Crystal Project
Crystal Project
Crystal Project, un jeu de rôle indépendant au tour par tour, est disponible depuis le 31 mars 2022. Développé et édité par Andrew Willman, il propose une aventure non linéaire sur plusieurs plateformes, dont PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 et Linux, pour un tarif de 11,59 EUR. Conçu avec le moteur FNA, le titre offre une expérience pouvant demander environ 46 heures pour l'histoire principale, et jusqu'à 78 heures et demie pour une réalisation complète.
Le jeu se déroule sur la terre de Sequoia, où le joueur est libre de poursuivre une prophétie visant à ramener l'équilibre en collectant des cristaux. Il peut également se consacrer à d'autres activités, comme collectionner équipements et artefacts, apprivoiser des créatures pour remplir une archive, ou traquer des monstres puissants. La liberté est au cœur du propos, même si le jeu s'interroge sur les limites de cette indépendance.
Les mécaniques de jeu se veulent tactiques et transparentes. Les combats se déroulent sans rencontres aléatoires et incluent un système de Menace pour gérer qui est ciblé par les ennemis. Le joueur dispose de toutes les informations, comme l'ordre des tours et les probabilités, à la manière d'un jeu de rôle sur table. La progression s'articule autour du déblocage de nouvelles classes, avec des sous-classes et des compétences passives à attribuer, permettant de créer des compositions d'équipe variées.
Crystal Project adopte une approche de type Metroidvania pour l'exploration, avec des transitions fluides entre zones sans écran de chargement. Le joueur peut grimper et sauter librement, sans mur invisible, pour atteindre de nouvelles zones et découvrir des récompenses en relevant des défis de plateforme. Il est également précisé qu'aucun secret n'est manquable.
L'accueil du jeu a mis en avant cette invitation à l'exploration. GameGrin a noté que cette liberté est à la fois le point fort et la faiblesse du jeu, tandis que des joueurs sur Metacritic l'ont qualifié de l'un des meilleurs JRPG jamais créés, soulignant par la même occasion sa difficulté exigeante. Un autre joueur a loué le plaisir procuré par son immense monde ouvert.
Médias
Avis des critiques et joueurs
Critiques de la Presse (Metacritic)
« Crystal Project's encouragement for exploration and building your own adventure is both the game's strongest and weakest point, as finishing your goal too early leads to the journey becoming stale. »
Avis des Joueurs (Metacritic)
« Crystal Project is one of the best JRPGs ever made I think. It is also quite hard, because you need to use tactics already in the late-early game to mid-game with normal encounters. There are tons of classes and you can get really deep into teambuilding in this game. In general the bosses are very well made, with a few exceptions that many can agree on, which is the only thing keeping me from giving this a 10/10. The open world is absolutely great. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING is interconnected. You can legit loop around the entire world and end up where you were in the beginning. Once you unlock more methods of transportation you will be able to travel to a lot more areas, and in the endgame you can go basically everywhere. There are no invisible walls that I could find, and I have explored nearly every inch of the open world. The story is okay if you wish to engage with it, but I don't think you will miss out on much if you skip through it. This game has spoiled me and I can't get into many other JRPGs anymore, because everytime I try, I am reminded how amazing Crystal Project is and how rather I'd play it again. (DISCLAIMER: IT CAN BE VERY DIFFICULT AT TIMES, IF YOU DON'T LIKE DIFFICULT JRPGs, THEN BETTER SKIP THIS ONE) »
« I don't play a lot of RPG's, but this is probably the one I've had the most fun with (at least in a long time). The massive open world with many unique areas to explore, the enjoyable platforming and being able to go anywhere, its like I'm always finding some little secret in a small corner of an area, just for it to open up to a massive new region. And with really fun battles. »
« it looks really cool, but i am dead tired of pc games that refuse to let me use the mouse. this is not a console title, it's literally made specifically for pc but won't even let me map my mouse to select or back despite allowing any key on the keyboard to be mapped. this has even been out for a full year and still hasn't been patched for this? i understand when games say "this is best experienced with a gamepad", but not letting the player use the main freaking tool we operate a computer with is just ludicrous. it's also dreadfully in need of a sprint button, since the walking pace gets pretty tedious. sound effects for terrain are cute in concept, but often far too loud compared to the total absence of footstep sounds if you aren't walking through grass or wood. the whole thing feels like it's missing something, but im fairly sure a sprint button would be more than enough to make up for a lot of the game's shortcomings. i can't fathom why they would make a minecraft inspired parkour game that didn't include a run/sprint feature, since minecraft parkour is essentially 100% sprint jump exploits. the platforming is mids at best, for one because camera perspective is locked to one position, meaning we don't really get to see what we are doing a lot of the time, and hidden paths are less a matter of examining terrain and more just walking into every single wall we can't see to check if something is there. the combat doesn't do anything for me either, since every single champion has to use their basic attack several times before being able to cast any ability, leaving the vast majority of the grind to just pressing A repeatedly. i would rather play an autobattler at this point. almost every single npc is useless and identical, which makes the fact that i get upgrades or items from some of them that much more annoying. nobody is going to talk to every single one of your npcs or read every single sign, and in many ways it feels like this title hasn't been user tested properly. a lot of the parkour pathing is very counterintuitive and it feels that only the creator of the game knows the correct path, especially since most areas require us to move in midair at a 90 degree angle on a regular basis or jump across a gap where the input just doesn't want to activate if we are too close to the edge. it's just not a finished game, despite some obvious effort put in by the creator. i'd look forward to other projects by them where they can hopefully implement a more user friendly gameplay loop, a more reasonable control scheme, and more intuitive level design. otherwise, everyone should just play the vastly superior game that this is clearly based on: minecraft »
« Must-play if you enjoy strategic turn-based gameplay, or the concept of a pixel art open-world JRPG. I have a lot to say, but too busy playing the game right now.. over 50 hours in and I still have a ton to explore and a ton to do.. »
