CRIS TALES
A hand-animated RPG that pays tribute to Japanese classics
he big gimmick in the JRPG-inspired Cris Tales is being able to control time. Say you’re fighting an enemy clad in metal armor. Cast a water spell on him, fast forward time, and the armor will be rusty and useless. It’s a neat idea in a game full of them.
THero Crisbell can see the past, present, and future all at once, both in battle and while exploring the game’s beautiful, delicately hand-animated world. Inspired by ChronoTrigger, FinalFantasy, Persona, and the PaperMario series, the game mixes tactical turn-based combat with side-scrolling, semi-3D exploration.
Crisbell’s time manipulation powers are useful in a scrap. Poison an enemy and you don’t have to wait for it to sap their health: Just jump forward in time and they’ll take all the damage at once. Or you can throw an enemy into the future and watch as they grow old, making them easier to defeat.
Although CrisTales is turn-based, the combat has some timing-based elements. Press a button at just the right time, during an attack or special ability, and you’ll pull off a critical hit. Time it perfectly, and you’ll inflict additional damage or even a debuff. You can also parry and block, which the developer says will be tricky.
CRIS CROSSED
banked corners, including one tilted at a nerve-racking 18 degrees, making you feel like you’re in a corkscrew. With its abundance of blind corners, this is a challenging, technical, and relentless course, and it’s great to see it make an appearance here. As for Hanoi Circuit, this modern street track features some of the longest straights in all of F1, letting you reach terrifying top speeds.
If you aren’t the most accomplished driver, and the thought of screaming around a track like that gives you the fear, F12020 has you covered. A new accessible handling mode, which enables a series of assists, means you can enjoy the drama of F1 without worrying about spinning out constantly. This is a neat way of bringing new players into this typically unforgiving driving subgenre.
WINNING FORMULA
Elsewhere it’s business as usual. Codemasters’ F1 driving model is pretty much note-perfect, and has been for years, so it’s perhaps no surprise to see no major changes here—accessible mode aside. It still feels great in your hands, whether you’re using a wheel or a gamepad. It’s twitchy and intense, as an F1 race should be, and carving a perfect line through an apex without losing control is always a thrill.
Several races in this year’s F1 championship calendar have been postponed or cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak, but Codemasters promises that F12020 will still allow players to experience all 22 tracks— including Monaco and Albert Park—as if things went ahead as normal. A nice idea, which F1 fans missing their favorite sport this summer will get an extra kick out of.
F12020 is set for release in July, and it’s looking like another great entry in the series. It has all the authentic presentation you’d expect from Codemasters, and the handling is a dream. But the real test will be that ambitious career mode. Building a team sounds fun, but how deep will it be? I’m not expecting something on the level of MotorsportManager, but I would like something to sink my teeth into. The last game was superb, but it’s heartening to see the developer not resting on its laurels and trying something different once again.