Just looking at this game made me go "I bet this was originally designed for Amiga" and sure enough, it was. It's just got that... British designed Amiga feel. It's hard to explain but it just reeks of the design language of the Amiga and Atari ST in Britain in the late 80s.
I'm so glad that point and click adventure games switched to just using the 'talk to' action and gave you a list of options you could ask. Trying to think of what to write was just waay too confusing back when I was a child. I liked the idea, but the gameplay was rather difficult.
Going by the aesthetics and the look of the main character, I think the developers took inspiration from Zardoz, a weird indie film Sean Connery was in.
I was given this game in the 90's by someone who didn't want it any more - I never really got anywhere with it. I do seem to remember solving the mystery of what "Flow" was, and why everyone kept telling me to "Go with the flow". Some shady character somewhere offered to sell me some "Flow", leading me to believe that it was some kind of narcotic that everyone was on.
I think The Kristal was based on a play the way Oblivion was based on a graphic novel. Hint: The graphic novel was never published and its creator really wanted to make a movie all along.
@seandewar5 Hehe, yeah there are some awesome moments with the dialogue in this one. I just wish the rest of the game matched its occasional witty banter!
Holy crap. Compared to this, the amiga version almost seems like a masterpiece... Almost. It's impressive that they managed to keep the intro with just the pc speaker.
@MrShot97 I realized after I'd already made the video I forgot to make that complaint. :) It looks like hi-res EGA, making heavy use of dithering. But it is technically VGA. The Amiga and Atari ST versions look great in comparison.
"Galagher wearing a homo-erotic wolverine costume.." I laughed so hard I had to pause the video to gather my shit. By the time you referred to him as "Wolvergalagher", I'd completely lost it. Thanks for the laughs, LGR!
@PituDitu It does have a lot of that classic, campy sci-fi vibe and for that it's awesome. But compared to the other campy sci-fi games Cinemaware released that actually DO feel like an interactive movie, it sucks. Glad you enjoyed the review!
no, it doesn't mean "yes or I agree with you" lmfao - it means "same here" and it is not the appropriate response to a general statement such as "this is the only game that doesn't have a let's play"
it was set up with elaine paige and patrick moore and a few others, cant remember if it ever played. i will ask rodney, he developed it and wrote the play with a guy calked mike sutin.
I had this game, because it was one of the few games that was ever sold in B-Wise. My experience was identical to Mr. Clint Basinger's. What's happening at any time? What am I supposed to be doing? And why? I'd love to see the play script, just to find out what the fuck the story was supposed to be.
You need to free the princess out of the hands of Lotarr, Redhead and another bad guy the name I cannot remember. The problem is is you dont ask the guy "Gloop" you meet randomly the question "What are you doing?" you will never know of that. He gives you an invitation and you go to the palace. I found that out after one year of playing. There you meet the king, his advisor and the princess which is later on kidnapped. But dont think the game becomes more logic afterwards.
@rpmmelby It was going to be last month, leading up to Duke Nukem Forever's release. But then the game got delayed again and I got too depressed! I'll still review the games sometime...
I don't think I've ever seen a game that uses 640×200 mode before. Also that Fissionchips logo could give most modern metal bands a run for its money in the unreadability department.
If you collect more than 100 strenght you can pass the executions chamber. There is Redhead then, a pirate who cooperates with Lotarr who kidnapped the princess you met in the King's palace. After you finished him in a swords fight you get to a prince whose name I forgot who challanges you for a pchic duel. This was, where I always died. Although I foud out many things more than you, everything is still unclear.
Honestly? It doesn't look that bad. I guess this is one of those things where the gameplay really kills it. And well, that does happen. It looks pretty funny and campy and the graphics seem quite excellent really. Too bad it's not actually that much fun apparently. Maybe it'd be well suited to a reboot if someone felt up to doing so? Or just some sort of hack or patch.
Ha. My home page is set to wikipedia's Random Page. Today, /wiki/The_Kristal popped up and I landed on your review. Good work, and I'm glad to see you're still doing these.
hi LGR, great video clarifying another mystery from Dos era. Can you make a review for an old western game named "Colorado"? I am sure you know that game. It was interesting and hard to understand when I was a kid. still don't know what the main objectives were. You would do a great favor for your fans, dude.
That sounds like the voices in my head O.o And thats the FIRST THING I thought when I saw the guy, that he looks exactly like Ghallager. If smashing watermelons are involved in this game then I'm sold.
You think _American_ consumers get belittling and condescending packaging? Look at German movie title translations, and you will feel proud of that little bit of cheese in your box art. We have to endure much higher levels of cringe on a daily basis...
Dancis Frake sounds like "Dancing is Fake". :P Anyways, to bad to see that the game isn't good...let's hope the next ones you will review are better. :}
This is the oddest VGA color scheme I've seen. It reminds me of the Tandy 16 color scheme with some EGA mixed in. It definitely isn't 320x200 at 256 colors (or it didn't take advantage of the 256 colors or resolution). Was it just an EGA mode that was ported to VGA?
@@stunheart I think it's 640x200 (might be 240) with an EGA colour palette. My guess is that it has 64 colours, but only 16 can be shown simultaneously.
