Crystal Key 2: The Far Realm

"A solid Adventure game."

Back in the early days of CD-ROM, Point and Click Adventure games became quite popular, because of the wild success of Myst. Many of them really relied on their awe-inspiring graphics (for the time) to bring people to play them. Now, with the rapid advancement of hardware, this genre of gaming literally died off. Nothing left but shattered dream and a crying, sad baby. Yet, a game like this, Crystal Key 2: The Far Realm is still released today, and proves that this often ragged on genre still has a little bit of life in it. However, that life is pretty close to being dead. Crystal Key 2 plays exactly how every other point and click adventure game has played: Mind numbingly slow and boring. Sure, people who really do not play games much would enjoy the slow pace, but many people would be turned off by it, this review included.

You are Call, from the world of Evany. Your father was the hero in the last game, who was able to defeat the evil forces of Ozgar. However, the people of Evany are not erupting in joy and jubilation. In fact, most of the people on Evany now are mindless drones. Then, one day, Call is pretty much the only one left “alive” on Evany. Then, a young woman named Athera appears through an inter-planetary portal, and tries to tell him something. Before she can do that, a group comes up and shoves her back through before she can tell her story. As Call steps through the portal, his adventure begins…

Now, the game follows a very standard system. Basically, no real action happens. Everything unfolds slowly, so no large pieces of information are absorbed at once. Much like a puzzle, Crystal Key 2 was made for you to solve hard puzzles using items that you find along your travels. The entire game can be played by just waving the mouse around, waiting for the action cursor to turn yellow, to tell you should do next. The game overall is actually somewhat challenging though, because you are allowed to go anywhere that you want in the game, without even paying attention to the story line. The world is your oyster, and everything can be examined in full detail. This may be a blessing or a horrible damper on how you play the game. If you usually do not play games much, just like taking it easy, then this game would allow you to look around and slowly come to your own conclusions. However, for someone who plays games quite frequently, then just the simple premise of this adventure may be somewhat lacking.

Most of the early point and click adventure games were known for these drop-dead gorgeous graphics. However, CK2 looks like it came out around 1998 than 2004. Seriously, the game is heavily dated, with everything just being so…for lack of a better word, meager. This is not a bad thing, however, because now even low end PCs will be able to play this game without any problems. Just because of the artistic style of the game, everything really looks flat. Though it does not mean that things to do not vibrant. The environments are quite varied, ranging from a hot desert, a tropical paradise, or a large, not very bustling cityscape. However, none of them show real signs of life, or an active community. It is like only ten people live inside a huge metropolis.
Instead of you actually moving around the environments, you are given a 360-degree view of an area. That image is completely static; nothing can be changed about it. There are only a few times when you actually see anything in motion. Characters found around the game look blocky and keep repeating themselves multiple times a second; but when you see moving environments, they are very fluid. Overall, CK2 does not offer really astounding visuals.

One thing that Crystal Key 2 does get right though, is it’s musical score. All of the pieces work with the area, creating a moody setting, and gives the static backgrounds a lot more feeling then they would if no sound was used at all. From a nice, jazzy sound to a bar, or harsh winds at a barren, decrepit building, it fits perfectly. For an adventure game, sound is very important to help immerse the player in the world, and it does the job very well.
What also should be noticed as well is the superb voice acting. Each character sounds great, instead of usual cheap adventure game fare, where each person sounds like they are either laughing or yawning before saying something. Overall, the music and voice acting are actually the best thing in CK2.

After you beat Crystal Key 2 for the first, there is absolutely no reason to play this game, because nothing is different. Extras just do not appear to make you want to play this game after spending about 8-10 hours beating it for the first time. Unlike most of the incredibly popular games for coming for the PC these days, these Adventure games cannot offer anything past the first experience, making them overall disappointing.

As I said before, Adventure games are a dying genre, and this game could be shown as an example. Nothing new has been given to a genre that really needs a nice shot to the arm. If you come in expecting a slow, methodical adventure game, then Crystal Key 2 would be a fun adventure, but the game itself is just not what the average hardcore PC gamer looks for.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/04