'll come up later, currently we can't really use it for anything but it's good to grab while we're here.




Not shortly after grabbing the ore, we ended up in an encounter. These things will totally kill us, so, not much to it. I end up just taking the death and then trekking back from our current home point.




On trip two, shortly after entering the Desert we can head west and jump down onto this ruined building. Here we find the Scope Specs, a unique accessory that will be very useful for this playthrough.

The stats it gives are: +30 Accuracy, +5 Dexterity.
As far as I can tell, accuracy VS evasion is close to flat in this game, at least at lower levels. Plus 30 accuracy is pretty close to plus 30% accuracy against targets you don't already have 100% accuracy towards. I should probably test this at some point though... Either way, because we are currently under leveled, this will make it slightly easier to hit things, unless we are extremely far below their level.




If we continue on the path west of the Spawning Meadows entrance to the desert and hug that wall, it will eventually turn south. If we keep following it we'll reach Sara Sara Bazaar, one of the game's towns.




The missing kid's mother is here, so naturally we'll talk to her and finish this side quest. She has something different to say if you haven't found the kid yet, but it's quite generic if I recall my first playthrough right.

"Thank you so much for sending my idiot son back home!"
"I don't have much money, but I do have something of value which I can give you as a show of appreciation."



"I would never take my idiot son across the ocean anyway, so I'll never use it."

Not gonna lie, she comes across as kind of an ass. This side quest can end up being mandatory, however, so you just have to deal with it. See that save point just to the north by the gate? If you set that as your home point then you're completely locked out of going back to Spawning Meadows and that section of the game. We had to jump down one elevation too big on our way into the desert, so we can't climb back up there. I don't end up actually setting that as my home point though, as practical as it might have been had I known in advance some of the lengthy treks back I'd have to take.




Oh and just some casual child abuse, I guess? We don't see this, it's just implied in text, but, uh, welp.

The guard up by the gate has something to say though: "If you're heading out, be sure to ride a Quintar."
What's a quintar you might ask?




This friendly fellow can tell us more.

"Hello friend! Welcome to Rent-A-Quintar Quintar Stable!"
"..."
"You do not have a Quintar Pass. That is unfortunate because you require one to rent a Quintar."
"However, I will provide you with a Quintar Pass once you have discovered at least 7 crystals."

So, this is something to spur us on in the game's main goal: Locating Crystals. I know there was some hot debate in the steam forums for a while if you could actually get a Quintar Pass for locating seven crystals, the answer is yes, I'll display as such later in the run. The main intended path through the game will have the player seize a Quintar pass by other means, but this option is very much a valid alternative... if you like playing the game in a really dumb manner.




This is a quintar, they go Qwei, and they also go really fast if you ride on one. Most of the enemies in the desert have really fast movement speed, so they are particularly hard to dodge if you're not riding on one. By that I mean you need to dodge jump in circles because they run faster than you, eventually the enemies do unagro, but, you know, not having to deal with that is swell. There are two kinds here: blue and desert. Desert Quintars are faster than blue ones, but if we had access to the rental we'd find that renting one is vastly more costly; and by that I mean it costs one silver as opposed to being free.

But I have to ask though, don't you think they're a bit weird? Giant cyclops lizards that people ride like oversized chickens?




This lady is just down the stairs from the gates.

"I've been told there's some interesting stuff to find out in the desert."
"I wonder what it could be? Treasures, maybe a Crystal, or perhaps something more?"
"I'm almost certain it would be worth your time to explore."

This is some vague hinting towards the main quest, we are here early, but the desert is practically mandatory to beating the game. She'll update her dialogue after we have achieved a certain thing here, something we'll probably come back to much, much, later. The guy north of the lady sells items, most which are not worth buying, and the ones that are we can't afford.




Down to the right is this mysterious door, we'll be coming back to this one later. The tram key is essentially exactly where you'd expect it to be, either way, it's a future question to ponder; but feel free to guess what's down in the subway.

If we continue the stairs down to the right we'll reach one half of Sara Sara Beach, we'll be heading over there briefly once we are done checking out the town.




No matter where you go, Nan is gonna be in every town, selling her stew.




