CRYSTAR

The game has great visuals and a good story. The game play is repetitive. You'll run around re-skinned levels fighting re-skinned enemies with more HP. It's not for everyone. I would definitely suggest getting this one when it is on-sale. It is not worth the $60 price tag.

Crystar isn't the best game around, but I have to hand it to Gem Drops Game Studio for giving me something that got me emotional at times. It is too much of a grind and it is bizarre to see multiple endings for a linear game, but I believe that success can eventually come from failure. After all, Spike Chunsoft and FuRyu believed in this project as much as myself. I did genuinely have fun with it, despite all of it's flaws, so here's hoping for success in their next game. I'll check out Cogen: Sword of Rewind next.

Most of the game my thoughts about everything were "meh". Gameplay is meh, it's serviceable and has interesting elements but is repetitive. Presentation is mostly good (that animation loop of Rei being a shut in in her room between missions is something I can realistically watch for hours), but sometimes feels a bit generic (yeah another area that's just some labyrinhian platforms in the sky, nice). Characters are interesting, sometimes even funny (ramen shop discussion is freaking amazing), but a bit cliche. And so on and so forth. (Music is amazing tho)
The moment I woke up from this feeling of mediocrity was exactly during second ending, when second final boss' title card displayed and I realized that I was feeling... things. Rather complex things. This game actually set up such a nice moment of empathy between me and main character that I actually felt as conflicted about the antagonist as she was. So, yeah, for this feeling I give this game a thumbs up. Also, that boss' music being insanely good helped a lot.
On the other hand, the game hypes up Kuon across like all of its prologues and endings and then she has like 10 minutes of screentime, this is kinda sad yet hilarious.

10/10 Art
10/10 Music
9/10 story
0/10 gameplay that makes me want to tear the skin off my face

A unique and wonderful experience. The game has a sad, yet ultimately cathartic, feeling to it. There's great care in fleshing out the cast, the scenario is unique and there's some heavy themes it deals with in an amazing way. I'd say more but it's best to experience that firsthand. A wonderful score by Sakuzyo and an amazing script by Naoki Hisaya, along with beautiful designs by Riuichi and ntny are the main appeals of this game. It also features a wonderful cast of Japanese seiyuu (don't play this game dubbed, or else), music by Yanagi Nagi and an opening animation by SHAFT.
The game has two major flaws - dungeon design and enemy responsiveness/variety. Both reveal its nature as a rather low budget game, but they shouldn't prove to be a hindrance, as long as you have the perseverance to push through.

One of the best stories I've ever experienced, trapped in the most mind-numbingly boring gameplay loop I've ever played. Crystar is beautiful to watch and listen, but painful to play. Using cheats and playing on Easy mode comes highly recommended, because despite it all, the story here IS very very very worth experiencing.
This is a game with a really cool aesthetic, stellar voice acting and incredible music that manages to keep you engaged through the bad Action RPG mechanics and HP sponge bosses. Do it like me and use Cheat Engine to save yourself the headache so you can just rush through the story.
It is a very melancholic and dark story that did genuinely make me cry. The characters are really good and the insane lategame twists will keep you on your toes as you struggle to find your good ending.

Really good story, really good game, though the game play gets so fucking repetitive especially when you want the true ending or want to 100% it.