S3E15: Crystalis -or- Periodic Fable of Elements

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I don't know where my Genesis could be.
I haven't seen my Super Nintendosince 2003.
That's all right. I don't mind.
I've got a switch in the old switch room, my friend Mike.

(00:23):
And Jamo, too. All right everyone, welcome back
to the old Switcheroo where we're talking gaming retro with
Mike and Jamo. I'm Mike.
And I'm jamo play along on our epic quest to research and
review all 300 plus games in theNintendo Classic catalog.
Today we are powering up and throwing down with the cult

(00:43):
classic Crystallis, or Crystallis, I guess, on the NES
in an episode that we are calling Mike.
You ready for a good one? I'm really proud of this one.
I'm going to be ready. I don't think I'm going to get
one. Periodic fable of elements.
Oh, he's smiling, you guys. He's smirking.
OK, fine, you win. Yes.

(01:04):
I was so excited to think of this one.
Crystallis is definitely one of the more obscure games we've
ever covered, so I think we could use a bona fide wise man
who could guide us on our journey.
Please welcome to the show Happney from our Discord
community. Happney how's your summer been
treating you? Hey friends, pretty good summer,
not not going to lie, although I'm glad school's starting back

(01:27):
up. I feel the opposite so
happening. Two things I know about you.
One, you have excellent taste inwrestling games.
WCWNWO Revenge is an underrated gem.
I'm really pulling for you to win the Apricorn Cup over at the
Cable Club league. And I also know you're really
devoted family man and father. So I'm curious, has your kids

(01:48):
taken to gaming like you did? Are you forcing it on them?
Absolutely. My oldest, my 5 year old, he
actually was wandering around with my Switch earlier playing
Final Fantasy 9 and I'll have togo hunt for that.
The three-year old, he he likes it, but he he needs a lot more
help. Yeah, but no, I don't, I don't.

(02:08):
I don't force anything on him but food.
I found out. MM, you remember Chemical Plant
from Sonic the Hedgehog too? Yes.
His his toddler can beat level 2of that level.
Like stage 2 the acid one. That's crazy, right?
The last part at least, yeah. Yeah, happy.
How old was he? When or how old were they when
they beat it? He was about to turn 5.

(02:31):
Wow. OK, well listen, listen, little
happy one day you'll be hearing this and I'm giving you props
from the past, but guys, this post apocalyptic fantasy realm
ain't going to save itself. Are ready to gather some magical
artifacts. Absolutely.
Ready, Mike? Not so much, but here we go.
OK, let's talk about Crystallis on the NES, released in 1990.

(03:02):
According to Nintendo Classics, an epic story for RPG fans is
ready to unfold. Crystallis is an action
role-playing game originally released for the Nintendo
Entertainment System in 1990. Set in the world where
civilization lies and ruins, theyoung protagonist awakes from
cryogenic sleep and the adventure begins.
Start by collecting the Sword ofWind from the village elder and
equip it from the menus that open when pressing the select

(03:24):
button. Then use the B button to charge
your sword and release a powerful long range attack.
There are four swords and eight magic spells to collect in all,
even more items and people to help you on your way.
So let's take a look at the box art since that was off.
In People's first Impressions, we have the protagonist facing
the customer, standing in thick underbrush as he raises his
sword against surrounding monsters while a glimmering

(03:46):
tower floats in the background happening.
Any feelings about this box art?I love this box art.
It just reminds me of like the horrible sci-fi fantasy movies
from the 70s and the 80s. Oh.
It's just that's they're so bad that they're good and it's just

(04:07):
just chefs. Guests can't can't complain
about the box art. I think Mike's seen most of
those bad sci-fi movies. Yeah, I was actually going to
say the kids look kind of reminds me of the kid from
Neverending Story. I mean, I'll trade you,
absolutely. OK, I could kind of see it, it's
kind of growing on me as you guys describe it that way.

(04:27):
I I don't, I don't love this. I feel like it's kind of a got.
Everything's awash in brown and green.
Like, I don't know, I don't know, maybe it'd be too
nitpicky. The more I look, the more I
realize there's things in there like.
Yeah. I'm just noticing the two
enemies in the background. Because you thought the golem

(04:50):
was a tree. It just kind of actually it's.
Actually 3 in the background andthen the werewolf.
I have entirely misinterpreted alot of what I'm looking at now.
OK, I think this is a this is a mark of a bad cover and I'm
going to stick to that, which isbecause of how things are

(05:10):
positioned and just that it's busy and all kind of the same
colors. My first interpretation of this
that I didn't really, there's a lot to look at, was not
realizing that's a werewolf and just realizing that something in
the foreground that I thought had very large branch like arms
on either side of him. Not that there's trees on either

(05:34):
side of him and just a werewolf kind of lined up.
I think it's pretty obviously a werewolf.
I mean, when you look at it correctly, sure, but there's a
lot of, there's a lot on here. Yeah, sure is a lot.
I to your credit, I didn't realize.
Well, I I the the tower floatingin the background, it almost

(05:55):
doesn't look like it's flying. Yeah, it looks like it's on the
mountain. Mountain, right?
And I was just like, I feel likethat kind of misses the mark
because, you know, it's one of the most iconic visuals of the
game. Right.
I also wonder if this cover is the source of, or part of the
source of the massive arguments that apparently exist over how

(06:18):
to pronounce the title of this game.
Are you referring to the commercial?
Because that's what I'm basing Christallis on.
I am basing this off of the factthat the sword being the T in
this kind of opens this up to easily reading that this without
realizing that that's there and you kind of end up with a

(06:39):
crystallis or a crystallis whichapparently leads to a lot of
fighting. Yeah, OK, so happen he settled
this. Is your pick Crystallis or
Crystallis? They put money into a
commercial, did they not? Crystallis, we've settled it.
I watched a speed run on this and crystallis is how they are
pronouncing it and crystallis ishow multiple people were

(07:02):
complaining. It should be pronounced in the
donations. Got it.
What do you guys think of the Japanese box art?
Have you seen this one before? I have, and while I love the
title, I don't feel like the artis indicative of the game at
all. Mike, what he's referring to is
in Japan, this was called Godslayer, Sonata of the Faraway

(07:26):
Sky. That's a much better title.
I was just sold with Godslayer, but the rest of that man.
Now you gotta remember though, Sonata in Japanese has nothing
to do with music. It's a pronoun for a thing far
away but still dope. Like really cool.
We have our protagonist and his female companion Messiah and

(07:49):
they are both kind of drawn in manga style and the protagonist
has like this flaming sword, which is something I was missing
from the North American box art.The swords are so pivotal and
cool in this game, and you go tothe North American box art and
it looks puny, but this one, it's the it's the sort of fire,
it's encased in fire. There's the silhouettes of a
monster army in the background. The tower is floating in the

(08:11):
distance. Pretty sick.
I think Japanese boxer takes it for sure.
I mean, I wouldn't recognize that as a that that floating
tower. It looks like a chandelier to
me. OK.
We know, we know what it is because we played the game.
Yeah, between. Between that and the monster

(08:31):
army has very strong like Scooby-doo villain style to it
there like. The Grim Reaper blobs, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, Like there's the icecream monsters in one of the
scooby-doo episodes or something.
They kind of feel like they havea similar feel to them.
And then as a hero, he seems a lot older in this between this

(08:51):
and the American cover. So this game was directed by
Kazuto Kono, who also worked on SNK of arcade brawler POW,
Prisoners of War and Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf for the
NES. The game whose greatest legacy
is arguably inspired? Inspiring.
Which Simpsons joke Mike? I just fighting golf.

