I love Crystal Story and Crystal Story 2, but I hate this remake, which is weird because I love this game series. Honestly it's the character progression, the Sp and equipment progression is completely different and I hate it.

The original has each character having access to 3 of the 4 classes and each has their own unique spin on each class. Each character gets a variety of attacks, spells, buffs and debuffs. Each Character has their own equipment types and you can tweak their stats by giving them different variants. Crystal Story 2 has a similar system but with a stat grid.

This Sp grid and Disc system just tears that out and makes all characters the largely the same. And I sincerely hope that this is not your plan for Crystal Story 3.

I have really mixed feelings on this game. On one hand, it brings back a lot of good memories from playing the flash version long long ago. It was great compared to other flash games. However, I feel like compared to other games on the PC market, it just doesn't hold up. The game play is fine, story is okay, graphics is decent, and I really like how easy it is to do everything with just the keyboard controls. But nothing really stands out that makes me want to recommend this to others which is a shame since I really thought the developer put in a lot of hardwork and I appreciate his contribution to the rpg flash games long ago.

It's tough for me to really give any constructive feedback since it does feel polished with no bugs or issues, just doesn't really have much memorable gameplay to me sadly.

As a devoted Crystal Story fan since I first played it in Newgrounds, I like this game, but like other RPGS I have problems with it...
Probably because one you've beat the main story, I felt the game relies too much on the RNG for getting the best equipment to withstand the bosses in Evil Tower.

And I think this game kinda lacks the charm of what made the original (and II) popular back then, like Feed Slime and Zombie Defense. (Maybe it's just me because popularity is nowadays is targeted to mobile Battle Royale games..., rather than flash games)

Even myself, kinda felt disappointed of the lack of any expressions on anyone besides Rita, visible NPCs (RIP. Hammer-Praising Blacksmith) and especially the lack of a single cameo of a Crystal Story II character bar a vague mention of Lina (Koohii Final quest and "Relina's Dagger" What if Relina could be her full name?)

NGL, of courses I have positive points to say, I loved the updated graphics compared to the previous installments (6 years!), more sounds, a stable battle system (no more potential zero damage and frequent misses), a appropriate post-game final boss (LOL, we didn't get to fight Rita in the original despite her being the main villain?) and filled plotholes. (Why did Hiro get praised for singlehandly killing the Dargon and shooing Rita in CSII.) It reminded how Aquablade Chronicles evolved. I'm looking forward to when CSII gets remade.

Kudos to the dev for not losing passion despite the series being forgottened in history.

I received this game 'cause I'm a streamer, but this review is impartial to that.

This game feels pretty simple, smooth, and most of all, fun. The graphics remind are pretty minimal and refined, and give me the same fun feelings that Ragnarok Online used to. The battle system is fun, and everything in this game is super fluid. Probably one of the smoothest games I've played in a while.

If you are a fan of Japanese-style RPGs and want something that is incredibly fun and easy to play, this is your game.

Honestly I wish It was more like the flash game, and with that I wish it had a legacy mode where I can play it like how it used to be. The victory music doesn't even play after every battle and the level up system is painfully generic, moving away from the three bars to a more generic system that in a way, removes the diversity from the characters. If you're going to try to get this game for nostalgia's sake, get the sequel, it's closer to the original flash version of this. The menus are a hassle to navigate and I often find myself getting lost within them.

Phoebe
:)

Played Crystal Story II to rate this game, the idea of remaking this game to a brand new engine is good.
However, compare to CS2, there are some cons in this game:

• The new skill point system seems good, but the list itself is too small. You have only 25 different type to assign, with maximum of 29 points to use. The skill tree system in CS2 seems much better than this, as there are many nodes in a tree. The only con of the skill tree in CS2 seems there are very few branches in a single tree, makes the various less.
  
• The new disk system is good, but the extra stats given by the disk can make the normal equipment useless. Also, there is no way to upgrade an equipment like CS2, so the only way to get a better equipment is to grind a lot and hope they drop a better equipment. The disk forge system seems useless at all, as most the skills it given are useless, and the stat provided by the new disk are re-rolled, makes the stats in the old disks disappears.
  
• This game lacks extra challenges, such as arena and Boss Rushes, minigames like match-3 and card battles, and endless dungeons.

Fun game, but painfully short. Great for a weekend.

First of all, the (free) flash games are better, especially #2. But I have to give credit where it's due I suppose. It's worth supporting the dev if you enjoy the two flashes! 100%.

I have 6.5 hours. I completed the game in about 5 hours, but I wasn't rushing, I did every side quest and was upgrading my gear. I spent about 1 hours grinding and did a small amount of the post game but it's just some new boss battles, essentially and I can't work up the motivation to come back and complete the post game or achievement hunt.

It's essentially a remaster of the very first crystal story game, rather than a sequel.

I unfortunately went in with high expectations as I wasn't aware of this, somehow. And due to how varied the content and skill tree CS2 had but it lacks a lot of depth and the 3d feels like a poor fit, the dev has amazing 2d art and i'd prefer that perspective in the future. It feels like an experiment that went poorly and was just shipped out, but to give full credit, updates were made in response to criticism very quickly and the quality of the gameplay improved substantially as a result.

I personally liked the new skill system, but it's very shallow. I went dmg / speed / debuffs / magic builds essentially due to certain unique skills. But I wonder if i'd even be able to do differently if I replayed due to how shallow it is.

Nya nya nya nya~