Cris Tales is a turn-based RPG with a time travel theme where our heroes can fight enemies in the past, present and future at the same time. The initial premise and battle mechanics lead to some very creative scenarios: like weakening an enemy by reverting it to its infant state or aging a poisoned foe so that the damage over time from the poison is immediately applied. The problem is that everything outside of combat is tremendously dull. The story is poorly told. There is a lack of animation and lighting. The presentation is buggy and unpolished. The whole game feels incomplete.

The main plot revolves around Crisbell, a flower picking orphan who happens upon a talking top hat wearing frog named Matias. Matias leads Crisbell to a cathedral where Crisbell suddenly gains the power to see the past and future as well as wield a time bending sword. The timing (no pun intended) could not have been better as the Time Empress’s minions suddenly launched an attack on her hometown. Using her new powers Crisbell is able to repel the attack. Matias informs her that she needs to visit the other cathedrals to get stronger and eventually defeat the Time Empress to bring peace to the land.

The main gameplay loop of Cris Tales follows a generic RPG formula of visiting a town, gaining a party member, going to a dungeon, defeating the boss and then making a decision on the fate of the town. The time travel element is a gimmick. Seeing a town and its netizens in the past, present and future is impressive at first but becomes disappointing once you realize there’s very little to interact with in the past or future. The only options are to send Matias either to the past or future to pick up an item or learn a hint to resolve a quest. The same applies to the dungeons where Crisbell’s time travel powers are extremely limited. Crisbell has the power to revert or age very specific objects but it’s not used in any interesting ways other than to age a damaged pillar so that it turns into sand or revert the pillar to a new state so that it can be walked on.

The combat is the only thing worth experiencing in Cris Tales. Battles start out as simple turn-based affairs where the correct timing of a button press will lead to bonus damage output or reduced damage from attacks similar to the Mario RPGs. Enemies can appear on both the left and right side of your characters. Crisbell has the power to fast forward all enemies on the right side and turn back time for all enemies on the left side. As mentioned initially, the ability to manipulate the age of foes lends to some really fascinating battle possibilities. An early example is an armored boss with high defense. Getting the boss soaked with a water spell and then fast forwarding time, causes their armor to rust rendering it vulnerable to attacks. Some enemies and bosses can heal themselves. Crisbell can rewind time to revert their state, nullifying their healing. Characters like Zas can have their attacks transformed depending on whether Crisbell sent an enemy to the past or to the future.

Crisbell’s ability to manipulate time also cuts both ways. There is an enemy that starts off as a cocoon, but manipulating time (either forwards or backwards) causes the cocoon to hatch and unleashes a powerful spider monster. Applying a debuff on a foe and then bringing the foe to the past, removes the effect. Turning a mage type monster older will lessen its hitpoints and defense but enables it to use powerful magic spells. The combat is fun and open to experimentation. The only problem I have with the combat are the boss fights. Bosses have high HP counts and even after you learn the “trick” to defeating them, it’s a laborious process of using the same moves over and over for up to half an hour.

What disappoints me most about Cris Tales is the lack of polish in the presentation. I don’t like the look of the game. There is a lack of shadows, the colors are oversaturated and the animations are stiff. The various towns feel lifeless and empty. NPCs stand perfectly still like cardboard cutout figures. Dialog is often out of sync with what is actually happening on screen. One early example is when Crisbell mentions that she sees a fire, but the screen itself looks perfectly normal until after you button through all her dialog. There are numerous occasions where the game spends too much time describing what is happening instead of actually showing it to the player.

The game has noticeable design flaws that are hard to ignore. The timing of some attacks are hard to discern, especially for non-projectile attacks. There are also a couple skills where the game never informs the player if they did a good or perfect timing. The dungeons reset their state each time you finish a battle and it is disorientating. An example of this are the chests. Opened chests reset to their closed state momentarily after a battle finishes but after a few seconds the chests suddenly pop open as if they were recently looted. The UI is clumsy where it takes one to two more additional steps to do anything. I also encountered a few game breaking bugs, where a player’s turn would never end or the game would randomly crash.

Cris Tales is a game designed around a cool time travel battle mechanic but has nothing else interesting to supplement it. The voice acting for this caliber of game is surprisingly good but it is buffeted by generic banter and fantasy cliches. The set up of the plot is initially promising but completely stumbles over itself with needless backtracking and padding. Even the combat started to wear thin in the later stages especially once I started fighting the same enemies and bosses. By the time credits rolled, I was left with a conclusion so abrupt and unsatisfying it made me question what was the whole point of it all. Outside of its combat, Cris Tales is a lackluster generic RPG that doesn’t deliver on anything worthwhile.

I REALLY wanted to like Cris Tales. The art style is gorgeous, the soundtrack is good, and I really like RPGs - I have a soft spot for them!

The most egregious thing for me in this game was the pacing. The first two acts aren't too bad, but the third act is mindnumbing and I actually quit before the grand finale. So you don't think I'm insane, I will describe the third act without spoilers: after a difficult fight, you have to backtrack to all of the previous cities (four) (plenty of loading screens) and activate a thingamajig in each place. Then return to the original final dungeon. Then backtrack again to deactivate all the thingamajigs. And then you have the privilege of the final boss fight. It's a very artificial extension of the game's playtime.

Also characters leave the party unannounced very frequently, which I consider a serious sin in RPGs.

The lack of accessibility options in this game peeved me, personally, such as difficulty settings in lieu of an automatic trigger for the game's parry/crit system (You have to press the action button at the exact moment an attack hits.)

There are lots of neat concepts here though. The ability to travel through time and see the effects of your actions immediately is really cool, and underutilized in my opinion. You can sometimes hear dialogue between younger versions of NPCs, and that's a kind of insight you just don't get regularly.

Time-travel and combat are also very neatly tied together, for example: you can throw an enemy into the past, throw a timed debuff on them, and shatter them back into the present, affecting them instantly. But sometimes the future/past version of an enemy is stronger, so watch out!

Overall I liked it but not really. I was willing to put up with its flaws until it got to a downright slog, and I don't play if I'm not having fun. Take my review with a grain of salt, and maybe wait for a discount on this game.