(09:15):
Lee Caravello's putting challenge.
OK. Remember that one?
Yes, I didn't know that part's ajoke.
I just presumed that was a real game.
No. Have you seen The Simpsons
happening? I'm not familiar with that
episode. It's the episode where Bart
wants Bone Storm and so he steals a copy and then I think

(09:38):
Marge kind of was like, oh, I asked what the game all the kids
want is and he gets this puttingchallenge thing and the end
credits bit is putting and hitting it at Max power into the
parking lot and break it like a breaking a windshield.
And it's like, would you like toplay again?

(09:58):
You have selected no and. That's also The Simpsons episode
with the Sonic cameo where he heimagined Sonic encouraging him
to steal the game. It's also the one where where
where Milhouse gets the game andit's just like, this is the best
game ever and the only thing I've done is enter my name.
And because it doesn't have enough spaces.

(10:20):
His name is Thrill. How?
That's too good. Well I got some trivia for you
guys since knowledge is NintendoPower.
Crystallis was heavily inspired by the Studio Ghibli films of
the mid 80s, most notably Castlein the Sky from 1986 and most

(10:41):
blatantly Hayao Miyazaki's 1984 post apocalyptic Nausicaa Valley
of the Wind happening. Have you seen these anime?
Are you familiar with them? Oh no, that's that's that's too
deep in the in the repertoire for me.
I'm I'm definitely surface animefan.
I I've also not seen these. I've seen a couple.

(11:01):
Mike, have you messed with Ghibli?
Yeah, I I think I own both of those.
OK. I think, but I've definitely
seen both of them. The Castle in the Sky
inspiration is pretty obvious, with the floating tower being a
pivotal central point of this game.
But like the the Foss of level 1, the giant bug, It's it's an
OM from Nausicaa. Like, oh.

(11:21):
Yeah, that's. I was going to say even I think
as I it's been a while since I've seen cows in the sky, but
cows in the sky does kind of have this fantasy world where
there's technology that is almost viewed as a on a magic
level in a sense, which I think is similar to the Baxter.
And this I think is like technology destroys the world.

(11:42):
So now technology is a weird kind of magic that's forbidden,
so there's thematic things thereas well.
It's a really interesting inversion because it's like, you
know, for a lot of Christian society, magic is this evil
thing you must not tap into. And, you know, people don't
really believe in it or whatever, or some didn't believe
in it. And then now the inverse is
here, where magic is the sure thing and science is not

(12:04):
trusted, which is weirdly prescient.
Yeah. I was going to say, I think
we're at that one. Yeah.
I've seen this episode before it.
Doesn't end well. Yeah, it almost touches because
there is. The quote of any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
In the game it says that. No, it is Arthur C Clarke.

(12:24):
Right, Right. Or as Thor said, you called it
science. My people called it magic.
I come from a place where they're one in the same.
So good. Yeah.
So the game features a nod to SNK arcade platformer Psycho
Soldier Hapney. Do you recall?
I know you're kind of a Crystallis expert.
Do you recall the strongest typeof shield and armor you can

(12:47):
find? If I'm not mistaken, it's psycho
isn't it for both? It's the psycho shield and
psycho armor. The Psycho shield and the Psycho
armor, and it's a nod for that. I didn't know that.
Yeah, and the characters Kenzu and Asena are meant to evoke
Kenzo and Athena. The two would go on to become
recurring characters in the Kingof Fighter series.

(13:07):
So kind of a cool thing there. And then finally, the story of
Cristalis has a strange history all its own.
Mike, you read the manuals for this podcast.
Did you notice that there was infact an error in the way the
story was being told in the manual?
Not. That I remember.
I think all the stuck with me out of the manual is knowing
that apparently 1997 is when this all goes down.

(13:29):
Yeah. So in the opening cutscene, it's
revealed that after a cataclysmic nuclear war, a
flying tower was created to house a supercomputer that would
stand in judgement of humanity upon activation and deem them as
either worthy of saving or deserving of extinction in order

(13:49):
to prevent another environmentalcollapse.
What a cool concept, right? What a concept, as they would
say. This this feels far too close to
something that someone's going to do and be like.
Say we solved the environment with AI.
Right, it has SpaceX written on the bottom of it.
So the supercomputer is even thefinal boss of the game, not the

(14:11):
evil emperor, which I loved as atwist.
Oh yeah, full spoilers I guess. I think those people know that
though. The manual however, states that
the tower and supercomputer werecreated by the antagonist purely
as weapons to rule over humanity, which is a lot less
interesting I would argue. Would you agree?
Yeah, I thought it was a neat concept.

(14:31):
It's to me it should have taken place in 1984 if we're going to
go with the the floating tower Big Brother concept, but I guess
97 was a distant space future for them.
Yeah, kind of appreciate that they thought the whole world was
basically going to be doomed in seven years.
Like you look at the turn aroundtime on things for like how long

(14:53):
until everything goes downhill and you get a lot where it's
like like 1984 was 30 years out from when it was written.
I think 25 or 30 to be like in under a decade, we're all doomed
is pessimistic for 1990. Like we got to finish the
Nintendo Classics catalog beforethat happens.

(15:13):
We got to start jamming. So this will piss you guys off.
When the game was ported to the Game Boy Color in 2000, the
ending of the game was rewrittenand the boss order changed to
make the old NES manual retroactively correct.
The tower and supercomputer are just baddies and you need to

(15:35):
stop them. What the heck?
Wait so for my clarification. So the error here is the manual
says one thing, but the end of the game or reveals it as
differently. The beginning of the game and
the end. OK.
The game completely contradicts its own manual, but then when it
was ported to Game Boy Color, they changed the ending of the

(15:57):
game to match the original NES manual.
Doesn't match the beginning of the game now or.
Yeah. That makes some things make way
more sense that after I finishedplaying the game this week, I
went and watched some different runs and read some different
walkthroughs and I was getting different data on the two final
boss fights. And I'm like, I don't, there's

(16:18):
no consistency here. It's very confusing.
Oh that makes that makes way more sense.
That reminds me of my wife and Isaw Anchorman 2 and we didn't
realize it was the director's cut that had like 480 new jokes.
And so the movie was different and our brains broke because
we're like, we saw this movie and every scene is different.
What's happening? Remember having vaguely that

(16:40):
with Harold and Kumar 3. Right, because you saw it pre 3.
DI saw it pre 3D but I saw it with.
There's a whole arc that they cut from what I saw and replaced
with a different arc. Are you allowed to be talking
about this? Didn't you sign an NDA?
I'm not saying what, I'm just saying they change things and I
think that expires when the movie's out.
All right, did you like the cut version better?

