65%PlayStation 4

The story itself is short and small, which makes for a decent short RPG.
Good average game. Pretty graphics, very good voice acting, good music, and when the battles load- good.
PS4 copy suffers from 15 second load screens into combat, and at least 8 seconds load to get out of combat - which significantly inhibits the joy of the gameplay.
However there is evidence for a lot of things that they could've expanded upon. There is also evidence that some things are never expanded on even upon story's end, which is a shame. The most annoying thing to me is the amount of typos in the dialogue boxes, especially compared to the spoken audio of the lines.
A "fun" combat character was added too late in the story to make proper use of learning or having fun with, and several of the later boss battles are carbon copies of earlier versions with just HP increases and nothing new to their pattern, design or integration- a shame.

70%Xbox One

72%

60%PC

Cris Tales goes for a fairy tale-like aesthetics, and nails it; each screen brims with color and details. However, it also makes the decision to show us the past, present, and future all at once, as Crisbell sees it. As a result, the screen is cluttered, and entering dungeons feels like taking off blinders. Combat system was clearly an afterthought: you can send foes to the future or past, but it's easier to kill them with Cris' magic sword. The plot is episodic, but finely integrates sidequests, and the overarching plot has some unexpected turns. 6/10.

20%Nintendo Switch

It took eight years for Cristales to come up and it ended up being a big ass pain in the ass.
This is the third game this year to blue ball me that I just had to rage quit.
I got the bad ending, and the final boss is so bullshit that it isn’t worth attempting to beat knowing I wasn’t going to get the true ending. I missed one side quest at the beginning of the game and the thought of replaying this for the true ending makes me want to rip my hair out.
The game is beautiful and that is about all it has going for it.
When you’re writing a love letter to jrpgs it’s important to have interesting twists or amazing character writing aaaaaand it has neither.
It’s very much what happens when an anime fan makes a video game. The characters are tropes and the dialogue is standard. My favorite character has to be the android who says everything so dead pan with a smile on his face.
And I’m so depressingly sad that I grew to hate this game. Like at first it was very very charming but it comes down to such major things that make the game so tedious.
Number one problem is the load times. The random encounters aren’t preloaded. It takes SO long to go into towns, buildings, the overworld, and especially the fights. So it’s balls to the wall tedious when trying to grind and this game has a TON of grinding. The random encounters are low but there isn’t anything to raise the encounter rate either.
90 percent of Cristales is doing side quests. And to my dismay I found out way too late that the only way to get the true ending is to do ALL of them.
Which is FINE and not fine at the same time. I’ve basically at this point have been forced to look up if a game has a true ending or not and how to get it so I don’t hate myself part way through.

Despite all of that it’s the boss fights that really kill this game. Most of them only have one real way of beating them, and they are all tedious. The final boss has a move that knocks everyone down to a single hp, combined with status effects you can’t avoid and you’re dead. I got so close to beating the final dude, it took over an hour and then right at the end he stunned me and one shot me.
I mean, I’ve done plenty of bullshit things to beat games in the past. But If I don’t care about what’s happening then bringing myself to grind is just a waste of my life.
Not to mention the huge gimmick of this game was Crisbell’s ability to manipulate time during fights. By the end it’s worthless and most of the bosses aren’t effected by it at all.
I looked up the true ending anyway, and it was just spoiler the ending of Madoka.
Oh well, it hurts but I accept that this is the ending I got and at least I got to see that pretty face FINALLY.

55%Nintendo Switch

Ok, first of all, let's adress the elephant in the room : loading times in this game are just unacceptable. I would have been fine with 10-20 seconds between each main screen, but before every single random encounter? In a JRPG that requires grinding? There's no excuse for that.

(Oh sorry, apparently the developers claim that there is no point in grinding in this game. Well, good luck to you if you try it this way, since Cris Tales is far from being an easy game.)

So ok, it's a shame because the game is beautiful and everything, and have a fun central mechanic. Except it hasn't. The battle system can be tactical, for sure, but not because of the time travel stuff. Basically, the game uses the prologue to sells you a mechanic you will never use, except for a few boss fights. Not even all of them. Not even most of them.

So ok, it's a shame because the game is still beautiful, isn't it? It is. But maybe it didn't need to be so beautiful and be more functional instead. Because you know, loading times are not just about the waiting. With cumulated minutes (hours?) of loading, the smallest detail can get a game to derail. Not having fights on the overworld + overpriced healing items makes the farming even more painful and really curbs the progress, since base mobs can deal serious dammage. You will try to live with this major flaws, I did (I'm very weak to JRPGs), but towards the end, I really was fed up with issues that could have easily been skirted. Cris Tales promises a lot but all in all, it's just an average JRPG with a cool artstyle but a lazy game and level design. I can't say it wasn't fun at all. But it's far from a must-play.

