Cris Tales Review (Nintendo Switch)

Cris Tales is a game that offers an interesting challenge to players. The game has a number of different levels, each with their own challenges and puzzles. It’s also one of the few games on the Nintendo Switch that will actually make you work for your victory.

The cris tales switch review is a game that has been released for the Nintendo Switch. It is a platformer about a boy who travels through different worlds and battles with monsters to save his kidnapped sister.

I can think of a long list of incidents from my history that I would change or undo if I had the power to manipulate time, which is presumably why I don’t. With the capacity to manipulate time comes the opportunity to manipulate causality, and anybody who has seen Ashton Kutcher in The Butterfly Effect knows how deadly such a capability can be. When someone is causing havoc in history, the only thing you can do is send a time police after them, and our newest recruit in Cris Tales is none other than a young orphan girl.

The Time Empress, an all-powerful, apparently immortal Time Mage aiming to seize the seat of power in the ancient city of Crystallis, is laying siege to four kingdoms in a far-off fantasy world. Crisbell, an orphan child residing in the city of Narim, is unconcerned about the terror campaign. When she accidentally unlocks Time Mage skills thanks to a strange frog in a top hat, she finds herself forced into a quest to uncover the mystery of powers and rescue the world from the Time Empress, with youthful spellcaster Cristopher and childish Time Mage Willhelm.

Cris Tales touts itself as an homage to SNES-era JRPGs, and it shows off its inspirations in a big way. The story’s overall framework recalls me a lot of titles like Chrono Trigger, with a dash of Tales of here and there. In addition to the battle against the Time Empress, which Crisbell and company are often drawn into in classic JPRG protagonist manner, each kingdom has its own issues and politics. While the narrative isn’t very original, it has a high production value, with almost every line of dialogue completely spoken, not to mention a lovely storybook look.

While the voice acting was great, I spotted numerous errors in the written language throughout my playing, including misspellings, missing punctuation, strange font shifts, and even completely incorrect phrases. Furthermore, during in-game sequences, certain sounds and animations seemed to be glitched or absent. None of it was distracting enough to make me lose interest in the narrative, but it was annoying at times, particularly during pivotal scenes.

When it comes to pivotal times, Cris Tales’ main problem-solving strategy is to use your knowledge of the past and future to affect the present. Crisbell can nearly always see the past, present, and future all at once, and she can listen in on conversations and retrieve things lost to history with the aid of her froggy companion Matias. I wouldn’t call these moments “puzzles” since the game generally makes it obvious when it’s time to go ahead or backward, but in all honesty, I enjoy a little brevity in this situation. I’ve had far too many painfully difficult puzzles in JPRGs, so it’s great to have something simple for a change, particularly because completing these little puzzles will subtly influence the story’s path.

Every major narrative segment will have a pivotal point when you must make a choice that will have long-term consequences for the kingdoms and their inhabitants. There is no right or wrong solution here; the main narrative follows one path, but based on your choices, it may take many different twists and turns. 

The dungeon-crawling portions of the game are likewise built around these temporal shenanigans. The dungeons are fairly standard JRPG material, with a lot of similarities to Chrono Trigger and Paper Mario. Your journey is largely linear, but you’ll sometimes have to take a detour to solve a little challenge in the surroundings. Some of them depend on the surroundings, such as navigating a subterranean sewer’s rushing rivers, while others make use of Crisbell’s temporal manipulation skills. Crisbell gets the power to repair and decay environmental items, producing footholds and opening pathways, after a while in the game.

There are some interesting problem-solving options, but I wish the dungeons had more quality-of-life features, such as a quicker run or an immediate exit item, since a combination of a high opponent encounter rate and excruciatingly lengthy load times can make even short dungeons a chore. You can acquire an equippable item that prevents encounters, but you won’t receive it until the fourth kingdom, and even then, it’s simply something you purchase from the store, so it’s easy to overlook.

Let’s speak about fighting while we’re on the topic of encounters. It’s typical fare; you’ve got a squad of three party members in the middle of the arena, flanked on all sides by opponents. Crisbell may push enemies into the past or the future, changing their attributes and abilities, depending on where they are standing. Most adversaries don’t necessarily become weaker with time; they simply get different. In the present, an enchanted knight, for example, may utilize both magic and swordplay. She’s too young to wield magic but capable of quicker swordplay in the past, and she’s too weak for a sword in the future, but her magic has been amplified. Of course, that’s not all; by combining Crisbell’s time manipulation skills with those of her pals, she can shift the tide in her favor.

Cristopher smashes an armored opponent with a ball of water, which is a hilarious example taught during the first boss fight. When Crisbell transports that adversary into the future, their strength has increased somewhat, but their armor has rusted away, leaving them vulnerable. Almost every boss battle requires some low-key time or element-based problem solving, but they’re never so difficult that you can’t figure them out in a few of rounds, much like the sidequests.

Of course, I’d be negligent if I didn’t note another lost opportunity for bettering one’s quality of life. Using Willhelm’s Scan ability is the only method to see an enemy’s health. It’s permanent after you’ve done it once, which is great for normal opponents, but if you want to Scan bosses, Willhelm must remain in the party for the whole battle, since there’s no option to swap out party members in the middle of a fight. In addition, although a KO’d party member receives EXP at the conclusion of a battle, inactive party members do not, which is an old JRPG oddity I wish would simply go away.

Overall, Cris Tales is a nice enough JRPG that might have benefited from a bit more time in the oven. The narrative is engaging enough to keep you interested, even if it is a bit uncomfortable at times, and although I wish the encounter rate wasn’t so high, the fighting has enough rhythm and diversity to prevent things from becoming monotonous. If you’re looking for a complex RPG where every fight is a huge conundrum in and of itself, you won’t find it here, but if you want to experience a bit of that 90s-era RPG love, Cris Tales is the game for you. During such dungeons, you may want to have a YouTube video or anything playing in the background, just in case you have to travel back and forth up a hill a few times to solve an environment problem.

Score

7 / 10

“It’s quite good,” says the narrator.

Cris Tales is a new Nintendo Switch game that is worth playing. The game has a lot of content and a great story line. Reference: cris tales ps5 review.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Cris tales coming to Switch?

Unfortunately, this is a question that cannot be answered.

How hard is Cris tales?

Cris Tales is a fairly hard game. It requires the player to use their reflexes and hand-eye coordination in order to succeed.

What is the best looking game on Switch?

That is difficult to say, but I would recommend checking out The Legend of ZeldBreath of the Wild.

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