(17:03):
It was just that. It was just different.
It was like this thing, like where the heck?
This is not what I remembered atall.
So before we get into the joy pros and joy cons, what is our
history with Crystallis and how far do we make it through the
game happening? Why'd you pick this game and
what's your history with it? So I giggle every time you call
me an expert because I've literally only known about this

(17:25):
game for like 18 months. I started, I started playing it
last summer shortly after I'd, Idiscovered your guys podcast and
I was like, I was kind of doing the same thing on my own.
So like I told you earlier, it'skind of nice to find my tribe,
somebody that's doing something I was doing.
I'm was just going through the catalog myself and this one when

(17:47):
I came across it, I was like, and this is so fun.
I've never heard of this. I don't, I've never heard
anybody talk about it. And while it has some definite
quality of life, well, the opposite of quality of life
things wrong with it for the most part, it's a gem.
I I thoroughly enjoyed it. But yeah, I started playing it

(18:09):
last summer. I picked it up then and then
it's it's a game though. But it's like once you put it
down, it's, it's hard to pick back up that save file.
It's easier to just start it, start it over, which I've so
I've started over this game three times in the last 18
months. I'm getting emotional because
I'm pretty sure Mike, this is our first guest who is talking
about a game they played kind ofbecause of us.

(18:32):
Like that's. Sick or at least concurrent
with. No, it's because of us.
I'll give you that one. I'll give you that one.
You can have it. So more importantly, Nintendo,
did you beat this game? I'm going to answer this in two
parts. OK so whenever I play a game I
try as hard as I can to not rewind and see how far I can get

(18:54):
without using the rewind and allthis extra safe state.
I use the safe states because some of the Nintendo safe states
are funky but I tried it wouldn't to not rewind.
So without rewinding I made it to the second general Kobas
fight and I could not beat him without rewinding.
However, once once I he's ready with that sound effect.

(19:18):
Yes, once. Once I committed to cheating, I
was able to beat this game. It's not roll credits, it's not
cheating you. You intended beat it.
I'm proud of you. And also the second General
Kobesk fight that's near the end.
Like that's impressive. I guess it's it's a lot of

(19:42):
buying medical plants and antidotes and.
Stocking up, Mike, how far did you get?
So I had not heard of this game at all before so really didn't
know what to expect out of this.World map wise it reminds me a
lot of like Zelda 2 in terms of like your checkpoints are
reaching different the differenttowns.

(20:04):
I got to I guess somewhere between the second and third
town. I guess I reached a third town,
but it feels like it doesn't count.
And I reached a point where I have no idea what to do.
I think I've gone everywhere I can go.
Oh yeah. And up until watching a speed
run before this was still just confused at a couple couple

(20:27):
hours in. But it was like, I don't know
what to do. There's a house that when I go
to it was telling told me to go to a village.
I went to the village, talked toeveryone there, went back to the
house, the house told me to go to the village, went to another
village that I can't talk to anybody in.
Apparently I learned in the spade run this game has weird
issues with like the actions youhave to do to advance things not

(20:50):
at all being clear. So apparently the house that
I've been to multiple times thatkeeps telling me go to the go to
a particular village and then I go to that village and then
nothing happens. Needed me to go to the village
in the forest where I can't talk, communicate with anyone,
and then go back and some. And then I'd be able to advance
the story, which is not at all clear.

(21:13):
And so that is where I stopped because it's like I've gone to
everything and I apparently justdidn't go to everything and have
nothing happen in the right order.
Yeah. Yeah, thankfully Hapney warned
me about that. So I I've been Mike's
rpgcenter.com has been like my social media for the last couple
of weeks. Because it has.
Are you familiar with this site happening?

(21:33):
Yes, he he has the best version of a walkthrough.
It's it's amazing. For the most.
For the most part, it's definitely the most thorough and
expensive. But you know, what I like about
his walkthroughs happening is that it's just a bullet list of
telling you what to do. It doesn't tell you.
It doesn't tell you exactly whatto do.
It just tells you what to accomplish next.
And so I still felt like I was playing the game, you know?

(21:56):
Oh yeah, and the the hyperlinks between too.
So it's like, what do you mean the ring of power?
And then you click it and you jump to it like, oh, it's here
and then you can hit back. Absolutely.
I also try to play without walkthroughs, but this game
you'd be playing for months and months and months because like
like Mike said, you have to accidentally do the same thing

(22:16):
you've done four times in the right, wrong order.
Yeah, I was going to say you're,you'll be playing for about two
hours if you're not doing this in walkthroughs because that's
about. I watched your twitch stream
much after you did it and I was like oh you poor thing.
You're not using a walkthrough at all, are you?
You poor SAP. I have to stumble upon this

(22:37):
statue in the grass that nobody told me it was in the grass.
OK, great. That at least I found.
OK, yeah, see you got some chops, Mike.
So through moderate use of the rewind feature, honestly, I
didn't abuse it as much as I normally have to, which I think
is a credit to this game. I think the combat's good.
We'll get to that in a second. But through moderate use of the

(22:58):
rewind feature and egregious useof Mike's rpgcenter.com, I
nintended Beat Crystallis How many computer?
Well done. Thank you.
And I did it exactly in 10 hoursand 0 minutes.
I don't know why. I think I deserve some kind of
recognition for that. But that's interesting, right?
That is interesting. Like very nearly exactly 10

(23:23):
times the speedrun on this I believe.
Oh yeah, I when I heard the speedrun was under an hour I was
like how? I watched an older video so it
at that time when games done quick did this.
I watched two people race it andthey both finished in just a
couple minutes over an hour. I hope the one I found was like
54 minutes but I could be wrong.My my short term memory is

(23:46):
atrocious so. But yeah, it's it's around an
hour and I don't see how. A lot of tricks.
It's got to be a lot of trickeryto get it that done that fast.
So Happiny, you picked this gameand I was kind of hoping you
could start our conversation on the joy Pros of the game.
You said it's a gem. I like it too.

