Crystal Monsters (DSIWARE) Review

Gameloft has this strange tendency to completely rip-off franchises in an attempt to make money. Lots of companies, do this. Fortunately, Gameloft is one that actually does it right, as exemplified with their latest release, Crystal Monsters.

In the last Decade or so, Monster Breeding titles have become their own unique niche in the gaming world, especially on portable platforms. Beginning it's life as an obscure, Japanese-exclusive Mobile Phone game, Crystal Monsters has found it's way onto the DSi, which has hopefully brought the game some mainstream attention. The game is essentially Pokèmon, with some original tweaks and a few flaws.

Fire-on-Fire battles won't get you anywhere, just a heads up.

Those familiar with Pokèmon will be able to handle the gamme from the get-go. You play as a boy who discovers he's a "Neo-seed", a genetic-variation in a human who is able to see monsters and other anomalies that are invisible to the human eye. You utilize your power as a Neo-Seed to fight, capture and strengthen over a hundred monsters. The game plays more to your regular JRPG in terms of story. Where Pokèmon is more of a free-roaming game, Crystal Monsters is a little more linear in terms of plot progression and goes into a lot of detail in terms of character and plot development.

Like Pokèmon, you explore the world from an overhead perspective, and speak to characters and engage in random battles from this mode. Moving around can be controlled with either the stylus or the control pad, unfortunately, you'll be having trouble either way. Handling on the overworld is the games' biggest flaw and handles sluggishly regardless of what method you use, though admittedly, the stylus works better. When engaged in battle, your monster team consists of 1-3 monsters fighting at the same time, as they level up, you can use a variety of unique abilities based on their element. The game introduces a stylus-based combo system, where timing a button-push at the right time allows you to inflict extra damage on your opponent. The game uses crystals to catch monsters, similar to Pokèballs, the major difference being that crystals are element-based (Fire catches fire, spirit catches spirit, etc.) Which can get somewhat annoying at times.  Unfortunately, the game lacks a multiplayer system, which is unfortunate, as a multiplayer aspect is almost standard.

The game has a great design-style, which is impressive for a title that was originally a mobile-phone game. The monsters and locations are all well-drawn and quite colorful, but are somewhat derivative, especially many of the monster designs. Similarly to other DSiWare titles released by Gameloft, there is camera-compatibility, but Crystal Monsters' is especially gimmicky. You can "X-form" your monster, which is simply taking a photo of your face and placing it over the monsters. Incredibly stupid, why would they even bother with something like that? With the stupidity aside, the battles are somewhat boring due to uninteresting battle animations and forgettable audio.

The game has some flaws, especially in the control department, but still manages to be a decent Pokèmon clone. And for 500 Nintendo Points ($5) you can overlook most of them. The game has a sequel on it's way in Japan and hopefully many of the problems have been looked after. If you're looking for a lasting and affordable digital diversion, you find much, much, much worse in the Monster Breeding department than Crystal Monsters. Check it out.

- Kyle K.