Developer: Hect Publisher: Hect Released: 08/28/92 Genre: Platformer
It is hard to believe that a strong title like Moon Crystal never left Japan. An obscure US publisher named DTMC were set to bring it to the US. I guess Lester the Unlikely needed all the attention it could get. There were many late Famicom releases such as Wai Wai World 2, Radia Senki, and Adventure Island 4 that would have done well had they came to the west. But timing and the impending Super Nintendo launched doomed them to a Japan only fate. Moon Crystal is an amazing game that pushed the NES hard and while flawed is still pretty great.
One day Dr. Slater shows his son Ricky the Moon Crystal. In the Moon Crystal resides a power that is only active during a full moon. Count Crimson is aware of this and needs the crystal to power his Lunarsystem in order to bring the dead back to life. He kidnaps Dr. Slater to complete the machine with Ricky being the only survivor. Ricky, along with the mysterious Rosina must venture forth and save his family.
There is no simple way to describe Moon Crystal. It has the platforming of a Mario, the cutscenes and story of a Ninja Gaiden, and the fluidity of Prince Persia. The animation in particular is the game’ stand out feature. Where most games use one or two frames for each your movements Moon Crystal uses several. It is amazing to watch Ricky in action as he skids to a stop, fully rotates when he turns around and skillfully climbs up a ledge. Rotoscoped animation was typically used in slower paced games like Out of this World and Flashback as they did not focus on action. One drawback to the process was its slow movement; once an action is taken you were locked in. Here you can interrupt any frame and while it isn’t perfect it works.
Beyond the fluid animations the graphics hold up. The game has a heavy Eastern European vibe in its setting like a Studio Ghibli film. The village and the Count’s castle in particular remind me of Porco Rosso. The environments are incredibly detailed and full of animation such as running waterfalls, billowing thunder clouds and crashing waves. The frequent cutscenes between levels move the story along and while they are not as dramatic as Ninja Gaiden they do manage a twist or two along the way. Moon Crystal was pretty surprising considering its publisher, Hect, mainly put out sports games.
The platforming component of Moon Crystal is pretty heavy. The game leans on Ricky’s ability to hang and climb on top of nearly any surface. The level design is excellent all around with plenty of cleverly hidden items and alternate paths through each stage. It is a good thing as combat is not the game’s strong suit. Between your short range and the at times suspect enemy placement you’ll tolerate it at best. As the situations become more complex and you find yourself narrowly hanging from a ledge or waiting for someone to walk by its pretty thrilling. For as much as the designers have tried to accommodate the long animations it is not perfect and has repercussions on the game overall.
The difficulty is pretty high for a number of reasons. The stupid dagger is an inadequate weapon with terrible range. Until you find the dagger upgrade in every level you’ll have to deal with it for long periods of time. The double jump is a necessary ability but like Revenge of Shinobi the timing is all over the place leading to cheap deaths. But the largest source of frustration comes in the controls. The fluid animation results in unresponsive controls where Ricky is slow to react. Some simple actions such as turning around take too long to perform. It sounds simple but becomes more of an issue toward the end of the game and especially during boss battles. The designers went to great lengths creating these impressive bosses yet the best way to kill them is to simply whale away with a full life bar.
There is a very large difficulty spike in the last two levels that is completely unfair. The lab and the mines require a level of precision that the controls simply cannot offer. If you are lucky to find two heart containers it is tolerable but less than ideal. Pray you never die since you lose them. But defeating the two final bosses in succession with one life bar and these controls is near impossible. You will probably have to cheat to see the end of this.
In Closing
Moon Crystal is an excellent game right on the cusp of greatness. If the difficulty were better this would be a borderline classic. It is still a pretty damn good game as is and the fan translation makes the story accessible for everyone. Not that it matters in the long run.