(24:07):
What makes it good? So I think starting off, I'm a
huge Zelda fan. I loved, I loved the original.
I played it as a small child. I did not beat it as a small
child. I don't think I've beat it as an
adult, honestly. And I feel like this was S&K's
answer for the original Zelda because Link was not.
While it is debatably a good game, bad game, whatever you

(24:29):
say, it's not an answer for Zelda.
And I feel like that was that's what S&K was trying to quench
that thirst before Link to the Past came out.
The advantages it has over Zeldastarting off is your your
character's speed. I have never played an RPG where
your character moves in all 8 directions that fast, so I love

(24:51):
the speed in which he plays. I felt like to be 1990.
The item system was pretty good and the the powering up of your
weapons very enjoyable. I love that every sword had
three tears. I like the magic.
He had a good magic system. You you you weren't a party
player, you had just yourself and you you could do magic and

(25:13):
it's not a hack and slash. But I like the action RPG
sometimes it's a it's a nice break from the turn based RPGI.
Was also struck by the speed of this thing, like it controls so
much better than Zelda Nesi don't know if it's blasphemous
to say and I'd have to go back and recheck it, but in my mind

(25:34):
it played better than even linked to the past the SNES
Zelda. There's just something about the
way the protagonist moves, the fact that you can strafe while
charging up and holding down your attack so you can keep
facing your enemy, and while youkind of back up, that little
difference makes it feel like actual combat to me.
And the fact that it was runningthis quickly on such old

(25:58):
hardware, I was actually kind ofimpressed by it.
Mike, did you like how it moved?I think how the character moved
was all right. I think this gets adjacent to
things like we try not to rush this, but it's like it's hard to
view how it moved without havingto think about how, like, hit
boxes were interacting. Yeah, yeah.
Which I was highly underwhelmed by.

(26:22):
OK, I was saving that for the joy cons.
Yeah. So it's hard to kind of be like,
well, what do you think about this?
Like, well, there's two very keyparts that it's hard to separate
out from me. I get it.
You're dipping into some Joy Conterritory.
Right, but, but, but when you'remaking your way through this
very expansive world map that isnot telling you where to go,

(26:43):
it's nice that you can cover ground.
Yes. And you can get away from the
seven enemies that surround you when you weren't prepared for
them, although you should be because they spawn in the same
place, but still. Yeah, they spawn in the same
place. I feel like their behavior is
pretty predictable in a way thatmade it kind of fun to grind, I
thought. And you know, you said the ease
of getting around the map. I love that not only does the

(27:05):
character move that quickly, butyou also unlock fast travel
through the magic spells pretty early on.
Teleport is not something I had to wait very long for and that
you can use it anywhere. Even in the middle of a level.
You can dip out and get back to town anytime you want.
That's that's pretty good. That's pretty like on the
players side in a way that I feel like Zelda sometimes didn't

(27:28):
do so well. So let me ask you this, when you
warped, which town did you warp to?
The last one that Mike's RPG Center had me go to.
Oh. Why?
Because I don't know if you noticed, but the end every time
you advance to a new level, a new town, the end price goes up.
Right. So you got to warp back to like
Bryn Mawr. So you're paying 20 bucks to

(27:48):
recharge your health and magic instead of 500 at Goa or Sahara?
You know, this, this might be why Jackie handles my finances.
But it never occurred to me to teleport to the cheap town
because your rest is just as good.
I just kept getting annoyed thatevery new city it's like, oh,
now it's $700.00 a night. I'm like, what happened to 10 or
whatever it was? Oh, that's so funny.

(28:11):
I'm just a chump that way. I like how this game looks.
I think that, you know, it's forthe most part, it's really
colorful. There's like some depth of field
to some of the shots. The characters have these really
thick black outlines. Like I think comparing it to
Zelda on the NES and yes, this was years later, but it's it's
kind of starkly better happening.

(28:31):
Would you agree? Then visually, then Zelda,
absolutely. It's, but I mean it also had
five years to advance, I believe.
What Zelda 85? But it's it's yes.
But it's really cool to see likewhat you can get out of a system
the same hardware five years later.
This is what devs are pulling off.
Kind of a huge leap, I think. I mean, it's not really the same

(28:53):
hardware. Oh, because it's running off the
cartridge. Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I guess I'm thinking of it
in modern term. But design wise, yeah,
absolutely. I felt, I felt like it was
definitely closer to a Super Nintendo game for sure.
It feels really impressive for 8bits.
There's all these little effects.
I really like the way that when you kill an enemy with the water

(29:14):
sword, they like explode into drops.
And I love when you're charging up your attacks in this game.
Mike Is it protons or electrons that orbit the nucleus of an
atom? Electrons, electrons.
So like there's this cool effectwhere like energy kind of swirls
around you almost like an electron circling an atom.
Still images just don't do this game justice.
I think the way that it moves isone of the most impressive

(29:36):
things about it. Mike what you think of the
music? You've been enjoying some of the
soundtracks from games we've covered recently.
You like the music, right? I'm be honest on this one, I
can't remember any of the music.No happening.
So to my own detriment, playing this game early on, I am.
I don't usually have the music on.
It's it's one of those things oftrying to keep those kids
asleep. You just be as quiet as you can.

(29:59):
So I would usually play with it off and then I found out later
on that I was actually making itmore difficult on myself because
of that mechanic where if your sword wasn't powerful enough to
kill an enemy, it made a tink sound.
Yes. So when I started playing with
the volume because I needed to hear if I was doing damage or

(30:20):
not, I actually did enjoy most of the music in the game.
My test for good game music is that if I unplugged the
headphones by the way happening you know they make headphones
right? Like can I mail you some
headphones like you can hear your games?
Well, I got to be able to hear them scream because you never

(30:42):
know when a 2:00 AM brawl is going to kick off, so.
You can use just one headphone. Like I'm basically just using
one headphone all the time. But you know Mike, he's a good
dad. He needs to hear all sides of
the room. This is why we don't have kids
because we would just listen to the music and not tend to the 2
year old brawl. Yeah, you got to know whether or

(31:02):
not the two year old's doing damage.
If you hear the tink, you know it's.
There's a lot of, there's a lot of tink sounds when they fight.
Well, I feel bad for saying thisnext Joy Pro because I think
it's going to make Mike really mad, but I thought this game was
actually pretty good at communicating things to the
player. Like I think the heads up
display I'm showing on the screen right here, you got to

(31:24):
give them credit. They've packed a lot of
information for the player in like an eighth of the screen.
You see your life, how much yourattack is charged up, how much
money you have, what level you are, how many experience points
until the next level, and how many magic points you have.
Like, I feel like a lot of RPGs I've played, I have to pause to
find out things like that, and so I appreciate it always being

(31:45):
down there. Do you guys like that?
Did you find the HUD kind of nice?
Well, the the HUD had to put everything on the screen because
if you had to pause to check allof your status, you'd never be
unpaused. Between that and changing your
swords, you would just be pausedthe entire game.
But no, I I really did like the display.
It was I I thoroughly enjoyed being able to see my status.

