Let’s Play Crystalis! There aren’t a lot of games which I would call a “hidden gem” for their respective system, but this is one of them. Similar to when I wasn’t familiar with a few of the solid games which other people requested during Total Request July, this game is one of those which fell under a lot of my peers’ radars growing up. I’m not entirelly sure how I fell upon it, either it was a lucky rental as a kid or Nintendo Power saved the day again, but it’s both one of my favorites for the NES and it’s one of those games not a lot of people have heard of.
Let’s Play Crystalis:
This was one of the few games which aspired to be a few different genres simultaneously but actually managed to pull it off and then some. Part action slash and hack, part adventure game with a great story, and part RPG, this game is one of a kind. The plot revolves around a time traveling warrior charged with the task of saving humanity. There were a number of different swords which you could collect which each were more or less powerful against different enemies and which each had different levels of unique and powerful magic you could use to get past certain challenges and puzzles.
There were countless items and even a few magic spells you could use to telepathically contact your friends to get tips, levitate, freeze someone in place, or even shape shift to move about undetected or gain access to areas which would normally be off limits. And when you reached a certain amount of experience through defeating enemies, you would gain a level, enabling you to kill enemies more quicklly or even hurt certain enemies which you couldn’t pierce earlier.
Like a lot of my favorite games growing up, this one had a fantastic and pretty damn consistent soundtrack top to bottom. SNK made a name for themselves in arcades, but this was a rare gem with virtually no peers for the NES.