The JRPG genre has a storied history, acclaimed for its epic narratives, character designs, and usually strong sense of progression via level-ups and stat attributes. Franchises like Square Enix's Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have been around for decades and continue to inspire untold numbers of people. Dreams Uncorporated CEO and SYCK co-founder Carlos Andres Rocha Silva considers JRPGs to be his favorite genre, and used it to ground the production of Cris Tales.
Silva said he always tries to "explore unique ways of interacting" with games, and for Cris Tales that came in the form of seeing the past, present, and future all at once. Making the game a JRPG offered the advantage of working with well-known genre conventions to offset his team's occassional struggle to encapsulate its ambitious goals. Game Rant spoke to Silva about using this groundwork to let the time mechanics at Cris Tales' core flourish and inform how its main characters were designed. Minor character spoilers ahead.
Cris Tales' Influences and Crisbell's Power
Though JRPGs were a huge influence on Cris Tales' design and aesthetics, so too were Japanese media like manga and anime, as well as the works of the Walt Disney Company and Cartoon Network shows like Samurai Jack or Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Silva describes the game as "a little trip to Colombia in a romanticized and fantastic way," with many locations based on its developers' homeland, and the main protagonist Crisbell imagined as a Colombian Disney Princess.
Crisbell begins Cris Tales as an orphan in the town of Narim, and through the talking, top hat-wearing frog Matias comes into contact with a stained-glass mural in Narim's cathedral that unlocks her powers as a Time Mage. Her command over time crystals allow her to see into the past and future; the world divided into thirds with a triangle like on the murals Crisbell visits in settlements across the world. She can manipulate things in different times with Matias' help, and during battle is able to send enemies to the past or future with the Sword of Time.
Silva said Crisbell is cliched by design, a character who doesn't know how to wrap her head around her powers without training and guidance. However, those powers become the central pillar for the game's world design, puzzles, and combat. The time crystals are also a basis for the game's dual-language title pun: Cris Tales can be read as "crystals" in English, or as "cristales" in Spanish.
"That was a homage we wanted to pay to the games of old; starting off in an orphanage, getting a sword, becoming a superheroine. At the same time, we wanted to give you a sense of surprise."
How Cris Tales' Main Cast Grew Out of Their Mechanics
If Crisbell is a character who represents time itself, her companions throughout the journey represent relationships to that central mechanic. Silva discussed four in detail:
- Christopher, a Space Mage who attacks with elemental spells, represents "the volatility of different elements and how they change over time."
- Willhelm, a veteran Time Mage trapped in a boy's body, represents "the incredible growth of nature that takes very long" through his command of Yucca-inspired Yucandragoras plants.
- JKR-721, an android with immense physical prowess who has lived thousands of years, is unaffected by time - and is the only party member who can move through time crystals without assistance.
- Zas, an energetic girl with a magical bag full of assorted items to throw at enemies, represents randomness inspired by characters like Final Fantasy 6's Setzer Gabbiani. The team thought it would be interesting to have a gambler with the ability to rewind time and try again.
These characters were built around their mechanics, as Silva said he designs in an uncommon way "not only about what they want and need." For example, Christopher's attitude is that of an explosive young Shonen protagonist who feels he can handle anything before going through traumatic events that make him realize the benefits of relying on others. Willhelm is inspired by the trope of "doom" spells in JRPGs, having used his powers to stop an imminent countdown toward death but trapping himself in time to do so.
Cris Tales' main mechanic, "Learn from the past, act in the present, create your future," was used like an analogy for each characters' journey, and Silva said they wanted players to experience that sense of growth. Some character shaping was done with help from individuals such as Mark Nelson, who served as a designer at Bethesda from 2000 to 2007 on games like Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.
"All these characters interacting with this central pillar allowed for natural interactions. They were already related mechanically, and their personalities were based on those mechanics. So we allowed them to be, in a way tried to give voice to the personality traits that defined them."
One of the only real difficulties in designing Cris Tales' characters was giving them all adequate screen time so players can get to know each member of their party, according to Silva. Every member of the team talks during cutscenes, but only three individuals can do battle at once. A solution the team came to was only making certain characters available at different parts of the game so, "You get to really hear the voices of the characters you're with."
The battle mechanics they brought to the table offered a lot to balance, including changing time zones, status effects, enemies moving between different parts of the screen, and more. However, Silva said balancing it was "extremely fun" in-part thanks to strong character concepts literally designed to work off one another. Focusing things around Crisbell's central pillar did lead to "difficult decisions" like cutting out combos with more than two characters, as seen in games like Chrono Trigger. Luckily, Silva believes those overflowing ideas "probably will" appear in future games.
Cris Tales is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.