55%PC

Good art, animation, and music. But feels like a very lackluster attempt to make a classic JRPG. Has heavy south American catholic vibes. Battle system is Mario RPG, time the hits and defense. Long loading times.

50%PC

Still trying to find inmunities for bosses

90%Linux

Incredible game, loved it!

70%Nintendo Switch

CrisTales, developed by Dreams Uncorporated, had been on my radar since its announcement at PC Gaming Show 2019, and when it finally went on sale for the Nintendo Switch, I eagerly downloaded. Sadly, my initial excitement was dampened by the game's poor performance on the platform - something I regretted not doing research on ahead of time. Every step of the way through this full-sized JRPG was interrupted by obnoxious load times. I'm usually quite accepting of the charming jank sometimes associated with indie darlings, but this was the single biggest hurdle that stood in the way of my enjoyment time-after-time.

Despite the setback, the game's colorful aesthetic, inspired by Colombian culture and architecture, was a standout feature, creating a visually stunning world. The voice acting was top-notch, and while it occasionally bordered on cringey for some characters, it held true to that JRPG feel. I ended up really attaching myself to a few of the characters, making that late-game twist all the more surprising.

Gameplay-wise, the mechanics of jumping between past and future presented intriguing possibilities from the get-go. Unfortunately, they felt underutilized, limited to minor side quests and treasure hunting. The promising battle system introduced at the start, involving rusting off enemy armor through time manipulation, failed to evolve, and I found myself rarely using the time powers throughout the game. The last half seemed to forget about these game-defining abilities altogether. Battles became tedious over time, exacerbated by a frustrating 15-second load-in before each random encounter. And for the last 10 hours of the game (which were completely unnecessary), I was seriously debating abandoning the experience altogether.

The game has shortcomings - sure. But the storyline, with its time-travel elements, kept me engaged, and the characters added depth to the narrative. CrisTales exudes personality and stands out as a charming indie love letter to my favourite genre - the JRPG

60%PC

História
A história é bem clichê e sem muitas reviravoltas interessantes. Acho que eles erram um pouco na abordagem infantilizada do enredo, no meu ponto de vista.
Um fator interessante nesse game, é que as missões secundárias, apesar de não ser das mais elaboradas em questão de conteúdo, quando você finaliza alguma delas, imediatamente você consegue ver o impacto que sua ação causou no futuro daquele universo. Além disso, o jogo te proporciona realizar escolhas em certos momentos que também podem afetar o futuro de cidades e NPC's.
Os personagens não são dos mais carismáticos, mas também não chegam a ser antipáticos.

Gameplay
A gameplay tinha um potencial enorme no meu ponto de vista, que infelizmente não conseguiu ser bem explorado.
O jogo é uma inspiração aos clássicos JRPG's, onde tem seu combate em turno e outros diversos elementos desses jogos. Um dos diferenciais que mais me interessou em Cris Tales, foi o fato da personagem principal ser uma "Maga do Tempo", onde ela consegue ver o passado e o futuro simultaneamente, enquanto vivencia o presente. No combate, mandar os inimigos para o passado ou futuro poderia trazer mecânicas muito interessantes relacionadas a estratégias e diversidade de gameplay, só que infelizmente eles conseguiram simplificar bastante esse conceito, onde junto com um combate extremamente repetitivo, fácil e sem diversidade de inimigos e habilidades, torna o jogo enjoativo.
Apesar disso, é interessante usar a mecânica de transitar entre o futuro e o passado durante a exploração, podendo conquistar itens e segredos que agregam a jogabilidade.
Outro ponto negativo, é que as missões primárias e secundarias do jogo se resume a basicamente você a ir em locais e voltar, depois ir no mesmo lugar já explorado com uma nova entrada ou trecho, repetindo os mesmos inimigos anteriormente.

Gráfico/Arte
É um fato que a arte e os gráficos desse jogo foram muito bem feitos, tendo uma pegada cartoonizada bem aplicada.
Infelizmente, o mapa é extremamente repetitivo em questão de variedade, tendo basicamente 4 ilhas para você visitar, e dentro dessas ilhas, 2-3 locais para explorar.
A trilha sonora conseguiu agradar bastante, e não deixa a desejar nos momentos de impacto.

Conclusão
Cris Tales é um jogo regular, que tinha um potencial enorme se tivesse explorado bem a mecânica de transitar entre o passado e o futuro, aplicando isso melhor tanto na gameplay quanto no enredo.

