RPGs are at their best when they strike a perfect balance between story, gameplay, and customization. When these three elements work in tandem, they create something truly memorable. Crystal Adventure doesn’t have that kind of balance. 

First, the story is nowhere to be found. In order to find some semblance of a story, I had to venture through the Internet to Circle Entertainment’s home page. There, I discovered you play as the kingdom’s most famous bounty hunter (with no name, apparently), who has heard about powerful crystals that can cause great destruction. These crystals have summoned a powerful demon, and now you need to collect them. And defeat all the monsters in your way, or something generic like that. 

It seems that the designers have omitted as many standard RPG elements as they could get away  with, which brings us to the gameplay: you use the D-pad to move around. And that’s it. Using the D-pad to navigate through the dungeon is kind of surprising when the menu screen is only accessible through touch. Picking up items and battling monsters is also an awkward experience. If the character icon moves over anything at all, it interacts with it. If there’s a health potion you didn’t mean to pick up, that’s too bad. You have no inventory, and being unable to heal yourself at will makes the game needlessly difficult. 

Buttons are for the weak!

The battles are also a hassle. Even if it’s an accident, if you touch a creature, a battle commences. The battle is essentially you watching your character’s health deplete over time while the monster’s health drops a little faster (usually). If the monster is unexpectedly stronger—because it’s impossible to see how strong they are—then you can press the A button to escape, although it may be too late. 

How strong are you guys?
...UH OH.

Customization is nonexistent in this game. I’m not sure if all RPG fans have as much of a desire for customization as I do, but I was disappointed. The apparent lack of effort put into this game makes it feel as if it were a prototype for something better. I’ve played games like this and found them enjoyable, and I had some fun with this game at times as well. Nonetheless, the game was missing a lot, and no amount of subpar dungeon crawling can fix that. 

Crystals Adventures isn’t something I would recommend, unless players want to experience an almost-finished game. The game feels half-finished and is missing many things most RPG fans have come to expect. Just like the nameless bounty hunter the game uses as its protagonist, this game is forgettable and lackluster.