Crystball's Title Screen
Crystball Gameplay
Genre: Arcade/Paddle
Developer: Bon Treasure (GTC)
Release Date: 1992
Rating: 6/10
Crystball is one of the original 12 games available for the Supervision at the time of it's 1992 launch as well as the pack-in title in most regions, consequently the game is one of the most common Supervision titles out in the wild. Sources are mixed on who exactly developed this game, some sources claim it was Watara whereas other claim it was Bon Treasure. Thanks to Dante Lopez for confirming that it was Bon Treasure who developed this game!
A lot has been said about Watara's decision to bundle Crystball with the Supervision. While it's clear that this game is nowhere near as good as Tetris (and frankly what game is?) I think given the original lineup of Supervision games this was the best choice for the system's global release given that Crystball is one of the most immediately understandable and broadly appealing games on the Supervision (yes I'm aware there's a Tetris clone for the system, but it sucks so I'm going to ignore it).
With that history lesson out of the way let's take a look at the game:
Crystball opens up promisingly enough with a fun ball bouncing around a simple title screen with a bubble font. If I were a child back in 1992 I'd be impressed already, perhaps because dangling a set of keys in front of my face would have been enough to amuse me as a child.
Starting the game shows us that it's decently impressive visually, it's nothing to write home about but it isn't remotely bad and all blocks are visually distinct enough to be able to tell them apart, which is something that can be hard to pull off on a monochrome screen. The only complaint that I have about the game's visuals is a bunny enemy that gives off the impression of something undead.
What's (supposedly) scarier than an undead rabbit is this game's reputation for showing off the Supervision's ghosting-prone screen. Personally, I don't really see it. While it's true that the ball does ghost significantly in this game it's never so severe that I can't see it, if anything it provides a sort of hardware enabled motion blurring years before that was a feature in mainstream games. The only thing that is so blurry that I can't make it out is the game's power-ups, although I did learn to distinguish them after some time.
One aspect that Crystball's developers completely butcher is the game's music. During gameplay you'll hear short ear grating music loops that repeat without any option to disable them. This effectively means that you'll have to play Crystball in silence, which is unfortunate since it's sound effects are decently passable. In all honesty, this game would have been better with no music at all.
All of the frustrations with the game’s graphics and sound could be forgiven if the game's gameplay is any good, and thankfully it's actually decent.
Before we talk about the gameplay though we must discuss what this game was up against, that being Nintendo's Alleyway on the Gameboy, which was a surprisingly bland game even if it did have some Nintendo magic to it. In light of that, Crystball actually fares reasonably well.
Crystball provides a fairly basic yet thoroughly enjoyable Breakout clone with a mix of collectable power ups to help you out on your way (as well as one that actively hinders you!). The game also provides a variety of stage hazards and other features, my personal favourite being a hole in one side of the stage that takes you through to the other side.
I must confess, once I got invested in Crystball the game had my heard pounding when my life counter got low and it had me playing it for a good two hours. Despite this, Crystball isn't without its flaws.
The first flaw is that Crystball has some minor collision detection issues. On occasion I've seen the ball go through the corner of the bat or a block when it shouldn't.
Secondly, Crystball has some difficulty balance issues, for example: stage three and four are considerably harder than the immediately following stages, this is an issue throughout the game.
Thirdly, Crystball has somewhat iffy controls and ball physics. The control issues are mainly caused by the Supervision's d-pad not being very responsive, on occasion I'd miss the ball because the Supervision wouldn't react when I'd press a button. More problematically, the ball in Crystball only moves in straight 70 degree angles, which makes it needlessly difficult to hit the last few blocks on a stage. Though it must be said that stage hazards and other features do help somewhat to mitigate this issue.
Finally, and most frustratingly, Crystball is host to a game breaking bug that causes the game to soft-lock. From around level 20 onwards it is possible to get the ball stuck in such a way that it can't be freed by any means other than resetting the game. This is made particularly severe by the fact that Crystball has no password feature (which is something that a game of it's length needs anyway). As a consequence of this glitch I got to level 21 after about 2 hours of gameplay and never ended up actually finishing the game even though I wanted to. I didn't want to play the game for another hour only to risk the same thing happening again. Reportedly, if you do manage to beat this game's 30 levels you're unceremoniously thrown back to the title screen without any option to input your score.
In conclusion, Crystball gets a lot of flack online for its supposed flaws, what I've found is that Crystball looks far worse on video than to the naked eye (that and people tend to exaggerate heavily on the internet). The truth is that Crystball is a decent if very pedestrian game. While its fun gameplay, decent graphics and approachable nature made this title a good pack-in for the Supervision, and one that I might have sunk hours into were I a child in the 90s, it only get's a 6/10 as opposed to a 6.5/10 or 7/10 due to it's game breaking bugs, lack of password system, limited physics, occasionally temperamental controls and ear grating music.
Review published 16/10/2023
This review is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Credit must be given to Immy if this work is distributed.