(32:08):
Yeah. And I think experience, that was
huge, actually, But I had to grind for both money and for
experience at different points, which because that's a lot of
the game. Yeah.
In just two hours, most of that game was, oh, I'm just going to
have to grind for a while for something.
And it being there was very helpful because it meant it was

(32:29):
real quick to figure out like, oh, this is how much these are
doing. I need to grind something that's
worth more experience. Right.
Or, you know, I could pace a lotmore off of that.
So that portion of displaying stuff I think was done very well
like that, communicating my current stats.
This game did well. And in a way, aren't we all

(32:49):
grinding for money and experience?
Whoa, Apne mentions the elemental swords.
I like the elemental sword system in this game.
Mike, how many of these did you get?
Just one. So just the sort of wind.
Yes, I guess. So, Hap, do you have a favorite?
So the sort of Thunder, sort of wind, sort of water and sort of

(33:10):
fire or crystallis. Definitely the definitely the
sort of Thunder. Yeah.
What makes it so good? It's more so the the area of
effect with your tier, your Tier1 charge.
Yeah, because what I don't remember which, which one of the
rings was it one of the rings you could put on and it would.

(33:32):
The Warrior Ring. It would skip, yeah, you would
skip your Tier 1 and go straightto your Tier 2 or tier Tier 1
without charging. That's what it was.
Which is huge. So so that's that might be one
of the things I love most about this game is that it really bugs
me how in a lot of Zelda's you can only do your long range
sword attack at full health. Yeah, this game is like, no,

(33:53):
you're going to have your long range sword attack the whole
time because it's fun to use. You're just going to charge it
up. And so towards the end of the
game there is an item that instantly charges level 1.
So you basically become like a button masher and it's kind of
like a shooter at that point. Yeah, and it has a the The
Lightning Sword has the, the Thunder sword has the the
shotgun spray, it has the three bolts that come out.

(34:15):
And so you don't have to be headon with that hit box.
And Mike was talking about to knock knock enemies back, which
becomes important when they're swarming.
And then, you know, level 2, youcharge it up a little bit.
Now it's an eight way spreadshot.
So basically the entire part of the screen you're facing and
then it's super attack is a realstunner.
The screen goes black, lightningstrikes the entire screen and

(34:40):
your enemies flashing silhouettes are hit.
It's it's one of the most impressive things I've ever seen
in NES. Do I don't know, happy?
Am I exaggerating? No, it's it's definitely the the
tier threes for all of the swords, but the yeah, the the
the last one. It just it sucks that you didn't
play a whole lot of the game with it.
Yeah. I think the decision to have the

(35:02):
swords separate from health, different from the way Zelda
does it, also becomes critical. Because in Zelda, that's just
sort of like a perk of OK, I canuse the sword to hit people at a
distance, but this required you to be able to charge up to get
through things. Yes.
Because you don't have bombs to blast through walls and then the

(35:24):
ice sword would make you bridgesacross water.
Which I love doing every time. Every time I made a bridge I was
like, this is that feels cool. It makes it cool like sound
effect. I just, I've heard some people
complain that the game is too repetitive, but like I think
that when you have a really goodsystem like this, you know the
swords and you know, the combat they're in and the different

(35:47):
elements having different tricksand spread fires and super
attacks. I'm like, I don't mind that it's
repetitive because it's always fun to use these things.
I was a big fan of the sword system.
I think that the story has some really memorable moments
happening. Do you have any favorite like
highlights from the Crystallis arc?
Honestly, that's that's kind of a fall off for me.

(36:11):
This the game, I did not enjoy it, but I I felt like it was
kind of all over the place. And maybe that's with me only
being a surface level anime fan where I'm like, I don't, I don't
really know what's going on, butI'm having fun doing it.
I just feel like there's a lot of moments that are going to
really stick in my mind. So at one point you get an item

(36:33):
to ride a dolphin around the sea, you have to avoid
whirlpools, and you kind of havelike this cool sort of fast
travel mechanic. In one of the final boss fights,
the big villain turns into a dragon and he has a attack that
can just turn you into a helpless slime in the middle of
the boss fight. It's so stressful, and then like
the end of the game when you finally get to the flying tower

(36:55):
and now for the first time, it'slike a horde mode where you
don't explore the tower. You have to defeat enough
enemies to open the door to get to the next one.
So I really like it when in the third act of a game, the
gameplay style switches up a little bit.
Mike mentioned. So Mike, when you were getting
stuck and didn't know where to go, did you use the telepathy

(37:16):
spell? I don't.
I did not think. I don't think I had a telepathy
spell. Okay, because you get it pretty
early on, don't you happening? Yeah, it's, let's see, it's
revive and then I think it's thefourth spell that you get.
But let me just step in here. I misunderstood your question.
I thought you just meant the story itself.

(37:38):
Was there anything memorable from the story itself, not the
actual gameplay? Yeah.
So yeah, there was a lot of fun moments in in the the game
itself, but I, I, I really enjoyed the challenge of the
actual tower and the enemies andthen the, the data sentry.
That was that was a lot of fun for me.

(37:58):
And then getting to actually useChrysalis.
Yeah, the titular sword. For for 4 minutes of the game.
Yeah, she's like, it's like a big energy ball, but I don't
know, like dipping in Joy Con territory.
But that thing took the final boss out fast for me.
Well, yeah, so. Far I was, I was.
Shocked. Yeah.

(38:19):
And I also found a spot right atthe edge of the doormat to the
final boss fight. And like, if you stand there,
nothing hits you. So I accidentally had a cake
walk with the final boss. Nice.
So, Mike, any Joy pros of the game that we didn't touch upon
already? Not for me, I don't think so.
OK, happy. Do you have anything else to say
in praise of the game? And I think we're kind of

(38:41):
covered a lot of what makes it really cool.
I just, I don't know, I just feel like there's a lot of
there's a lot of Nintendo DNA. Yeah.
When you, when you look at it just, and you can see it in
different games, like just just this little still you have up
here. The dolphin looks like something
out of Mario, the bug from the forest.
I mean, I know it's from that Studio Ghibli film, but to me

(39:02):
that looks like Metroid. Yeah.
And then the the Emperor in his true form.
I'm trying to think of it's Demon's Quest I think is the
name of the game or possibly a Castlevania type in.
I just, I feel like it's, it's definitely a lot of fun aspects
of NES games wrapped into one when you just look at the
artwork of the game itself. Aesthetically, it kind of dips

(39:25):
into a lot of little nostalgia wells for us, doesn't it?
Absolutely. I didn't finish my question or
my point about the telepathy spell.
So Mike, you unlock a spell where you can, at any point in
the game, pick one of the four supporting characters to ask for
advice, and they will tell you where to go next sometimes.
But what makes the game feel very lived in in real, is that

(39:47):
sometimes they'll have no idea how to help you because they've
never been where you were at. And every now and then the wise
man will get like, annoyed that you're telepathically calling at
a late hour or whatever. My favorite use of telepathy.
Do you happening? Do you recall what happens if
you talk to animals after learning this spell?
Yeah, I don't know if I did. So bunnies will now have

(40:09):
dialogue because you can read their minds.
Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Was it telep? Oh, sorry.
The telepathy. Not teleport Telepathy.
Yeah, yeah, You had to talk to the But I know that.
I know the the rabbit in the sheds like everybody's dead.
You need to go here. Yeah, and I wonder if that's
maybe where Mike got stuck because the rabbit wasn't
talking to him. But Mike mentioned that he went

