Title	CRYMACHINA
Developer	Aquria, FURYU Corporation
Publisher	NIS America
Release Date	October 24th, 2023
Genre	Action RPG
Platform	PC, Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
Age Rating	Teen
Official Website

I was a huge fan of FURYU’s Crystar when it released back in 2019. I said many times that I felt it was the most underrated game of the last generation. When a spiritual successor was announced, CRYMACHINA, I was very excited to get my hands on it. I’ve spent around 16 hours with the game and completed the main story, so it’s time to share my thoughts. Did the game meet my very high expectations? Let’s find out!

CRYMACHINA follows the story of a young girl named Leben. She is on her death bed, dying from a mysterious disease that is slowly wiping out all of humanity. As her life fades to black, she hears a voice saying she has been chosen. She awakens to find herself in a strange world greeted by a young robotic girl named Enoa. This world is named Eden, and it is run totally by machines that seek to restore humanity by creating “Real Humans.” Laben encounters two other girls like her, Ami and Mikoto. Together they all set out on a quest to become these “Real Humans.”

The story here is really amazing. There are quite a few twists and turns, which I expected from this team, but I think this one may pack more of an emotional punch than Crystar. Watching all of the girls get closer as they struggle, and just their general interactions, will make you care for them almost instantly while wanting to learn more about this world. As you collect the personality data that is obtained from the fallen bosses, you will learn about their backstories as well, and some of these will really give you a gut punch. This is some top level storytelling, and I’m glad to see this team delivered once again.

Graphically, CRYMACHINA looks amazing. The game takes place in a cyberworld and it very much looks the part. Each stage has that very “Inside of Computer” feel to it, and the enemy models are all fantastic as well. They look like Decepticons that have gotten a big ass buff. The boss enemies are even more impressive in their scope and scale. I think the lighting in this game is what really makes it pop though. The girls in their cyber bodies glow in distinct places giving them this really awesome mechanical vibe, and the environments glowing in blue and red hues, gives them even more of that techno feel. The PC version I reviewed ran very well, never dipping below 60 FPS on my 3050 laptop or 144 FPS on my full rig with a 3060. There are some options you can tweak if you’re running on lower end systems that will probably get this one to run very well on any decent machine.

I love the soundtrack in CRYMACHINA. These techno style tunes with amazing vocals really immerse you in this post apocalyptic world, and give a lot of the characters’ scenes a lot more emotion as well. It’s very rare for me to love every song in a game soundtrack, but I have to say, every track here is pure gold, and I would rank them among some of the best I’ve ever heard. The game only features Japanese voice acting, but these actors really give all of these characters a lot of life. Their performances will make you care for all of these girls right off the bat as you follow them down this crazy adventure.

The core gameplay of CRYMACHINA is that of a third-person action title. You will move along a set number of stages, defeating the boss monsters to advance. Along the way you will find secrets, such as more powerful enemies, documents with coordinates to face even greater foes, and treasures. These treasures include things such as, new equipment, auxiliary weapons and chips. You will also gain EXP to level up the girls and some EGO to spend on other upgrades as well.

Most of the stages in CRYMACHINA are pretty short, but I feel like this works to the game’s advantage since you will want to defeat each boss more than once to obtain all of the memories. I do wish the game would give you at least some EXP and EGO for defeating a previous conquered boss, but alas, that’s not how this works. At least there are plenty of challenging bosses to seek out as you find more documents and explore this virtual world further.

The girls each have four pieces of equipment. These include a weapon, head, body, and waist armor pieces. You will have to go through all of the ones you’ve obtained from personality chips and through treasures, to figure out which ones work the best for each girl. The ones you don’t need can be exchanged for EGO which you can use to upgrade the girl’s individual stats, or the combat support program Enoa can use. Upgrading this is very important as you progress, since it grants more uses of healing, more EXP, better results from your auxiliary weapons, and upgrades your ultra powered Awakening Mode. When you activate this, you will not take damage for a short time and your damage output will increase. Upgrading it will grant more uses on each stage, bigger buffs and a longer activation time.

Lastly, let’s talk a bit about the auxiliary weapons and chips. Each girl will have one of these weapons equipped on her right and left side. They come in a variety of forms and rarities. As you might guess, the rarer ones are usually much better than their lower tiered counterparts. Each one of these will be able to equip a number of auxiliary chips. These will grant these powerful weapons their skills. Some of these chips will be powerful attacks, while others may give stat boosts or protective buffs. These are activated by simply tapping the L and R triggers in battle, and you can get even greater effects from the skill in the EX slot when the conditions for it are met. Some of these will be things like do a perfect dodge, or stun enemies, and others are as simple as just having a foe at a certain range. There is a lot of customization here, and you will have to play around to see what works best with your play style.

I had a lot of expectations going into CRYMACHINA, and I am please to say it exceeded every one of them. This is one of the best games I’ve played this year, and I loved every minute of the 20 hours I spent with it. There is a bit more post-game stuff I can take on in the form of some really tough bosses that I will very likely be working on after this review goes live. This game has an amazing story and solid action. This is something you don’t find everyday in gaming these days, so I feel fans of RPGs and action games will find a lot to love here. I feel it is well worth the $59.99 price tag. If you haven’t played this or Crystar, do yourself a favor and check them both out as soon as possible. You might just find two new favorites, just like I have.

Review Score
Overall

Game was provided by the publisher for review.