Cris Tales asks you to see three timelines at once. The main character stands before a kingdom built on ruins, carrying a magic hourglass that lets her move forward and backward through time. That simple trick shapes nearly everything about how the game plays, looks, and tells its story.
Trailer, via PC Gamer.
The Hourglass System
The hourglass isn’t just a toy. It changes the world around you. In one scene, you stand in a field while a child watches a sunset behind you, and the same field opens into a ruined desert ahead of you. The game calls this the past, present, and future of the same place, and it asks you to solve puzzles across all three at once.
Some puzzles ask you to place a seed in the past so a tree grows in the present. Others ask you to break a wall in the future so a path opens in the present. The system rewards curiosity. You can walk off the beaten path and find hidden rooms that way.
“Cris Tales is a game about memory, loss, and the weight of history.”
That line sums up the whole design. The past is always visible, and the future is always coming.
Combat and Exploration
Combat follows a familiar turn-based pattern, but the hourglass adds a twist. Enemies can be moved forward or backward in time, and some attacks hit both versions at once. It’s a small change, but it keeps fights from feeling dull over a long playthrough.
Exploration is generous. Towns are full of side quests, shops, and hidden doors. The game never rushes you toward the main path, and wandering off it often pays off. Side characters give small stories of their own, told in brief flashbacks tied to the hourglass mechanic.
Story and Setting
The story follows Crisbell, a girl who carries the hourglass, as she travels to save her kingdom from a shadow that threatens to erase its past entirely. Along the way, she meets a cast of companions, each with their own arc tied to memory and loss.
The writing leans heavily on metaphor. Time is treated as a physical thing that can be broken, healed, or lost. That theme shows up again and again, sometimes as a heavy-handed lesson, other times as a quiet moment of insight. The game doesn’t always land its message, but it tries often enough that the attempt feels sincere.
The setting itself is built from layers of ruin and rebuilding. Ruined deserts sit side by side with fields watched over by children, and towns hold memories of what came before. Each location carries its own history, and the hourglass lets you see all three stages of it at once.
Presentation
Cris Tales draws from classic anime and pixel-art games alike. Character designs are bright and expressive, and the world is packed with small details that reward looking closely. Each town, dungeon, and field has its own distinct look, even when the underlying structure repeats.
The music matches the visual tone. It shifts between light, cheerful themes and darker, somber ones depending on where you are in the story. Together, the art and sound create a strong sense of place.
Technical Performance
Cris Tales launched on multiple platforms, including Stadia, Series X|S, PS4, and PC. Performance varies by platform. On PC, the game runs smoothly and holds up well. On older hardware like PS4, frame rate dips become noticeable during busier scenes.
Load times vary too. Some transitions between areas are quick, while others take several seconds. None of these issues break the game, but they show at the edges after a long session.
Where It Falls Short
The hourglass system is the highlight, but it’s not used everywhere. Some parts of the game feel like filler, especially in the middle stretch, where the pace slows and the puzzles grow repetitive. The game also leans on text-heavy dialogue boxes, which can slow down anyone playing at a fast clip.
The difficulty curve is gentle. Boss fights rarely surprise, and most challenges can be solved with the same few tricks. That’s a fair trade for a game built around exploration, but it means the later hours don’t push you as hard as the earlier ones did.
Final Word
Cris Tales succeeds because it commits fully to its central idea. The hourglass mechanic is woven into nearly every part of the game, from combat to story to puzzle design. Few games attempt this kind of unified vision, and fewer pull it off as well.
It’s not a perfect game. The pacing drags in the middle, and the difficulty stays low throughout. But the ambition shows. Cris Tales wants to make you think about time in a new way, and it mostly delivers on that promise.
For players who enjoy exploration, clever puzzles, and a story that respects its own rules, Cris Tales offers a rewarding experience. For players who want constant challenge or tight combat, it falls short. The game is at its best when you’re moving between past, present, and future, and at its weakest when it simply asks you to sit still.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
