Crystal Towers 2 XL

I played through the original release to 100% completion a few years ago, put a decent chunk of time in this one to see how it has changed (it has basically refined a few features both technical and game wise). To get to the elephant in the room immediately: yes, the graphics are very basic. I find some of the enemy designs to be charming, but overall the graphics are functional. Fortunately one gets used to them rather quickly and after the initial "meh" to them one begins to simply focus on the game itself. I'd say the greatest strength Crystal Towers 2 has is the rather open level design. They are Sonic-esque not in the "gotta go fast!" sense but in how you are often presented with divergent paths, that you can fall from one route and end up in another one. They are not one dimensional in this regard either, you generally get three stages for each area (11 general areas, 33 stages in all plus boss ones) and each area has its own flavor of open. Some are like labyrinths, some are more vertical, others are mainly left to right with a few hidden nooks and detours. They won't wow you with dramatic set-pieces but are consistently strong in their overall design. It also borrows a note from the 3d Mario games (beyond the central hub castle) in that each stage has I believe eight different objectives to complete. The initial one is always to grab the gem at the end of the stage but beyond that you have ones that require you to do so while avoiding all shards (equivalent to rings in a Sonic game) or racing a ghost, ones that require you to get a certain score or otherwise take advantage of the Tony Hawk-esque combo system (jump on three enemies in a row without hitting the ground and you get a 3x score multiplier) and other various ones I'd rather not spoil. While always a 2d platformer it adds a good deal of variety to the proceedings. Unfortunately this ties in to a couple of my issues with the game. One is that you have to go through all objectives in order, with you receiving access to a new one only after completing the previous one. Occasionally this results in you having to repeat an accomplishment you had already taken care of. The second is that... there's probably too much quantity of things in there. If you have 33 levels with 8 objectives each that's 264 objectives plus the dozen or so bosses and while I would only point to a handful of the objectives as iffy, at that number enough of them are similar enough that some could have been left on the cutting room floor without the game losing much. Of course you can beat the game without finishing nearly all of them so some of that is on me. Still overall this is a very well designed and charming game. I would recommend it heartily at this price and would urge those on the borderline to try the free demo that EDIT: is now available on Steam and updated to take advantage of all the XL refinements! It contains a fairly sizable chunk of content and should be more than enough to determine if this is the game for you. PS: I thought this game was cool before it likely didn't win an award :P

As I'm sure the suspiciously high playtime on my account after 1 day will indicate, I was a tester for this game, so I'm going to stick to the one thing I'm sure all who've played this far can agree on: The "Dust Hill A" ghost can get stuffed.

A delightful platformer that seems very reminiscent of a Sonic game. Tight platforming and levels that have branching paths towards the goal is always great as well as revisiting levels with additional objectives to master each level. The graphics, whilst simplistic are charming and the music fits each level really well!

Huge variety of devious challenges!

A truly impressive amount of solid platforming in this one! In short, if you liked old-school Sonic the Hedgehog but really wished the levels gave you more reasons to explore them more, this game more than delivers. An impressive number of short-form, get-to-the-end levels made all the more interesting by each having a set of nine additional challenges or goals, such as running the level backwards, avoiding all the gems (think coins/rings), beating the level in a time limit, etc. The challenges are surprisingly varied and the mix for each level is unique. Each takes about a minute or two after you've beaten the level once and know its layout, which gives the a great short-session, "just one more run" feel, and there are a few upgrades to be had that will open some alternate routes or areas in each (not so much that I'd call this a "metroidvania", but still). The controls are solid, the levels and bosses varied enough to stay interesting, and for the price I feel I got much more than my money's worth. Kudos!

Na realidade joguei esse jogo pouco mais que duas horas no steam, um pouco a mais quando comprei em um bundle e instalei em uma plataforma indie que nem sei se existe ainda (ganhei a versão do steam por ter comprado o bundle). Embora não seja exatamente meu estilo de jogo, achei o jogo bem divertido, um pouco desafiador e bom o suficiente para passar tempo quando você não quer jogar nada mais elaborado. Não recomendo comprar pelo valor cheio (eu não paguei nem perto disso no bundle que ele veio junto) e só compre se você gostar do gênero. ------------------------- Actually I played this game a little over two hours on steam, a little more when I bought in a bundle and installed on an indie platform that I do not even know if it exists today (I won the steam version for buying the bundle). While not exactly my playing style, I find the game a lot of fun, a bit challenging and good enough to spend time when you do not want to play anything more elaborate. I do not recommend buying for full value (I did not even pay close to that in the bundle it came with) and only buy if you like the genre.

This is a fun game. I would not pay more then 5€ for it but thats my personal opinion. Other people will say its worth every cent. Its just not my kind of game but not because it is bad, because its pretty good. The game consists out of different levels and in every level you can do a few different challenges. When you complete a challenge and warp back to the level you can do another challenge. The graphics are not to bad but also not triple aaa. It has a retro feel to it. The controls are good but I could not get my xbox one controller to work. I had to use my old logitech controller. If you like platformers and do not mind some retro graphics I would pick this game up in sale. I did not finish it yet but I think you can get many hours out of this game and have fun in the proces. Gameplay Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0vZ1NWt_hA

These are just my initial impressions, but I've found the game to be charming as hell, with simple, effective graphics, tight platforming, fun music, and (as many have noted previously) a dash of Sonic thrown in for good measure.

While the graphics are pretty lo-rez, (and not in an NES or Genesis kinda way either,) they're serviceable and everything fits a nice graphical theme. I get reminded of a more DOS like graphical style. The gameplay is fun. A rather slow-paced platforming experience, with more emphasis on precision platforming, smart use of spells, and crushing baddies underfoot. This game feels quite a bit like Comander Keen, and considering how much I loved Comander Keen, that's definitely a good thing. There are plenty of levels with lot's of variation, and there are even challenges that require you to go back to levels to play them in new ways such as avoiding shards or killing all of a specific enemy. I also like the feeling of discovering new parts of the castle for the first time after getting new spells. All-in-all, if you like platformers for the platforming, this is a fun game and I reccomend it.