Nota: 6/10

Pontos que poderiam melhorar:
- História mais interessante e elaborada
- Personagens mais carismáticos
- Combate extremamente repetitivo e sem diversidade
- Chefões fáceis
- Missões linear
- Pouca diversidade nos cenários

50%PC

belos graficos e combate interesante no inico porem com o tempo ele acaba sendo mal aproveitado o jogo e lento ate para jrpgs e a historia e boa porem e muito cansativo jogar este jogo

60%PC

I liked that everything is voiced and the voice acting is good and the art style is beautiful.
The story is ok.
The time mechanics makes the game interesting seeing how the town and people look in the past, present and future but still it lacks real depth as your choices are tied to whether you find and complete all the quests in each area. And you end up choosing from 3 choices with the third only being available from completing all quests. The combat is ok.

What I disliked most is that to get the best ending you have to complete all quests and it is very easy to miss quests. But not too much of a problem I just watched the best ending on You tube as I missed 1 quest that was time sensitive and don't want to play through again.

I liked the game though the end had a bit too much back tracking and too much recycled content fighting bosses you already fought.

It's an ok JRPG. I enjoyed playing it and never felt bored.

70%PC

A very decent game.

80%PlayStation 5

At first i thought it was gonna be just another paper mario wanna-be, but I was thoroughly delighted when I stumble upon a game that not only can stand on its own to feet but its also capable of creating on of the most eye-catching art styles I have seen in recent memory, and a cast of memorable and charming characters, saz is best waifu.

80%PC

Very nice mechanics, -2 because of the power of friendship

70%PC

An ode to old JRPG games with the issues on unfairly difficult bosses and an over reliance on having all your members be on full health otherwise you're going to be at a big disadvantage.

70%PC

Good game, but struggles by simply going out of gas in second half of the game, and PC version suffers from things like no options (my controller didn’t work for this game!), v-sync issues, equipment bugs, item bug, and probably some more small bugs here and there. The past/present mechanic in combat just died mid-game cause you could just be more effective without. Visuals and OST is amazing, Combat is great and flowed well with timing button presses to negate damage (and didn’t hurt my finger unlike Ikenfell)

Loved Zas and Crisbell

90%Xbox One

Jrpg with beautiful art work. Pretty on rails story for an RPG, but for a relatively short journey, it was quite enjoyable

50%Nintendo Switch

Cris Tales is turn based RPG immediately set apart by its utterly gorgeous art style, and intriguing use of split screen, differentiating between three timelines; past on the left, future on the right, and of course, present in the center. It's the sort of game that makes a striking impression even from a screenshot. Disappointingly, the game built around this immaculate presentation just doesn't hold up under the same microscope.

For starters, there's the performance issues, especially on the Switch, which is where I happened to play it. Load screens are something you'll become intimately acquainted with in Cris Tales, and each of these loading screens last around 20 seconds on average. (It's also worth noting that a loading screen accompanies each and every random encounter)

In addition, there's also just a startling lack of polish to the game all around. The opening hours in particular are incredibly poorly balanced, and between the lack of money and the inability to heal until reaching level 5, even the most common enemies can prove to be a challenge. The balancing does improve considerably once you acquire your healing skills, but even then, you'll still encounter a huge spike in difficulty at random every 4-5 hours or so. (Hope you didn't forget to save often!)

There's also a few other minor inconveniences, like the way town names aren't listed on the world map, or that the tent item, which I think is intended to be fairly common, is WILDLY overpriced up until near the end of the game.

Setting all this aside, Cris Tales just isn't very interesting; the story and combat system both feel largely uninspired and derivative, and even the time manipulation elements are rarely used or even beneficial during combat. It's a real shame. It really is stunning to look at, but even the gorgeous aesthetic isn't enough to prop it up from its myriad of issues as a game.

5/10.

80%Nintendo Switch

Quelques petits bas, comme les coups sans impacts dans les combats, les chargements et les derniers donjon un peu pushover. Mais pour le reste le jeu reste trés bon avec possibilité de build ses perso des tactiques avec le temps sympa, une da qui déchire et une histoire qui a un petit plot twist vraiment cool. (Et j'ai vraiment aimé me balader dans les ville et aller du passé au futur pour voir les évolutions des persos) sans compter la musique qui est vraiment bien ! Je le conseil vivement a tout les adeptes de rpg tour par tour !

80%Nintendo Switch

+ Absolutely gorgeous presentation
+ Probably one of my favorite battle systems of all time.

- Excessive overworld movement (especially in the final stretch) got a bit annoying.
- I wished they implemented more about the time travel mechanic in the battle system. In the beginning there are a lot of possibilities but unfortunately not many will be added afterwards.
- Dungeon maneuvering was a bit boring. Only the last ones implement mechanics apart from „run from A to B“.
- Boss battles had an non existent difficulty. I literally beat everyone on my first try even if I forgot to heal beforehand.

And Zas best character. FIGHT ME!

70%PlayStation 5

7.5/10