Crystal Breaker

Genre: Shmup

Players: 1

.

Review:

Crystal Breaker is a Shmup released in 2024 on PC and Nintendo Switch which does away with standard collision damage, instead having players take damage only from enemy bullets. This, plus the fact that your own attacks have limited range (to different degrees depending on which of the two characters you choose), encourages players to get closer to enemies when fighting.

The presentation here makes use of decent pixel art visuals that look nice but aren’t especially noteworthy, backed by an energetic chiptune soundtrack that’s similarly forgettable. I suppose I can at least say that there’s nothing outright terrible here, at least.

As for the gameplay, apart from the main gameplay twist I mentioned before, there’s… not too much else going on here. This is a decent Shmup, and I would argue it’s even pretty good, but there’s very little it does that truly sets it apart. Even the power-ups feel pretty uninspired, and the power-up/power-down mechanic doesn’t seem to matter too much when power-ups are extremely plentiful.

Sorry, I wish I had more to say, but I’m not sure there really is more to say here. Crystal Breaker is a decent Shmup, and it has one interesting game mechanic, but little else to recommend it. If you enjoy the genre I doubt you’ll be terribly disappointed with this game, but I also think there are numerous other games more worthy of your time, and certainly more likely to be remembered.

tl;dr – Crystal Breaker is a Shmup where your attacks have limited range and your ship doesn’t suffer collision damage when contacting enemies. Apart from that, there’s not much to say here. This is a decent Shmup, but it’s not a great one, and it’s definitely not a very memorable one.

Grade: C+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}