(40:30):
to a town where he couldn't talkto anyone.
And so after you learn, so you there's this one town, it's a
dwarven village, and everyone you talk to, every NPC says go
in peace. But after learning telepathy,
you find out they're saying really hateful stuff about
humans. And like, I don't know if you
guys can relate to that feeling of like you walk past someone
who's speaking a language you don't and you have that

(40:52):
irrational fear that they're saying bad things about you.
This was that nightmare come to life for me.
But they definitely were. You know, there was just a
thing. The show Homeland, I think OK,
had hired people to write graffiti, that they needed
Arabic graffiti on the set, OK? And the people that they hired

(41:13):
basically wrote stuff talking about apparently how racist the
show Homeland is 0. My.
Fantastic. And nobody knew that they did
that because nobody on set knew Arabic.
And I think it aired that way. Oh my gosh.
That is the best of my understanding to a headline I
saw today, so that may or may not be accurate, but it is

(41:38):
relevant in the way that I have remembered it.
And the fact that they wouldn't have hired anybody for quality
control on that is just fantastic.
Mike, now you're a 2025 podcast.You're like, this is my truth.
This is my. I just really think that
Crystallis, it's impressive to play.

(41:58):
It feels very lived in. I really liked it.
Oh. I'm adding a thing I remembered
now that I did like the dialoguestuff, which was on this to talk
to people. You just kind of walked into
them. Yeah.
And that you didn't have to likeline up correctly and hit a
button. That's a Joy Pro for you.

(42:20):
After some of the games we have played, Oh my gosh, it's a it is
so much of A Joy Pro. I can't make it through the town
without having the same 66 second conversation with a
person over and over and over because they won't get out of
your way. There's a little bit of that,
but having to chase people down and, you know, because people
are moving and it won't interact, right?
And it's like, why'd you say tryto talk to empty airs?

(42:42):
Like because there's a person there when I hit that button.
Well, and Mike's referring mostly to fantasy *4, which not
only if you try to talk to someone and miss, you get
chastised for it. They say stop wasting time.
And it's like I'm trying to talkto the guy, let me talk to the
guy. All right, guys.
Well, so before we get into the joy cons of the game, I wanted
to play a bit of a cringy mini game minute.

(43:03):
If it's all right with you guys,we're going to call it Frozen in
time in this mini game. It has two inspirations, one
happening. Have you ever seen the
commercial for Crystallis? I, I watched it the first time I
played it through and it it, it definitely harkened back to that
those seventies 80s movies I wastalking about for sure.

(43:25):
Yeah, but what's weird is that there's not a scrap of gameplay
in the in the trailer and this game looks good, like they
should have shown the game. It's it's just absolutely.
And it has this really bad tagline, which is, are you up to
the challenge? And the commercial pauses like I
did, like he's trying to remember the line.

(43:46):
And that's the take they went with.
But since Crystallis has this, really?
Cool takes and that's the best one.
That was the best one. That's what they went with.
I'm Ron Burgundy. There's the Anchorman reference
again. Rule of Threes.
I love it. So I really love how this game
opens. It's a fantasy game, but the

(44:08):
first thing you see are computerscreens and it's like there's
this sequence happening and you can see like data being read and
it's like very technological. And you wake up from a crystal
chrysalis. You know, when you think about
it, every fantasy video game starts with looking at a
computer screen. Was that worth it?
Was that worth it, Mike? It was worth it to me.

(44:28):
OK, yes, when it goes Sega the wrong one.
No. What is this one baby?
Anyway? You ruined my flow.
The way this game is gonna work is that I am going to read you
boys a tagline from a movie, TV show or video game that features
characters coming out of cryogenic sleep.
OK, blurt it out if you know it,but since so much of Crystallis

(44:52):
is about like time and the passage of time, the player who
didn't get the answer first can get a point if they know the
year the movie was released or the game or the show or
whatever. OK, so you guys understand,
blurt out if you know the answerand then the second player gets
to guess the year. Any questions?
Go for. It ready Mike?
Yep, OK, first one and you can interrupt me if you want to man.

(45:14):
Haunted, caged, forced to mate by civilized.
Apes Planet of the Apes. One point for Mike Happney.
Any idea when Planet of the Apeswas released And no Googling?
So tempting. I don't know, 76 for the first

(45:35):
one maybe? Pretty close 1968.
Oh sue, is it older? I wanted to say 60s, but I
didn't want to offend anybody. That's hard to offend us.
All right. Ready for this one?
Frozen in the 60s Foster. Powers.
OK, thawing this spring happening.

(45:55):
Howard, 97. Yes, it was.
That's easy, you put it on the poster.
They put it on the poster. I didn't.
This is just the poster of the movie.
All right. This one's fun.
Round 30. There's 7 total.
The future ain't what it used tobe.
Demolition Man. No, OK, I want you to remember

(46:18):
that you said that. Idiocracy.
Good guesses. One more time, the future.
Back to the future too. But it's gotta be a character
waking up from cryogenic sleep, remember?
Yeah, sorry. That's my turn.
Go for it, Mike. Well, I mean, you can guess
again. He doesn't know it's.
Can I reveal it? Yeah.
Yeah. Futurama.

(46:39):
Yeah. I didn't think about shows.
Yeah, you're right, you did. So you did play chosen games?
Yeah, I forgot about shows as well.
Anybody know when the first episode aired?
99. You can't stop looking at the
posters. No, I did.
I watched Futurama, I just didn't think about Fry getting
froze. But you were right in 1999.
So tie game two to two, all right?

(47:01):
The 21st century's most dangerous cop, The 21st
century's most. There we go, Mike, your release.
I have no idea on this. Take a wild stab. 89.
Pretty close, 93. All right.
How many pulls into the lead? This one?

(47:22):
I don't think it's really thought of as having A tag line.
There's two. I'll read you the first one.
The world deserves a better ending.
It's a good tag line, huh? The world deserves a better
ending. Or the tag line that I think
makes it easier to guess. Get wasted, get wasted.

(47:42):
Going once, going twice, yeah. I got nothing.
Fallout. Any of you guys know when the
show was released? O24. 2024 Here we go, two more
where the Stone Age meets the Rock Age.
Oh Encino man. Yes, happeny Encino man Mike,
any idea release year? Well, I'm thinking fun Side

(48:06):
Story. I heckled Neil deGrasse Tyson
about this once. About Encino man.
Yes, because he was giving us talk about the premise was sort
of a point of like how many molecules there are in the
atmosphere is the idea of like when one breath of atmosphere
you are breathing in a molecule that would have been briefed by
kind of any historic figure. And the ones he used were all

(48:28):
the ones from Bill and Ted. And then he's like, does anyone
know why I picked these ones? Like, people like, yeah, Bill
and Ted said, yeah. And he kind of gives a quick
summary of that. But he says that Bill and Ted
takes place in Encino. Oh, and I did yell San Dimas.
Yeah, especially the crowd was on your side.