Next to her is an accessory shop, it's important that we talk to most shops in the game as it will save us time later. As for the items? They are all outside of our budget. As is tradition in settings like these when it comes to video games: 100 copper coins is one silver, 100 silver is one gold, etc. As you can tell, everything here is vastly outside of our price range. A few accessories here are really good though, the Crit Fang especially, but mostly for the accuracy more so than the crit chance.




If we continue to the left, we find a store that is lacking in confidence. Up the stairs here would lead to the city's west gate, which would head back out into the desert.

Next we'll be jumping over the fence down one level and enter a building through the window...




This is the potion mixer, and we need his strongest potions. For a fee this person can take several of a weaker potion type and upgrade it to one of a higher tier. This saves money over just buying higher tier potions, but obviously has the secondary cost of using up lower tier items. Because we have limited inventory space for recovery items though, this can end up being useful; but most of the time isn't.

Though the real treasure in this room is in the chest in the top right.




This is the map for an area we have neither been to, nor even seen. It's quite easy to miss it though, and if you end up going to that area and expect to find the map in it? Well, you'd be out of luck. Beaurior Volcano is due east of Sara Sara Beach, and it's an area we'll be intimately familiar with later in this run.




If we head down to the ground level, we have a few stores. This one sells weapons, all of them really good compare to what we currently have. They are also way to expensive for us to buy.




Banished? What's this guy talking about? Probably something related to the main story, maybe.




You can tell this is a warcraft orc because of the oversized shoulder pad. There's chest and ore down in the water, would be great if we could nab that now, but alas, we drown in water deeper than a single block.




If we walk west along the stores we'll eventually get forced into a cutscene with this guy. I believe that only happens if we have a ferry pass, but I can't be certain. Essentially, he's got a side quest for us: Retrieve some fancy food from across the ocean. It's easy enough to do, but it will cost us some money (which we don't have).




Inside this building we have a blacksmith. They can upgrade silver gear into gold gear for a small fee... if you bring the gold material.

Raw material comes in three flavours: Dust, Ore, and Bars.
It does not make much logical sense, you'd expect ore and dust in the wild, sure, but not bars. No matter, they each go towards different types of items.




If we head south, we'll end up in a cutscene with Talon. It's like the one guy in the world we actually know!
(he's not actually addressing the player here)




This pair move around a fair bit in this cutscene, it makes it a bit more dynamic than just two people standing still talking. It'd eat up a lot of images to get it all though, so, just imagine it.
(or if you don't mind spoilers you can view all dialogue as screenshots within the update folder...)

Talon: "You gotta hop on the ferry! Trust me! There's something awesome I gotta show you."
Chloe: "I dunno about this..."
Talon: "What do you mean?"
Talon: "Astley said we have plenty of time to check things out."
Chloe: "Yeah, that's not what I'm worried about."
Chloe: "Have you seen that tiny ass raft thing? They call that a ferry??"
Chloe: "We are SO gonna fall off of that thing and DIE!"
Talon: "So you're worried about THAT? Haha! You crack me up."
Chloe: "Yeah ok well if we die then it's your fault."

It's nice to see some other adventurers up and about, just doing their own thing. I'd like to point out that the dying comment makes no sense in-universe. It's explicitly said that dying within this world is not a thing that happens, you just go back to your last home point. That isn't just some protagonist super power you have, everyone has that. Then again, I suppose I can relate to Chloe what with having mine set pretty far away with obnoxious backtracking, but that's not really the vibe the conversation gives off.

We can talk to them some more individually after the scene:

Talon: "I can't believe Chloe is afraid of falling off the ferry."
"Or, err, I guess raft. Or whatever you wanna call it.

Chloe: "I'm gonna die..."

Just a tad melodramatic that one. Anyway, time to check out Sara Sara Beach.




Reid is camping out in the center of town, so we might as well talk to him too and get it out of the way. All of these adventurers we can run into here at the bazaar expect you to have meet and talked with them prior in the game, it's why they aren't introducing themselves.

"Every now and then, we have to take a step back and think about what we're doing with the time we have here."
"Especially with all these Banishes we've been hearing about lately. You never know, your time here could come to an end at a moment's notice..."
"So you really have to make what you do now, in this moment, matter. You have to make it matter to you, you know?"
"Have you ever thought about it?"
"What do you find most important?"

