Crymachina Review (PS5)

Cry your heart out.

Well, it’s time for another game from FuRyu. Looking back at all the game’s I’ve played from FuRyu, it turns out that it’s a 50/50 chance on whether or not I end up liking them. And I mean this literally. It was an odd number before playing Crymachina, but so far I’ve liked 2 games from them and disliked 3. So I wonder where this one will land as I was drawn in by the artwork and the combat looking snappy in previews.

Crymachina does share a prefix with another game in FuRyu’s catalog, Crystar, which I did also play last year. I’m sure those that know of both games wonder if they’re connected, I’m sure I wondered that myself, and as far as I could tell they’re not. While these two do share similar themes and even their titles are similar enough that when you think of Crymachina you also think of Crystar, these two do not share anything else. The universe and plot of Crymachina is completely unrelated to Crystar, so don’t worry about needing to play (or replay) Crystar before picking this up. It seems like this game is more like a spiritual successor considering both are developed by two different studios, but share some key staff as I have heard it Crystar’s the composure, director, and writer returned for Crymachina.

Anyway, so how was Crymachina? Did it join the list of FuRyu games I disliked or did it join the ranks of those that I did like?

Crymachina opens with the last fleeting thoughts of our protagonist, Leben as she lays in a hospital bed with her heart monitor being the only noise in the room. As she voices how much contempt she has for humans the world, we get to see kept her sister (Yuri) company before she was forced from her sister’s side when she had to be hospitalized. However, despite how much hate she has, she didn’t want to die.

Except, this isn’t the end of Leben as she wakes up. At first she thinks it’s the afterlife and the cute girl that suddenly appeared is an angel, but she soon learns where she is, when, and what’s going in. What seemed like a blink of an eye was actually 2,000 years and obviously a lot has happened. Back when Leben was still alive, a mysterious disease called Centrifugal Syndrome suddenly appeared. Those that contracted it would slowly have their emotions stunted, their will weakens, and become paralyzed until their organs failed. With a fatality rate of 100%, it’s not a question of if you’d die rather than when you would (as it turns out that while Yuri contracted it first, Leben died first). No one could figure out caused it, how you contracted it, or a way to cure it. A mere six months after Leben died humanity went extinct due to a combination of Centrifugal Syndrome, resource scarcity, and a world war. Luckily, people weren’t just sitting around as eight AI, or Dei ex Machina, with their own roles were developed and a rocket known as Eden was launched before it was too late. While a small portion of the remaining population was on Eden, they died out and only the Dei ex Machina remained. As the years past, the Dei ex Machina worked towards resurrecting humanity and self-evolved like they were programmed. However, some of them ended up going insane and strayed away from their roles; threatening the goal of bringing humanity back. Six years before Leben awakens, all hell broke lose as the the first Deus ex Machina (Propator) that served as the Overseer was lost and all order fell. The one thing that was keeping them working together is now gone.

The Deus ex Machina we’re allied with is Enoa who was in charge of reconstructing the human psyche. She’s the eighth Deus ex Machina and thus the youngest. Using the Imitation Garden, a virtual world, to recreate the past, she was able to recreate a lot of human’s past lives. While a lot of these recreated lives didn’t have enough humanity to someday qualify as a Real Human, three of them were able to emerge and graduate from mere Personality Data to E.V.E.s as they had high humanity and compatibility with ExP. All hell broke loose soon after Leben emerged and Enoa was actually attacked as most of the remaining Dei ex Machina didn’t want to recognize her E.V.E.s as humans. Luckily, Enoa was able to escape destruction with her E.V.E.s, but she did lose the rest of the Personality Data, her Idea Code (which is basically the AI’s soul), and they were on the run constantly for six years. That is, until recently when they were finally able to awaken Leben.

It’s understandably a big shock and a lot to take in. Especially since Leben is not only thrown into this conflict, but she’s billed as the Chosen One by the late Propator and thus the one that can be recognized as a Real Human. If Leben is recognized as a Real Human she’ll be able to gain control of all of Eden’s systems. Of course, this is going to take some work is she still needs more ExP, Enoa needs to get her Idea Code back, and it wouldn’t hurt to secure gateways so they have more room to work with. And well, you might end up killing some Dei ex Machina and learn that things that you thought were true…weren’t really true at all.