(48:50):
Yeah, because I mean, if if anyone's going to appreciate
pedantically correcting someone,it should be Neil deGrasse
Tyson. I am going to guess 1986. 1992.
Yeah, Ollie Shore was a a wee child in 86.
Right. I forgot he's in that Encino,

(49:10):
man was not has never been on myrate radar like I've seen it
once. OK.
Stop wheezing on my grindage, Mike.
If he's seen it once, it was briefly on his radar.
No, it was below the radar. I have more than just radar.
I also have sonar that covers the lower stuff.
OK, well, last one happen. He's walking away with this one,

(49:31):
but just for Rhode Island, RhodeIsland and Butch and Derek.
This one is an unofficial tagline.
Open your eyes. I know it might be you.
Nope happeny. You play anything more modern on
the switch? I think he's going to wait till
we get to this game in like 15 years.

(49:51):
It's it's either Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, I
can't remember which. It's Breath of the Wild.
That game begins with Link awake, awakening from like
thousands of years of slumber. OK, well Hapney wins its handily
with the five points. That was fun you guys.
Let's get back to our discussionof Crystallis and wrap it up
with the joy cons. So Mike, you had a rough time.

(50:13):
What else did you not like aboutthe game?
Checking the list Oh. Yeah, it's a long one, I.
Don't know how to use items. It's a little Yeah, I.
Selected items I thought I hit buttons.
Items didn't seem to do anythinglike I tried to.

(50:33):
I cuz I picked up stuff for being poisoned and stuff and I
could not get it to trigger. Yeah, sometimes you have to.
Sometimes they activate with theB button, the sense of the A
button. It's not consistent, but I never
had a situation where I just couldn't use it.
Did that ever happen to you? Happening.
No. Although I do, I do feel like

(50:54):
almost any, any time I went to use it, I hit the wrong button
first. Yeah.
Like I don't know if if you had magic equipped at the same time
as an item, if they just didn't work or what, but yeah, I didn't
like that. It wasn't very intuitive of what
the items did. It's like antidote cures poison.

(51:15):
Lyme is petrification and thingslike that, but it's like it.
It doesn't tell you that when atthe shop.
It's just like medical herb antidote plant ring.
At least the manual did have like a listing of all of it.
Yeah, it's one of those games. Did it?
Did it say what they did it say what they did though?

(51:36):
Yeah, it had like a page on eachof like these are the different.
Each category of items had like a page.
Oh well. It even includes the quest
items, like you're gonna use this to calm the angry sea.
So like, that was surprisingly thorough, but I get what
happened. He's saying it's like, I don't
know what a. Fruit of Repune is.
It's a fruit that punes again. There you go.

(51:58):
Yeah, I think not the description part of it, which is
just always an issue. And I think with a lot of these
where they expect you to have the manual handy and so they
just didn't bother like as far as things go, like at least
these were like full words, which is better than some games
have been. That's fair.
I don't hold it against it. That's it's definitely not one
of my joy cons. It was, it was just definitely
something that wasn't a pro either.

(52:19):
Yeah. But I was going to say, I think
I do think of some of this issuereally just sort of reflecting
that this is dealing with later and NES not as not as later in
as it would get, but later in NES where their ambitions have
start started to out scale what the controller could do right?

(52:41):
Because this is that kind of deal.
We were like, oh, if this had other additional buttons, a lot
of this would be a lot less frustrating.
And I think that does kind of reflect that.
If you gave this same game an SNES controller, a lot of this
becomes a lot less frustrating because that allows you to go OK
I now have multiple buttons to work with beyond 2.

(53:02):
Yeah, it would have been amazingif like you could use the
trigger buttons to change to your elemental sword.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, because happening.
Why would that be nice? Because you'll be in a small
quarter and then you'll be fighting 2 wyverns and one eyed
spider, and one of them's not damaged by fire and the other
one's not damaged by wind and soyou're dodging too while trying

(53:26):
to kill the other. And then you have to change
swords. And it's annoying because to use
the long range powered up magic you have to also equip the right
bracelet or Powerball and you can't mix and match.
Like I can't use the fire sword with the Thunderball.
That would have been cool. That would have been, yeah, that
would have been a really neat mechanic.
But all it does is that if you have the wrong bracelet

(53:48):
equipped, now you're limited to your level 1 attack.
And so essentially you are changing swords a lot, which
means that in the middle of combat, you are seeing that menu
and you're having to equip your sword and your bracelet.
Or in other words, like 4 extra clicks that were totally
unnecessary. Like that kind of graded at me

(54:10):
after a while. And yeah, I don't know, I just
kind of feel like the bosses arekind of underwhelming a little
bit. Like, I kind of feel like they
blew their budget on that first giant bug fight because
nothing's really that cool againuntil the end of the game.
Yeah, all the the all of the bosses feel like the
difficulties there for sure. But yeah, they're they all just

(54:32):
feel like mini bosses. They just feel like a mini boss
run. Yeah, and then the final boss,
like I said. Dinah, I loved it.
It was a whole a whole stage. I loved it.
And that's really cool too, because like the perspective for
the final boss, it's unlike any other room in the rest of the
game because it's like over the shoulder kind of like you're
seeing you're seeing down into the room itself.

(54:54):
And I just love anytime a boss fight really sticks in my mind.
I think this one's going to. To me, that fight could have
definitely been longer, yes. It was giving you made the cool
Nintendo comparisons. It was giving like Mother Brain
kind of vibes of like this big actually it's kind of a brain
shaped computer actually kind ofstuck on the wall there.
Well guys, do you have any otherjoy cons before we reach our

(55:16):
verdict for tonight? Oh, absolutely.
Oh, you do have joy cons. Yeah, I have a few.
Get them off your chest happy. I can tell it's weighing you
down. I've.
Been waiting anything that flieson this game.
Yeah. Any enemy that flies because it
flies off screen and I don't mind dodging.

(55:38):
I don't mind the difficulty of dodging something, but when it's
off screen for 90% of the time it's attacking you, it makes it
very difficult to even. It's just not.
It's like now I'm just wasting mana or items healing something
that shouldn't even need to healbecause it's like a tiny little

(55:58):
bath, but because it's flying non-stop.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's hard to hit.
And it's also frustrating too, because when your swords fully
powered up, you don't want to hold down charge for too long,
otherwise you're doing your giant attack and wasting magic
points. Your your tier 3 that was that
was my next. I feel like if I should be able
to charge while I'm moving. I like that you couldn't do that

(56:21):
because I would move to prevent it from going to Level 3 and
wasting magic. Which yes, so stopping it from
to Level 3 is. I get that, but then they should
have just separated the braceletand the ball.
Yeah. So it's like, if I only want my
sword to go up to level 2, I should be able to have that
option so I'm not wasting magic just because it takes so long to

(56:43):
charge your sword And when you're running from three
enemies that herald projectiles and then something that flies.
It's just, I, I get it. It's, it's, it's a Nintendo game
and it's difficult. It's just, it was a, it was a
qualm for me that wasn't necessary.
But I mean, if it's a designer'schoice, then that's fine.
I didn't enjoy it. The hitbox that Mike was talking

(57:04):
about where it's like you shouldhave been facing that way to
attack with your sword, but for some reason you were not.
Yeah, and it also has like some Sprite tearing sometimes.
Like it's not, it's not perfect.Was there a way to see the
invisible enemies? There was this one cave, or a
couple of caves where you'd see their shadow on the ground.

