I Tried Out Crystalfall For Steam Next Fest And This Is What I Learned

Since Steam Next Fest has been underway this past week, I’m sure we’ve all picked out a game or two to give a shot. Of course, there are so many demos available during this event to check out, and only so much time. If you’ll remember, before Next Fest began, we shared a list of some of the free-to-play games that would be offering demos with you. I decided to give one of these games, Crystalfall, a go. It’s been a while since I’ve played an ARPG, so I figured it’d be a good one to try.

I played through the entirety of the available demo, which consisted of the game’s first zone. According to Steam, that’s about 12 hours of gameplay. But I’m sure I wandered off to get drinks or something at some point. So let’s just say it probably took me about 10 hours to complete the available storyline.

When starting the game, you have three class choices: Technomancer, Rogue, and Knight. The first is a caster class. The second is ranged DPS, using guns of various types. The last is for those of us who enjoy smacking things in the face with sharp (or heavy) weapons. Interestingly, at least for the moment, these class choices also determine your race and gender. Technomancer is a female bird-person, Rogue is a female fox, and the Knight is a male lion.

Players can slowly adjust their character’s class a bit using an expansive skill tree. By the time I ended the demo, I only managed to unlock about 13 nodes on the tree. None of those were ones I could put a glyph socket into – although I was pretty close.

I chose to play the melee class. Right away, there were plenty of options for weapons. The melee can wield both one-handed and two-handed weapons. Swords, shields, axes, maces, and the like are all available. Each class also has two weapon setups they can switch between on the fly.

Each weapon type works with its own skill set. Some of these will overlap. However, say you have an axe for your two-handed weapon and a sword and shield as your other setup. They’ll only use some of the same abilities, and others will only work with one weapon type. This means players will want to be very deliberate with their hotbar setup – particularly because there are five spots to work with.

As with many APRGs of this type, your adventure begins with your character in captivity. In this case, you’re in an arena and being forced to fight. The plan, for your captors, at least, is not for you to win your freedom. It’s simply for you to fight until you die. That is, of course, not your idea of a good time, and you fight until you can escape – onto an island filled with armed machines, rat-people, and overpowered spiders. You know. The usual.

You make your way to the port seeking a way off the island and are first given a few tasks you’ll need to complete as compensation for the trip. Not the least of these is rescuing someone from the prison, a task that requires completing a few other tasks (and gaining several levels and equipment) in order to complete.

Oh. Yes. And a lot of back and forth to the main hub to clear out your inventory, repair gear, and the like.

Speaking of gear, I’m afraid I didn’t get to play with it all that much. I managed to hit level 16 just a bit before ending the story, and had only obtained one piece of gear that allowed you to embed items that increased stats. I can say that I didn’t ever feel like my gear was holding me back. But – at least this early in the game – it also didn’t make things too easy.

That said, I’m one of those players who clear entire areas before moving to the next, so I was leveling pretty well until the last part, where I was simply trying to get off the island for the sake of this piece. Once I started doing that, I began dying more frequently. Complete carelessness on my part.

The game has an easy-to-understand crafting and fusion system. So, once players reach a point in the game where that’s actually necessary, it shouldn’t be a problem – particularly for those who play these kinds of games on the regular. Pretty much everything can be modified, or if not needed, broken down into more useful items. That includes skills as well as gear. Of course, since everything has its own system, there are lots of different items to fill the player’s inventory and stash.

Starting out, players have exactly one tab of each to work with. The inventory has 54 slots, and the stash has 126. As the shop was obviously not available in the demo, I can’t say for sure what obtaining more tabs looks like. But I’m sure that at least some will be acquired that way. A free-to-play game has to make money somehow. I also figure players will be able to obtain another tab or two through gameplay.

Overall, as I’m sure you can tell from this piece, Crystalfall doesn’t break the mold of the ARPG space. That said, I don’t think it needs to. Folks who like this genre want to play this genre. And unlike a lot of games out there bearing a long string of descriptors, Crystfall seems to know exactly what it is.

It’s not fast-paced, at least starting out. I imagine that as players progress and unlock more of the talent tree and min-max their builds, they’ll be able to do some crazy things. That is kind of the point of these loot-driven hack-and-slash ARPGs.

As far as the “RPG” portion of “ARPG” goes. I can’t really attest to that, only having experienced the first island. It’s very obvious there’s a story there. But as this is more or less the tutorial space, you’re not getting that yet.

For those who are just getting into the genre, Crystalfall might be a good fit. With very few exceptions, most everything in the beginning game is straightforward. Honestly, the only thing that caused me any confusion was figuring out how to get the overlay map to show up.

Did I enjoy it? I wouldn’t spend 10 hours in any game I’m not enjoying.