Aside from the side characters, which include the friendly Dei ex Machina and other E.V.E.s, you’ll stick with Team Enoa for the whole game. Of course there’s Leben who starts as the brooding loner who hates humans, but loves machines. Probably not the best choice to be the Chosen One, but she does learn about her sister (which encourages her to bring humanity back) and she does warm up to everyone as she gets to know them better. Next is Mikoto who is pretty blunt person who strikes to be cool (which she achieves at) and is a huge film buff which did help her adapt in this situation. Funnily enough, Mikoto just wants to be a Real Human because it would be cool. Ami is next and she’s the gentle, compassionate one of the group. While she isn’t able to fight for half the game, she serves as the group’s cheerleader and she considers Team Enoa to be a family. Leben rejects this at first, but Ami basically got her to accept it with kindness and love. We do get to see some events of when Leben wasn’t around, and how she is when she fights, which shows a fierce side of her that only comes out when her loved ones are harmed or when she’s annoyed. Ami is pretty much me in this regard, as she’s described as a gruesome, reckless fighter. Last, but not least, is Enoa who is the cute Deus ex Machina. Enoa is like a cute little sister that acts like a big sister as she is dedicated to bringing back humanity, cares for all of her Personality Data and E.V.E.s, and has a love for gold stars. Enoa gives out gold stars like candy. At first Enoa is machine-like, but as you progress you notice that it’s more like an act as she feels emotions that she logically shouldn’t. Enoa is also so precious that you hate when she cries.

The story is pretty confusing early on as it does feel like you were thrown into a years long conflict and no one is really giving you proper explanations. It does take a while for you to get all the information and learn what all these terms mean, but everything does make sense eventually. There is at least one more point in the story where it gets confusing, but it’s more as you trying to figure out what was actually going on rather than not knowing all the terms.

The story here is also short compared to some other RPGs, it took me a bit over 20 hours to complete though others have said they completed it quicker, but I think it worked out here. This is the type of story where filler would have made it worse. Especially since I did think a few scenes dragged on for a bit too long and I was just ready for the game to end once I was in the end-game.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy the story and think it was pretty good. Crymachina focuses a lot on the relationships between the characters and I loved how you can see how subtly the characters grew throughout. It really helps the events and the ending hit more after you see Leben come to care for the others, get to know Mikoto and Ami, and get so attached to Enoa and her struggle of being more machine-like as human emotions start welling up inside her. The story events were also interesting, I wanted to know what was going to happen next, and, man, did it throw in some curve balls.

I also want to mention that there is a true ending that you can get through the title screen once you reach the end, which gives you a bit more closure. I go back and forth deciding whether or not I like the ending. On one hand, I really want to know how all of them are after the crazy events that happened and if they were able to rebuild; but on the other it first left me devastated before bringing me back up to happy tears with the true ending.

While a lot of time is spent in visual novel-style cutscenes, you do get some action while you’re in the dungeons. Dungeons here are just places in Eden and all Enoa needs is the domain coordinates so she can send her E.V.E.s there. Knowing the domain coordinates will then allow Enoa to download an E.V.E.’s Personality Data into a synthetic Frame (a mechanical body) so they can explore and interact physically with the world rather than just being a hologram. As long as the head isn’t destroyed, they’ll be fine exploring out and taking damage from Cherubim, other Synthetic Frames, and other Dei ex Machina.

Combat is pretty easy to pick up as it takes a hack and slash approach. You have your regular attack which you can combo into fast consecutive strikes, and you can even quickly go into another combo chain (combo with combos!). The heavy attack is replaced with a launch/spike. You can use this anytime, but its usefulness comes when you cause the enemy to go into a weak state so you can launch them, spike them down, and then do a finishing move as it tries to shake off the shock. If you think you have enough time, you can also do a charged attack which is pretty overpowered in taking down enemy health, generator gauge (which causes them to overheat), and brings them closer to the weak status. You do also have a ranged weapon with a regular and charged attack, but some enemies are just too fast to use it on. That’s not all, as you have those weapons that float beside you, called auxiliaries. Each auxiliary has their own abilities it can perform, which you can tailor as it has two branches: the standard and a conditional one. This can be an attack or a debuff to surrounding enemies. You will need to have enough in your generator gauge to perform these though, or at least wait until they’re done overheating so you can use them again. To give you even more help, Enoa is here with her combat supports. These can only be activated a limited number of times, but you can activate a heal, a remote assault that has a chance of causing the weak state, and awaken your character to increase your attack, speed, auto evasion, and free auxiliary usage for a limited time.

