Cris Tales splits the screen into three panels: the past on the left, the present in the center, the future on the right. It is a striking idea for a role-playing game, and for long stretches the Colombian studios Dreams Uncorporated and Syck make it work. The game launched July 20, 2021, on Google Stadia, PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, published by Modus Games.
Trailer, via PC Gamer.
Crisbell and the Rose
You play Crisbell, an orphan at the Narim orphanage. She chases a talking frog named Matias to Narim Cathedral, a location drawn from the Las Lajas Shrine, and there unleashes her Time Magic. Matias sends her to Willhelm, a time mage who explains her powers. Then the village farm burns, overrun by goblins serving the Empress of Time, who wants the Crystallis Kingdom.
That opening is the game at its best: a small errand that turns into a catastrophe, and a heroine who can see it coming.
Three Panels, One Screen
The core mechanic is time itself. Crisbell can jump backward and forward both on the map and in battle. In combat she sends enemies into the past to face weaker, younger selves, or into the future where a poison applied in the present has already done its damage. Plant a poison attack as Wilhelm in the past and the enemy is poisoned in the future.
Battles run on commands — attacks, skills, items — with timed button presses that raise your damage or cut what you take. Each playable character has unique abilities, and the roster fills out fast:
- Cristopher, an elemental mage warrior who joins during the farm battle
- Willhelm, the time mage and Crisbell’s guide
- Matias, the talking frog who starts the whole journey
- Companions recruited across St. Clarity, Neva Tulira, Cinder and Crystallis
St. Clarity to Cinder
The structure is a tour of kingdoms, each with its own stained glass cathedral and its own trouble. In St. Clarity, Crisbell meets Cristopher’s parents, Armando and Sophia, and defeats Mayor Enzo. In Neva Tulira she solves a murder mystery involving Lady Gladys, Willhelm’s late friend, and beats Rhallus Oroitz, a resurrected matriarch. In Cinder the group lands in a political fight over First Citizen Azufra, his wife Fenia and the Volcano Sisters, the Empress’s minions who retreat after Crisbell’s party wears them down.
Choices matter here in a way the genre usually only promises. Depending on what you do, you can change the lives of NPCs, and the game ends in one of three different endings. That is a real commitment, not a menu.
Where It Slips
The ambition outruns the execution. Three panels on one screen is a genuine feat, and it is also the source of the game’s strain: the past and future are always visible, which means the present never gets to surprise you. The turn-based combat is solid, with the timed presses and the time-jump tactics giving fights more texture than most indie RPGs manage, but the systems repeat. By Cinder, you have seen the trick.
The Colosseum mode, a horde fight meant to test your skills, appeared in the demo. It shows up in the final game later on, added in a post-launch patch.
Cris Tales earned a 7.2/10 from the IGDB critic aggregate (six outlets). That score is fair, and the reason is the central idea: it carries the game further than the combat or the pacing can. It is the rare RPG where the mechanic and the story are the same thing. The seams show, and the second half drags. But when Crisbell poisons an enemy in the past and watches it rot in the future, the game does something no other RPG of its year attempted.
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