Epic Quest of the 4 Crystals Reviews

Tags: Topdown - RPGMaker & PartyRPG Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library TLDR: Tries hard to be edgy. Formulaeic. Nonsensical 4th wall breaking writing.

I got the fourth person in the group and I must say the game is not satisfying. The banter is not really funny, the story is lacking, the characters aren't that interesting, and the equipments are too basic.

Disclaimer: As of writing this review I have yet to recieve any compenstation. So far a fun game. I enjoy the graphics (thankfully not 'basic' RTP RPG Maker graphics'). It has nice touches with objects litterd throughout the houses, nice battle art, etc... The dialogue has a dark humor too it so far (especially Mary). I personally prefer more serious stories but so far it's not bugging me. Too me the best part so far is the menu system...it's different and I enjoy that. Having the items at the bottom so I don't have to open up a menu to use a potion or other item on world map but just press X (or B to save, Y to go to the side menu - using 360 control). I disabled the mouse function since I didn't have a need for it.Music is ok so far.I'll definately be playing more of this game tryin out. I'm not sure how I feel about no world map (usually my favorite part) instead using a 'level selection', which is kind of weird. Curious where the story will lead..

Game has positive points for its quirky characters. The gameplay is my main issue as eventually it gets bothersome making it a chore to finish the game. I also dont think its a good comparisson to chrono trigger, perhaps it matches better with an older FF.

I get that it's a parody of other RPGs, but the directionless story allowed me to immediately wander out of the town and die. I saw there was an ability called Wakka's Balls. You can make a tribute to other RPGs without breaking the fourth wall so blatantly with juvenile humor...I guess if you go into this viewing the whole game as a joke, it would be fine, but that's not what I'm looking for. The start of the game did remind me of Chrono Trigger, as intended.. No doubt the entire game is packed full of references to other RPGs and RPGMaker games.

After much thought, I decided to give this a positive review. It's a cheap game where the core gameplay is, if not especially original, generally well executed. The art is fine, the music good, and the writing... well, we'll come back to that. If you enjoy turn-based RPG combat, you may find enough to enjoy here. This follows a standard formula for this type of game. You wander around an overworld, then transition to a battle screen for combat. One nice thing is there are no random encounters; enemy presence is clear on the overworld, even if the nature of the enemies is concealed. You can clear out all enemies, and reset them as you wish with a purchasable item. This ensures you only enter battle when ready, you can clear out an area for easy exploration, but you also have options to grind if necessary. Combat itself is fine. Again, nothing too original, but your characters have a good spread of abilities. Some use mana, others charge up with attacks, and in the second half of the game you get QTE-based bonuses as well. There are also a large number of consumable items to use in combat, many of which can only be crafted from enemy drops, and which add a potential extra layer of strategy. The biggest weakness I found with combat was that the enemy variety was a bit lacking. I found myself needing to do a fair bit of grinding, and found myself knowing how to deal with every encounter before I'd finished. However, this may not be so much of an issue on lower difficulty settings. The biggest problem with this game is in the writing. This is undoubtedly the reason for its poor overall review score. There are several problems here. The game is juvenile in that particular way things that try to be "mature" and "edgy" so often are. The jokes at the expense of Final Fantasy and other series aren't exactly new. I was surprised to see the release date; given how many references to FF10 there are, and the general tone, I thought the game must be older. And for all it pokes fun at the typical JRPG plot, it largely follows it. Still, I don't think the writing is awful. The characterisation of your party is clear, there are a couple of emotional moments that worked, and there was one plot point that genuinely surprised me. Ultimately, I found the positives in this game do outweigh its weakness.

I would write a long review but i don't want to waste my time. I've already wasted both my time and money. Edit: I'm sorry i can't say i liked it. The game is mostly boring and static. I found this game lack of some RPG elements and the ones it has are presented very poorly. For example, i don't understand why there is a levle selecting menu in an RPG. and levels are just some dungeons for fight and nothing else. There is only one person who appears every level and sell/buy some stuff. But there is nothing or no one to interract. And there isn't even a proper map. The minimap is useless. You need to look to the strategy guide for navigation and pressing alt+tab always is terrible. The need of non-free stategy guide is an epic fail for alone itself. Combat is boring. There isn't so much to do. But the worse part is, you need the finish in a specific turn without losing so much HP. So you can claim full reward. But this make it more boring. For the rewards, you have to just attack with your characters full power and finish the fights as quick as you can. And this is the one of the two way for making your characters stronger. The other way is leveling up but it doesn't give you so much. Only speed of your characters increasing and you can be able to use more abilities but you can't say chose anything or decide anything. For my opinion this is terrible character progression for an RPG. Another thing about make RPGs awesome is story. I wanted the see the end of the game even if it bores me but i couldn't resist and didn't play at some point. Trying to make poor twists and some jokes doesn't make story good. So I didn't almost anything about this game.

This is an RPG with classical elements, but a "sour-sweet" humour. There are some really nice plot twists along the whole adventure. My main complain is that the end is so short... I wish there would be more on it. But considering the plot, it's adequate. Have fun and take care of the crystals!

This game is... interesting. It appears to be a parody of sorts of other RPGs, even other RPGMaker games. There is a humor flowing under everything. Characters are lifted, in part or whole, from other games, so this becomes an All-Star battle of sorts. That said, those characters are well-done. The plot is... decent. I mean it is mocking in many ways, so some quality may be lacking... At least worth a try. Especially when on discount.

For those of you who like old school, turned-based, RPG games, I would love to recommend the Epic Quest of the 4 Crystals. It is a fun and interesting game with a very interesting storyline that has a very abrupt twist halfway into the story!! The combat mechanics reminds me of FFXI because you cannot just win by brute force. Different monsters are weak to certain elements, and you have to decide what kind of elemental spells (water, fire, wind, earth, ice, holy) to use against which monsters to produce the maximum damage. This is because to obtain a steam achievement for each level you need to get the highest combat ranking (Platinium Ranking). Hence it is imperative that you kill every group of monsters in 2 or 3 turns. If you take too long to kill them, you will NOT get the steam achievement even if you are victorious in battle. So, this is not the typical and mindless hack-and-slash RPG games that I am used to playing, where I win by either brute force or using lots of grinding. In this game, its really a test of strategy and efficiency. Although this game is hard, it also allows me the option to RETRY a battle again, using different strategies, until you get the desired ranking. Hence, most of the time when I encounter new monsters, I can experiment with the different type of spells until I find one that produce the optimum damage. I really like this feature very much. Another fun feature of the game is the accumulation of gold tokens. Each gold token give you 1 point, and you need to collect at least 1960 points (out of 2000) to get the steam "Perfect Ending" achievements. Hence instead of rushing through each level, I play the game carefully, to make sure that I do not missed out any gold tokens. There are certain levels that you travel back to, so it might not be possible to get certain gold tokens that you missed. Again, I love this feature because it reward slow and careful exploration of every corners of the map. I had a great time playing and completing this game. I spend close to 50 hours, and considering a price of about $4 that I bought it for, this game is really worth it. This is the second great game that I played from the same publisher (Rose Portal), and I look forward to playing my third game soon. Incidentally, first game from Rose Portal which I enjoyed tremendously was "Whisper of a Rose." 5/5 stars and thumbs out for Rose Portals :) :)