You also have a dash which you can use to help extend your jump’s distance and as a dodge when you’re being attacked. If you managed to dodge right before the attack would have hit, it’s a perfect dodge and you’ll get a special effect depending on who you’re playing as. Dodging and parrying is pretty important as enemies can hit you hard and you never know how much damage you’ll take. I’ve even had the normal fodder one-shot me and leave me in a state of disbelieve as I try to process what the heck happened.

The combat here definitely feels better and more fluid than it did Crystar, which is what I hoped. It does feel a bit weird when you start out, but it gets better as you get used to the controls, level up, and get new equipment. I really liked the combat here, despite some annoyances that I had. Like how I did end up having difficulty telling when enemies were attacking, specifically for enemies that were the same size as your character. The enemies do have their attacks choreographed, with a short animation windup and a flash to determine whether or not it can be parried, but it can really be lost in the chaos. Especially if you have an auxiliary that’s similar to the enemy’s attack. It also doesn’t help that the timing (for both your inputs and the time between the flash and the actual attack) can take a bit to get used to, so even if you notice it you might parry or dodge too early.

You won’t just be fighting as Leben as you will also fight as Mikoto and Ami (find of a spoiler, but can’t really get around that). You will be forced to play as a specific character for story moments, so you can’t exactly just stick with one. Leben is the quick attacker with a spear that can hit close and mid-ranged enemies. Her charged attack propels her forward so strong that the ground rips up and has a gun that acts as a shotgun that has homing attacks when charged. Mikoto is the middle ground, she feels slightly heavier than Leben, but she’s still quick. Her charged attack has her swinging her sword down in a blast and her gun has regular shots that can be charged into a laser. Lastly, Ami is the slow, heavy hitter with a badass axe to match her ferocious fighting style. Ami actually also starts as a glass cannon, which is annoying when you first start out with her, but you can get equipment that mitigates this. She can only fight close range, but her charged attack has her twirling with her axe, propelling her forward, until she slams down with it. She even has a charged regular attack that has her drag her axe on the floor before swinging up. Her gun acts more like a bow and arrow and the charged shot causes a small explosion that can be used to put enemies in a weak state quickly.

I think you can guess which one I ended up loving by the end and that was Ami. I love how quick Leben is, but the ferocious nature of Ami won me over once I got her out of her glass cannon phase. All of the girls are quick, but Leben feels the lightest with Ami feeling the heaviest.

Though, these exertions are pretty short. At most there would be three fights before you get to the mini-boss guarding the gateway with the Central Core only being a straight shot to the boss for that area. There are some moments where you can go to the side to find something hidden and each network location at least has one portal that will take you to a powerful battle, but that’s really it. You can probably guess that this takes on a mission approach and each area never lasted me longer that 20-ish minutes. This really surprised me as I was expecting these dungeons to be longer. I also did like the environment of Eden, even though a lot of it is same-y. There are some cool looking places and I did feel it fit with the lore, since you’re told the Deus ex Machina in charge of expansion keeps building and altering Eden’s infrastructure.

When you’re not venturing out into Eden, you do get to hang out in the Imitation Garden as it does act like a hub. Though, it’s only just a menu rather than an area you can walk around. While you’re here, there’s a bunch of stuff you can do and most of them you can only do here. You have the usual where you can see your gameplay stats, achievements you got (with the story-related achievements giving you a prize), and the archive where all the character bios, terminology, documents you find, and gameplay tips so you can look back at them. You can give Personality Data you gathered to Enoa for her to analyze, which gives you a cool, short cutscene and some equipment. You can skip this cutscene, but I recommend you watching it fully every time you get a piece of her Idea Code. It develops as Enoa becomes more whole and it makes me want to hug her every time now. You can also level up everyone, however everyone pulls from the same EXP and EGO pool. You use EXP to level up Leben, Mikoto, and Ami, with EGO being able to raise scalability (which you need to wield weapons) and sub parameters. Enoa’s upgrades uses exclusively EGO and lets you increase aspects of her combat supports, like increasing how many times you can use it or the duration. Some upgrades seem like rip offs (320 EGO to increase Awaken duration for 5 seconds), but a lot of them are worth it. Lastly, you can switch out your equipment and auxiliaries. This is the only thing you can do while in the dungeons (you can even change your equipment in the middle of combat), but it doesn’t hurt to make any changes before departing. Your equipment is as important as dodging/parrying as it does alter your stats more than just leveling up.