(On account of having not seen a single bloody crystal, we select adventure here)
"Adventure, huh... Believe it or not, I think I'm inclined to agree."
"But you know, so many people make it seem like there's some kind of choice you have to make there. Adventure or Crystals?"
"The interesting thing is, you never know what kind of adventure you'll run into while hunting for Crystals."
"And likewise, you never know where you'll find a Crystal while you're out looking for adventure."
"Listen carefully..."
"Three lookouts can be found throughout the Poko Poko Desert: the north, central, and west lookouts."
"If you can prove that you've visited all three, I'll give you something really important that I found."

This is, for all intense and purposes, the main quest objective in this area. We'll be looking into tackling it in the near future, however, a crossroad of choices will lead us to not actually finishing it until much later.

As for Reid himself (at least I think he's meant to be a guy, but these adventurers have unique sprites), he's quite chatty here, but generally don't say much we couldn't infer ourselves. The topic of banishings is coming up again, however. I feel like I should address that since it's a core part of the plot, and we kinda missed it being introduced. You can't die in the world of Sequoia, but you can be banished from it. No one in-universe knows what happens to people who are banished, and it's a fate many seem desperate to escape. What causes one to be banished is never explicitly said, however.




As a quick aside, to the west of the fish shop there is a path along the cliffs, this goes to the western half of Sara Sara beach, but we can't clear this jump right now... sort of.




Onwards to the beach!




Here we have some silver ore, same deal as the gold ore but lower tier. Peaking out over the item box you can see another NPC, we'll be talking to them shortly. You can barely make out another silver crafting material around an upper cliff wall, though we can't reach that right now.




If we jump down, we're in cutscene land again. Introducing Astley, I believe they are the first adventurer you meet in a traditional playthrough.

"Hey!"
"Hows it going?"
"I'm glad I ran into you. I've been wanting to say, just based on all the stuff going on lately with the Banishes."
"Just... try not to get too wrapped up in it. Keep your sights set on the important things."
"You'll hear people argue about whether you should be a crystal collector or a non-crystal adventurer or whatever."

I suppose we are the latter, currently.

"But none of that matters."
"What matters is that these rules are bullshit. And we have to do something about it."
"They say you can't kill a Grand Master..."
"Well, we're going to find out if that's true."

That's some fighting words from Astley there. The Grand Master is only vaguely talked about earlier in the game, but it's implied that they can dictate the very rules of the world, and that they are responsible for banishing people. Astley's main character trait and goal in the game from here onwards seem to be to make sure the Grand Master dies. It's some neat motivation for the NPC adventurer I suppose, but a lot of the edge is sanded off from these things.

You can see NPCs and adventurers go away the further you progress the plot in the game, the implication being that they are banished. But you never see this happen on screen, as far as I'm aware. And it's not a threat to the player, it's essentially a non-factor. So the one thing in the plot that exists that could raise some stakes, just kinda don't. It would have been neat if there was maybe some optional side quests you could do in the game before progressing the main plot, and doing so saved some NPCs from being banished. Maybe some of them then opens shops selling things cheaper, idk, just anything to add some stakes here.

It's subtly implied that we too should take on Astley's drive here and try and figure out a way to kill the Grand Master, but we have no clue who that is, and the lack of stakes makes it hard to care. It also does not help that the entire thing where everyone is talking about adventure/crystals just makes everything seem a bit silly. Most NPCs in the game seem to think that finding more crystals will please the Grand Master and thus protect them from being banished. I guess it would be funny if there was an alternative ending to the game if you rejected interacting with every single crystal in the game, I'm sure that's possible, thought vastly harder. But as it stands, I don't think there is any value in rejecting the Grand Master's desire for us to collect crystals.




There is also a chest up here, also out of our reach. This is gonna be the start of a trend: three block tall obstacles. We need an upgrade to our moveset in order to scale these, so for now they'll just sit out of reach taunting us.




There's some more silver we can collect on the beach that isn't out of reach.




If we keep going east we'll get reach some tricky to make jumps far over water. If we fall into water and void out, we'll respawn in the center of the last solid block we stood on. This is true for all damage terrain as well, such as lava.