(57:25):
I don't know what that is and I I couldn't even find it in the.
Beastiary, right? Like I was like, what is that?
It's just a hole in the ground that you can't.
Attack. I thought it was an invisible
enemy and I would get glasses and then be able to see them
later. That's what it felt like.
I don't know, I just ran or flewme.
Too. I don't have time to figure this

(57:45):
out. I'm too close to end game.
I'm out. I love the flying animation.
We're just floating. I don't know.
And I mean, I'm getting back into Joy Pros, but I like the
flying, the hopping any time I'mon a dolphin.
And this game kind of felt like it had dynamic movement.
And again, it moves so well, butstop being positive.
Jeremy, I do sort of appreciate that when your life is fairly

(58:08):
low, your life bar looks like a text lightsaber.
Mike is grasping for pros here. Anything else to complain about
you guys? Just just one and I'm done.
I promise. No, no, take your time.
I want to hear it. The Emperor 2 fight.
Yeah, four shoot. And then maybe this was my

(58:28):
fault. It took me two hours to figure
out that I had to shoot him withthe Bow of Truth to get him in
his final form. Yeah.
So I'm just attacking the Emperor 2 and it's not a fight
you can win. Correct.
And I'm like, I'm not even doingdamage to him, but sometimes it
makes the tink sound and sometimes it doesn't.

(58:49):
I went around and round and round, I was like, this has got
to be close to the final boss. I don't want to look up how to
do it. And then even after I looked up
how to do it, I'm looking at walkthroughs and they're doing
the same thing I'm doing. No, nobody knows.
And then finally this one guy's like, oh, no, I got to shoot him
with this bow of truth. I'm like, oh, that's what that's
for. And it's weird because like, you

(59:11):
know, when you get it, you're like, oh cool, I found a bow and
arrow. I finally have a long range.
That's not my charge. It doesn't do anything.
I should have known because you had to shoot those two statues
with the other two bows, but it was just so in the back of my
mind, I wasn't thinking about it.
And then he gets in his final form and it's like one of these
your boss fights. Yeah, yeah, he's not so bad once
he transforms. As long as you're good at

(59:34):
dodging it's it's like OK. The other form was way more
difficult. And like, you know, you
mentioned that tink sound the frustrating, I'm not doing any
damage. It really drove me nuts how like
sometimes there'd be a purple enemy in a cave and the fire
would kill it and then a purple enemy right next to it would
tink with the fire sword. It was like, I feel like we
could have color-coded this and saved me, saved me a lot of

(59:56):
time. Absolutely.
All right, guys. Well, I think if that settles
it, we're going to move on to the.
End of the show here. We've covered the Joy Pros, the
Joy Cons, and every bit in between.
So it's time to declare Crystallis as a Nintendo or a
Nintendo Don't happening. What's your verdict?

(01:00:17):
I think it's a Super Nintendo. I really do.
It's not quite a 64. It's it's not a perfect game by
any means, but if you enjoy the earlier Zelda games, I think
it's going to scratch an itch you didn't know you had.
I That's the perfect way to say it for me.
I would like to say if you didn't like the early Zelda

(01:00:37):
games then this is going to be in that same spot out as well.
And that and that's fair. It's definitely not for
everybody. That's why I didn't make it a
64. Yeah, so I, I for me, this is a
Nintendo and I think a lot of that frustration and things
become like, Oh yeah, you reallyneed to be using it for a guide
is kind of the same, the exact same problem I had the original

(01:00:58):
Zelda. Well, Hapney and I overrule you
because for me it's definitely aNintendo.
I think this gets shortchanged when it's described as just a
Zelda clone, because to me it combines everything I like about
any as Zelda and a lot of the cool things they added in Zelda
2. That's right, all the cool
things from Zelda 2. So this scratches A niche for

(01:01:20):
me. I think this is definitely one
of the better top down RPGs I'veplayed.
And you consider that this is anNES game, it's even more
impressive. So I'm going to say just a solid
Nintendo for me. I think everyone here should
check it out. Well, that brings us here to the
final verdict, which is a Nintendo happening.
Thank you so much for being withus.

(01:01:41):
It has been a long time coming and it's been great talking to
you. Pleasure to be here man, this is
a lot of fun and I appreciate you having me.
Let's do it again. We got to do it again.
We're doing it again. Everyone join us next time.
And we'll be wrapping up this season of the old switcheroo
with our 16th bit retrospective season finale.
We're going to have some awards to pass out, some trivia

(01:02:02):
questions to answer, and some stars to wish upon.
You're not going to want to missit.
Also, don't forget to visit www.theoldswitcharoo.com.
There you can find links to our Spotify, our YouTube, our
Instagram, and all the social medias you can shake a joystick
at. You can even leave an old timey
voicemail, meaning we would literally love to hear from you.
Or even better, join the fun on our Discord server where you can

(01:02:24):
play games, talk games, and evenmake a friend or two happen.
He's in there, I'm in there, Mike's in there.
It's going to be a good time. Big thanks to Crystal Fields for
our incredible intro song, and thank you, dear listener for
liking, commenting, subscribing,reviewing, and playing along
with us every step of the way. This has been the old switcheroo
where we've been talking gaming retro with Mike and Jamo.

(01:02:45):
I've been Mike. And I've been jamo game on
everyone. This is the most interested my
dad's ever going to have been inthe podcast because I have a

(01:03:05):
train story now. Well, at what capacity did you
work for Norfolk Pacific? So I was a conductor.
Did I say it wrong, Mike? I think actually it's it's
Norfolk Pacific now. Yeah, Mike.
Not, not technically, but yeah, they Norfolk just got bought out
by Union Pacific, so we don't know what they're going to do

(01:03:26):
with it. It's only going to be Norfolk
Pacific if it's being named by the same people that are now
naming college football conferences.
That was a sports joke that I did.
Not get the PAC 12 has two teamsin it, Yeah.
Berkeley is in the in the Atlantic.
The NFL is just as bad, though Dallas is in the NFC East.
Oh, I can't stand the NFC East. I don't know what that is.

(01:03:48):
You have. I'm not your tribe when it comes
to sports. That's OK.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S3E15: Crystalis -or- Periodic Fable of Elements