Before you can move on to the next story dungeon, you do need to have a couple Tea Parties. Sounds silly I know, but these are basically the moments where the characters talk about the various things that are happening and whatever they found out. There are conversations that you’re required to read through, but there are a lot of optional conversations. Personally, I do recommend reading through the optional ones as they do flesh the characters out more and there are funny moments. Like Ami’s where she asks questions and you hear everyone’s answers and the banter that happens (like what one item will they take if they get deserted on an island). Plus, this is where you learn why the 4 E.V.E. team known as Trinity is named Trinity despite having 4 members.

In terms of grinding, you do need to grind levels eventually (even if you play the whole thing on Casual). I was going to say Crymachina has light grinding as it wasn’t all that bad in the beginning, but once you reach the last two areas it does ramp up. Especially for the last area. Considering everyone uses the same pool of upgrade resources, I do recommend switching to Casual mode when you need to level up your team. Trust me, you will probably have a bad time if you stick to the normal difficulty when grinding.

I actually almost quit the game because of the late-game grind. The amount of EXP you gain depends on your level in relation to the enemy’s. The EXP amount lowers until it’s at 0 if you’re a higher level than them and apparently there’s a boost if you’re so many levels lower than the enemy. It doesn’t help that if you die, you’re brought back to the beginning unless you’re at a story boss. This annoyed me a lot even when I wasn’t grinding as you never know how hard an enemy will hit you, you can not notice you’re on low health, or get hit when you’re trying to cycle to the recovery combat support. I also got annoyed with how little EXP the bosses have. I guess you can excuse this with lore, but it was so weird that even the Dei ex Machina give the same EXP as regular Cherubim. Or frustrating if you were struggling and you barely get any EXP.

Crymachina was on the lucky side as I loved the characters, loved how the game plays, and I was interested in the story enough that I wanted to see what happened next.

And on this topic, there are subnetwork coordinates that you can input that go to a valid place in Eden. You get the coordinates to the server farm pretty quickly, which is where you can grind out levels, but you can get a document that tells you more (from completing the server farm a couple times) and guess some based on patterns. These are optional to do.

In the archive, you can also see all the Personality Data you gathered on each boss and mini boss. However, each one has three boxes that unveil the info on their past with each time you beat them. This means you need to defeat each boss 3 times if you want to know everything, but at least this is optional. Some of them are interesting though.

Okay, we’re at the home stretch now. The voice actors did a great job here. Every line is voiced wonderfully and a lot of the characters take on a calm, kind of subdued, tone. This keeps the game pretty calm and low energy (probably not best to play this when you’re tired as the VAs can lull you to sleep), but it also really makes certain characters and lines pop when it strays away from this. You spend so much time with characters speaking in the same manner that it’s surprising when they get mad, when their happiness or teasing leaks into their voice, or when they cry. It also works well to show Enoa’s development.

I also loved the soundtrack and the art style. The music reflects the situation really well, bringing a sweet melancholy feel that’s calming. Don’t worry, they didn’t hold back on the music when you’re up against a boss. Some of my favorite tracks are Deus ex Machina battle tracks. I adored the art style, which was one of the main reasons why I wanted to play Crymachina. I especially loved the angel motif, with a lot of characters having halos and Enoa being like an angel to her E.V.E.s.

All the characters look beautiful in their artwork and I think it was translated well into their in-game models. I do wish they had more movement in scenes though, and towards the end Mikoto’s either slid closer to another character model or just off screen (which was pretty funny). I did quickly notice that the models didn’t connect to the floors (if that makes sense). You can excuse it when characters are holograms, but when they’re in their Synthetic Frame I always was brought out by noticing how their movement felt disconnected from the environment. I could also swear there were moments where they were slightly hovering.

Verdict

I don’t think I really had much expectations for Crymachina going in. Honestly, I just really loved the art direction and the combat looked like it flowed better than Crystar’s. After playing and finishing Crymachina, I can’t help but like it at the end of the day. I won’t pretend that I wasn’t so close to dropping the game, but as many annoyances there are, there were just as many aspects that I loved or enjoyed. I do still wish we got more fleshed out dungeons, there wasn’t a sudden big spike of grinding at the end, and the annoyances with EXP and you weren’t kicked to the beginning of the dungeon if you didn’t die to a boss; but the lovely artwork, characters, interesting story, and fun combat kept me playing. Basically, there’s equally as many aspects that work against the game as there are ones that work for it.

I think I do recommend Crymachina, although with a caveat that you took the game’s weaknesses into account. Would I recommend Crymachina for $60 though? Not really. Personally, I think this would fit more in the $30-40 range.

I’m 3-3 for FuRyu games now. I wonder if this pattern will ever break.