The sudden rise in popularity of multiplayer puzzle battle games spearheaded by the likes of Tetris 99 is seeing more and more titles in the genre being released. Just last May, Nicalis released Crystal Crisis, a one-on-one color matching puzzler for the PlayStation 4 and the Switch. Of course, with the game’s success and popularity on these two platforms, it’s inevitable that it will eventually lead to a release on PC, which Crystal Crisis will be getting on July 31.
Crystal Crisis is now available to wishlist and pre-purchase on Steam, and is currently being offered with a 25 percent discounted price. If you’re wondering how it plays in terms of gameplay, check out this short gameplay trailer for Crystal Crisis.
It’s basically a color-matching puzzle game dressed up in this epic head-to-head battle presentation, which frankly looks fun and amazing. While Tetris 99 does offer an exciting new take on the battle royale genre by having players duke it out puzzle-style in a free-for-all, Crystal Crisis takes it down several notches into a one-on-one fighting game where your attacks are based on how well you solve the color-matching game.
Cyrstal Crisis is available to play in both local and online multiplayer modes, which makes this both a great couch game and a casual online experience. It also features some guest characters from other series like Quote and Curly Brace from Cave Story, Isaac from The Binding of Isaac, Astro Boy and Black Jack from Tezuka Productions, Umihara Kawase, and many more.
Gameplay is mostly based around building up a ‘Burst’ gauge, which you do with crashes and combos that unleash powerful special attacks and defensive moves. There are over 40 unique Bursts available in the game, all of which you can use to either save yourself, mess with your opponent’s board or finish them off in a spectacular fashion.
Crystal Crisis also has a number of modes to choose from, several of them single-player modes like Arcade, Survival Mode, Tag Team, and Training Mode. Weirdly enough, there’s also a Story mode with multiple branching paths to explore.
Crystal Crisis will be released on PC via Steam on July 31.
