FuRyu has made a reputation for itself lately of being a writer that does an incredible job of churning out RPGs that you just’ll definitely like, however in all probability not love. Video games like Monark, Caligula Impact, and Crystar have all supplied gamers some first rate 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 preventing a seemingly countless horde of creepy robots with a bunch of depressed women. It’s ridiculous, it’s enjoyable, and it’s not nice, however it might nonetheless be price your time.
The narrative locations you within the position of Leben, a woman who promptly dies of a mysterious sickness within the first 10 seconds after cursing on the world and all of the individuals who stay 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 women, too. Enoa explains that people went extinct on account of a world struggle over dwindling assets, however a workforce of scientists launched a spaceship known as Eden simply earlier than the top within the hopes that someday humanity would possibly rise once more.
Eden is ruled by eight godlike AI (Enoa being certainly one of them) who every have a job to play in reviving humanity, however issues have come aside within the millennia because the ship’s launch, and among the AI have gone rogue. Leben and the opposite women are kind of ‘partial people’ introduced again by Enoa from the encoded recollections of individuals from earlier than the struggle, and if they’ll kill sufficient robots, they’ll achieve sufficient “ExP” to lastly be acknowledged as actual people, which might enable them to quell the unrest and convey again humanity in full.
It is a considerably difficult narrative, and this isn’t helped by the big quantity of exposition and dialogue sequences within the first few hours, most of which is written in a quite stiff and awkward trend. 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 normally 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 always reminded that there isn’t a God, humanity is useless, Leben hates different individuals, and all the pieces sucks. And all this brooding is performed utterly straight, which might result in many unintentionally humorous moments the place you possibly can’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 possibly can stage up characters, change loadouts, improve skills, and take part in necessary or non-compulsory dialogues along with your workforce members. Then, when you’re able to battle, you choose a stage to drop into and set out on a mission, normally taking not more than 10 minutes every. Dungeon designs in every stage are fairly primary, that includes principally linear environments to discover with just a few facet paths containing treasures or stronger foes. When you get into the rhythm of it, this gameplay loop feels fairly satisfying, although it may well get repetitive in longer periods—particularly given how samey many dungeons are.
Fight is dealt with through a live-action system that feels a bit like a rougher tackle Nier Automata’s fight. The primary thrust of it’s that you just 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 possibly can then double faucet ‘X’ to launch them into the air and spike them again down, which tees them up so you possibly can hit along with your highly effective finisher transfer. To complement your melee preventing, 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 bother.
Fight is pleasant, although it may be slightly inconsistent. If you’re preventing with a small group of enemies, it principally feels nice to be deftly dodging assaults, managing ranged cooldowns, and juggling launch gauges. But whenever you’re preventing 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 shortage of them signifies that fight ultimately begins to get very repetitive.
One other essential concern is the final lack of significant hitstun animations for assaults. It will probably typically really feel like your slashes are going by your enemies quite than connecting with them, and we encountered just a few situations the place bosses dealt us 1000’s of HP harm as a result of it took just a few seconds to acknowledge that an assault was even going down on account of our character not visibly reacting. This may occasionally sound like a minor concern, nevertheless it 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 gear high quality improve at an exhilarating charge that actually feeds into the ability fantasy. Plus, assets for upgrades are simply scarce sufficient that you just all the time really feel like you need to make some powerful selections between what you need to shore up subsequent, encouraging you to plan out your builds slightly extra than simply snapping up no matter’s out there subsequent.
By way of presentation, Crymachina sticks with a darkish, sci-fi aesthetic that feels well-realized, although slightly primary 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 customarily creepy tone. Environments additionally do an incredible job of giving off oppressive and hostile vibes as you rush throughout dimly lit metallic surfaces below the chilly gaze of big crimson 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 appreciated to have seen extra cautious atmosphere 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 disappointment.
In case you haven’t picked up on it but, Crymachina struggles an terrible lot with repetition. It’s acquired an incredible fight system, till you notice it depends an terrible lot on button mashing. The visuals are placing and unsettling, till you run by 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 looks 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 should you’re determined for one thing to fulfill your craving, nevertheless it’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 suggestion to any followers of FuRyu’s earlier work or anybody on the lookout for a low-investment motion RPG that’s all model and little substance. Crymachina is an honest outing, however it’s possible you’ll need to watch for a fairly deep sale on this one.
