Crystal Quest Review (no fat)

Game Description

Crystal Quest is yet another entry in the exhaustive Xbox Live lineup. Moreover, like so many other titles already available on the online Xbox 360 feature, it is a port of an old classic. Crystal Quest is a shooter originally released on the Apple II, and was directly inspired by the spectacular Asteroids. With so many old games being released again on the Xbox Live, it’s no surprise to see a well-known title like Crystal Quest brandished again, albeit in a tweaked format.

Crystal Quest Gameplay

Crystal Quest is a top-down shooter, and, as such, is radically easy to understand and plunge into. You control a ship, which actually looks like a mere sphere, and need to undertake a mission. The latter amounts to collecting all the crystals scattered around a level. Doing so will open the gate that is located at the bottom of the screen. You should keep in mind that the gate actually decreases in size over the stages. It will, as a matter of fact, eventually start moving around, thereby making it harder to effectively pass through it unscratched.

Provided you are still alive, after you grab all the crystals your next task is to cross the gate. Successfully going through it lets you go to the next stage where more crystals await your gluttonous appetite. Since you can lose from just being unable to safely guide your sphere through the evasive gate, it’s thus more a matter of knowing how to precisely navigate your ship than just shooting at your opponents like a maniac. Considering how the game comprises of 60 levels, it requires a lot of skill to complete the game.

Of course, you also need to destroy the legions of enemies that pop up from either side of the screen along the way, and collecting the crystals is never as easy a task as it sounds. You can also rely on your limited supply of bombs. Using the latter will instantly clear the screen of your enemies. Your foes are weird in appearance, and constitute of tiny, colorful shapes that continuously converge towards you. The stages are additionally filled with mines and you also need to be cautious of those, as hitting one of them will seriously damage you.

This Xbox Live release also has the merit of providing an enhanced version of Crystal Quest in addition to the original game. It comes with a more powerful gun and revamped graphics, but it is unfortunate that there’s really not much else about this updated version to justify its existence. There’s no multiplayer option, and the absence of such options deprives Crystal Quest of replay value after you’ve beaten it once.

Online score sheets have rapidly established themselves as a must in Xbox Live games, and Crystal Quest is no exception. In this particular case, you will however need to play on the highest difficulty settings to achieve fame. This is because the Crystal Quest mechanism awards points based on the selected difficulty. Unfortunately, your achievements are not recorded on the original version, thereby forcing you to play solely through the upgraded alternative. Crystal Quest is a very challenging game, but manages to have an enjoyable learning curve.

Crystal Quest Visuals

The original Crystal Quest is visually bland, but this is understandable considering the game’s age. The new version however features better graphics with a noticeably larger color palette and a more fluid animation. In addition, more details have been added to the enemy designs. Unfortunately, the updated version also features crystals and mines that look surprisingly alike, and it’s subsequently hard to differentiate them.

Crystal Quest Sound

As far as audio goes, Crystal Quest is decent with a single mildly enjoyable theme that nevertheless gets repetitive with time. The sound effects are hilarious in the classic version, as they constitute of exaggerated and funky voice-acting. They seem out in place in such an action-packed title, but actually add a nice touch to the game. The updated alternative’s audio is equally odd, with a bell signaling that you’ve just grabbed a crystal, among other sounds.

Crystal Quest - Overall

This Xbox 360 Crystal Quest release is faithful to the original and may appeal to fans of the Apple II version. However, beyond that, there’s not much about this title to warrant a purchase, especially given the competition it faces from the likes of Geometry Wars.

Crystal Quest Cost

Crystal Quest currently retails for 400 Microsoft points, or roughly $5.