Crystal Towers 2 is a platformer created in Multimedia Fusion 2 by David K Newton. Set sometime after the original Crystal Towers, the story this time focuses on an evil being stealing the 8 musical instruments of Music Castle. Because of this, the music of the world itself is fading, so once again Bernard is sent out to retrieve the 8 musical instruments and restore them to their rightful place.
It's a platformer that involves accessing portals to different stages in a Hub Level and clearing a variety of objectives in a similar way to Super Mario 64.
The game's website can be found here: http://www.clickteam.info/davidn/ct2/
An updated version of the game, titled "Crystal Towers 2 XL," is now available on Steam.
This game provides examples of:
- Achievement System: The player can upload their stats to the game's official site and get achievements. Many of them are sensible, like clearing X percent of the game or getting through one stage's missions without ever dying. Some of them, however, are a bit random, such as getting 2 instruments with the same suffix (the names of the instruments appear to be generated randomly). There is also an achievement for making a casserole, which is all it is good for.
- Author Avatar: One appears inside Mega-Carrot.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: Most of the boss themes. Not a surprise to those who know of David's musical talent.
- Bee Afraid: Bees appear in certain spots on certain missions. If you touch them, you die.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Considering all the stuff Bernard does on this quest, it's safe to say he's pretty good at what he does. It doesn't stop him from sleeping on the job most of the time, though.
- Broken Bridge:
- There is a plant by the side of the Walled Garden portals that you must grow to a certain point in order to reach them. You can double jump to the first portal early on and use it as a platform to climb to the other ones, so guess what? Even if you have the necessary plot coupons, each portal won't open until the plant is grown to a certain point, which requires dozens of Glowing Rocks.
- Likewise with the Xeno Squad boss fight; even if you have it unlocked, you cannot get to it until you use enough Metal Gears to fully open the gate before it.
- Build Like an Egyptian: Haze Sands.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Sometimes you can see the final bosses lurking around far in the background of the rooftop area.
- Combos: You're awarded bonuses for stomping several enemies in a row. Between stomps, you can get some more mileage by collecting crystals, item drops and landing on springs, which don't reset the counter. Some missions will require a specific combo to be done.
- Critical Existence Failure
- Deflector Shields: The Bubble shield is one that breaks if you attack anyone, but it's still a valuable asset in the No-Damage Run missions and boss fights.
- Double Jump: You obtain a spell relatively early on that lets you do this. In the Steam version, it becomes an automatic ability that costs 1 MP per double-jump rather than a short-time powerup you have to cast over and over.
- Elemental Powers: All of the offensive spells fall into this:
- Making a Splash: Water and Water++
- Playing with Fire: Fire
- Shock and Awe: Spark
- Eternal Engine: The Ironworks
- Extended Gameplay: There are quite a few levels and bosses to unlock after the presumed final boss fight.
- Final Boss: A group of spaceships who've been stealing the sacred instruments are the end boss of the story, but the Mega-Carrot is last boss of the post-game.
- Floating Platforms
- Generic Doomsday Villain: The spaceship things that are out to rid the world of all sound aren't even given names.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Pretty much all of the bosses.
- Goomba Stomp: Aside from your offensive spells, this is your primary attack. And on the challenges where you can't use magic or abilities, it is your only attack.
- Goomba Springboard
- Green Hill Zone: Walnut Creek.
- Heart Container: The health bottles you can find scattered around certain levels.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: At the beginning you insert a name for a character... who is of no significance to the plot.
- Hub Level: Music Castle.
- 100% Completion: 90 Orbs, 231 Rainbow Gems, 25 Keys, 33 Medals, 22 Spells, 33 Recipes, 4 Items per level... Yeah, it'll take a while.
- Jungle Japes: Twisted Tropics.
- Lethal Joke Character: It's a good thing Turbotoise's entrance is such a
Funny Moment, since you'll be retrying that fight a lot. - Lethal Lava Land: Magma Falls.
- Mercy Invincibility: After getting hit, naturally.
- Multiple Endings:
- Normal Ending: Bernard defeats the aliens at Sound Void but misses one instrument, which the character named after the player is tasked with recovering. He notices the Order's crystals have disappeared and goes off to seek them.
- Golden Ending: Bernard recovers all instruments, but the Order's crystals are stolen anyway. He begins his search by turning on a helicopter backpack he has been given.
- No Fair Cheating: Boss levels grant an infinite source of MP that you can use to cast the healing spell over and over, but the bosses will get a good chunk of their health refilled as well. However, this tactic does become valuable to recover between each form of the final boss. Furthermore, the Super Heal spell heals you more than it heals the bosses, which makes it more exploitable.
- The final battle on a 100% run thwarts this tactic entirely; attempting to cast a healing spell between segments only succeeds in wasting MP. And momentarily turning you into a stuffed elephant.
- In the missions that require you to beat a level while invisible, you can fire shots and use the healing spell to keep track of where Bernard is but the bubble shield spell won't be visible.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Silent Void. Until you cast the Reveal spell...
- One-Hit Kill: Bees and mines, which you must dodge on certain missions.
- Orbiting Particle Shield: The last spaceship of the final boss group only becomes vulnerable after his shields, or rather, weak points, are destroyed.
- Platform Battle: Lava Lizard.
- Perfect Run Final Boss: Clearing 100% of the game makes the final boss more agressive. It also makes you unable to heal during the battle.
- Ruins for Ruins' Sake: Grassland Ruins.
- Scoring Points: You must earn large amounts of points to unlock certain doors.
- Shout-Out: So many. A woefully incomplete list, including but not limited to:
- One of the other figures waiting at the bus stop in the intro is the Tall Man.
- One of the order names, Keepers of [the] Earth, is a song by French power metal band Heavenly.
- Another of the order names, Midnight Crew, is from Homestuck.
- The smiley-face character from... a lot of ASCII games, but probably meant to be ZZT considering the author's history with it, is in the logo for the Magenta Monks order. It also appears on some of the computers in the background in the Flying Fortress levels.
- The ones that aren't playing Pong, anyway.
- The boss battle music is titled "Let's Talk About Fight," which is a line from "Spill Blood on Fire," another Heavenly song.
- Magma Falls' theme is titled "Lava Love Machine," after Edguy's "Lavatory Love Machine."
- The icon for the Quake spell is a direct reference to the Quake series.
- One of the enemies in the Walnut Creek areas, the "Soni-Mushroom," is a clear homage to Sonic The Hedgehog.
- One of the crafting ingredients is a (literal) Metal Gear, so the Steam achievement about it just had to be named "Nanomachines", son.
- Unexpected Shmup Level: Three bosses (Lava Tank, Xenon Squad, and Sci-Fly) are this.
- Unwinnable by Design: Under normal level rules, you'll get stuck in places where a double jump or dash would be required if you waste MP.
- Video Game Dashing: The Boost spell.
- Visual Pun: The Synthesizer (used to make items) is...well, a synthesizer (the instrument). The Steam version even updates the menu to lay out the items you can make on the piano keys.
