Review for Moero Crystal H. Game for Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 05/09/2019 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 17/09/2020
Idea Factory is famous mainly thanks to its flagship series Neptunia. Playing for Moero Crystal H review purposes, we found many design similarities with the adventures of Neptune(and not just because the protagonist is practically her clone). Although these are games of a very different type, the two titles of Idea Factory share a parody soul of the genre that they represent, with however a not indifferent focus on making the core gameplay rich and pleasant.
Moero Crystal H is in fact a Dungeon Crawler with much more content and depth than one might expect, which accompanies an adventure on the edge between the parody of the erogenous genre and pure trash.
The title's narrative is probably its weakest point. Obviously, since the premise is a story halfway between parody and trash, we cannot expect something particularly serious or committed.
The problem, however, is that, unlike Neptunia, a witty and above all funny parody of the video game industry, Moero Crystal H did not entertain us with his dialogues.. The gags know of old and sometimes even pathetic even at their first appearance and the limited nature of the eroge who wants to parody does not give interesting ideas to build an adventure that is quite long-lived.
Where the game manages to wallow in exaggeration and get some laughs (in addition to the classic "but what am I playing" associated with games of this mold) is in the gameplay mechanics. If the dialogues and characters are all in all quite boring and avoidable, the mechanics of recruiting, customization and enhancement are presented with very little fear and manage to catch the player off guard.
It will in fact be possible to enrich your party with new characters, meeting, defeating and "capturing" in Pokemon style enemies possessed by the dark influence. We prefer not to spoil the dynamics in which this process takes place, but it never fails to make us laugh at how exaggerated and ridiculous it is.
Excluding the trash side of the game which, on balance, does not help the product much, it remains a rather standard dungeon crawler but very well executed in some aspects. The combat system is surprisingly challenging and convincing, you will have to exploit different mechanics to manipulate your own and enemy turns, in order to be able to connect elemental combos, or take advantage of an unusual accumulation of situational micro-mechanics that the game expects you to exploit for overcome certain clashes.
The usable characters can be modified using clothes found around, which work as if they were classes. Each character can wear 2 classes, one that decides the main element of the character, complete with strengths and weaknesses and passive abilities, the other that determines the stats and active abilities. It may seem like a simple system, but with the enormity of usable characters it is possible to spend a lot of time building an effective team so that you can survive in the long dungeons, which often have very few save points inside them.
The dungeons themselves, on the other hand, lack originality, not so much in the aesthetic designs that are surprisingly varied and sometimes interesting, but in their design. They lack the exploratory gimmicks that can make the dungeon crawler genre extremely rewarding and interesting, as seen in some of the genre's masterpieces. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey.
All in all the maps of Moero Crystal H do their homework, without excelling. Unlike the surprisingly layered gameplay, this side of the game is exactly as we expected. However in this case the lack of interesting gimmicks can be balanced by the huge amount of content. In addition to the long storyline dungeons, each character has two to five dungeons dedicated to their enhancement, which can be accessed by increasing the with them and unlocking a Shoot'em Up mini game which, like the recruiting mini game, never fails to make us wonder how the developers in Idea Factory came up with such an idea.
On an aesthetic level, the game is quite standard, the 2D models of characters and enemies are very pleasant, but almost completely devoid of expressiveness, while the textures of the dungeons are very affected by the low budget dedicated to the game and its PlayStation Vita publication in 2015. .
The music in turn is extremely banal and forgettable, it does not accompany the game well, but at least it is not actively annoying.. Fortunately, it has no particular performance problems, and is rather fluid and fast to play by setting the movement and combat speed to maximum.
Summing up, Moero Crystal H is a good game for the wrong reason. It advertises itself as a trashy title, parodying Japanese eroges, but fails to deliver an interesting and entertaining parody. Still, it's a solid dungeon crawler, with some mechanics that manage to yearn for that trashy nature that desperately tries to make its own. In case you're curious to try out a dungeon crawler without throwing yourself into the complex layering of titles like Strange Journey, Moero Crystal H is a game that can serve as a general intro. However, you must already be prepared to ignore the game's constant attempts to be fun and also be the kind of person who does not take offense, or who appreciates, Eroge games. A rather narrow target.
► Moero Crystal H is an RPG-Adventure game developed and published by Compile Heart for Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 05/09/2019 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 17/09/2020