Some of the jumps here can be a bit tricky, but doable.






And here we are, we reach the volcano. We have the map for this area since we found it in town, convenient!




Sadly, we can't actually go into the area. We are blocked off by ledges too tall to jump, and a treasure chest just out of reach! Red chests generally contains equipment items, so, this kinda sucks. Nothing else to do but head back though.




With our ticket for free ferry rides, we can take the ferry to the Shoudu Province.




I should mention, this game is completely seamless, there are no loading zones, and you can go from one end to the other freely, as long as you can scale the terrain. As such, this raft ride literally has us sit and wait as we dash across the ocean. It goes pretty quickly, all things considered, but it's maybe not what one would expect.




Welcome to Shoudu Province, another town. These two towns are relatively far apart in this world, but the raft ride makes it easy to go between the two.




Oh boy, are we ready for more cutscenes? Cause that's Talon and Chloe right there. It makes sense, they were talking about taking the raft.




Talon: "Ok, so I found a great fishing spot. Hear me out."
Chloe: "Hmph, nah."
Chloe: "Last time you showed me a fishing spot, it was a total failure. It was a spot for FISH, not birds."
Talon: "No no, I get it! I totally get it, and I found this AMAZING spot!"
Talon: "You'll see! You'll totally agree."
Chloe: "...OK, fine."
Chloe: "But it BETTER be good! This is your second and last chance!"
Chloe: "If this spot sucks too, then I'll consider you a hopeless idiot forever."
Talon: "Ha! Well you won't be disappointed!"
Talon: "Right this way! Follow me!"

Okay so, if we had seen earlier scenes this would have made a bit more sense. Chloe is into "bird fishing", which I think just means bird watching if I'm being honest. She tells you this several times prior to this point, but Talon got confused by it when she only called it "fishing spots", which lead to an earlier disagreement between the two. Anyway, let's see who else we can chat up.




"I came to Shoudu Province so that I wouldn't get Banished."
"Is it true that we won't be Banished if we stay here? Does anyone even know for sure?"

A fair few adventurers have dialogue to this effect, there was a rumour going on that if you went to Shoudu Province one could avoid getting banished.




So, Shoudu, it seems like an area inspired by Asian architecture, this town is somewhat of a melting pot of steel beam towers and wooden houses and sheds; all of which have seen better days.




Here we have the blacksmith that upgrades silver weapons to golden weapons, not much to it for now though.




Hidden out of view in the shop though, but requires you do some jumping, you can get the Plague Mask. It's some very useful Light Helmet, not only does it make the wearer immune to poison, it makes their physical attacks inflict the poison debuff for three turns. It's exceedingly good. Poison deals 15% of a targets max HP as damage every turn. Though, in practice poison is a lot less good than that, but it's still incredibly useful. There are only a handful of enemies in the entire game which are immune to poison, and I can't think of a boss on top of my head that is.




If we head a bit west in town we reach this point. There are some good chests down there that we'll want, but critically: if we jump down, we can't get back up. Shoudu is a very vertical place, and is both a town and an overworld area in one. We don't have very good means to climb it currently though, so we'll be taking the jump here.




It seems we have fallen for a clever ruse.




This is the actual good thing though. This is our first "metroidvania" upgrade, and I use that term loosely.




We'll equip it to our favourite menu to easily access it when out and about, it let's one avoid having to open the inventory for it every time.

So, Mars Stone, what does it do? Well it let's us warp to the Mars Shrine, we'll be checking that place out in a later update. But why is it good? Well, Warp Stones let's us warp to specific points in the world, so it both serves as a means of fast travel, but also in the case of this one, let's us go somewhere we haven't been. You're actually meant to locate the Mars Stone a decent while before you get access to Shoudu proper, but we came in through the back door, so to speak.

This trip has so far all been within the confines of what the game expects: If players finds the path to the desert early and accidentally set their home point there, well, there would need to be a way to get back to an earlier point in the game. By jumping off Shoudu we have gotten started that road back towards the start of the game. There's more to see on the journey there though, so we won't exactly make a b-line for it.

Maybe next update we'll finally find our first crystal? They certainly seem important or something.