Now this is one crystal that rocks!
- It was an age known as "The Twilight of the Gods", when the gods forsook our land, leaving behind only the power of the crystals that made out world.These crystals changed their form according to the ambitions of their possessors...It is this crystal alone that we seek. The Crystal of the Dark Kingdom!Crystal of Creation! Crystal of Magic! Crystal of Power!
The Crystal of Kings is a High Fantasy themed Beat 'em Up arcade game released by BrezzaSoft, a game development company branching off from SNK.
Set in the Medieval Fantasy-inspired world of Estorea, the kingdom was once governed under the wise rule of kings who holds powerful magic crystals to ensure peace and prosperity over the lands. But an overly-ambitious sorcerer named Nightspirit formerly serving the court, having grown tired of peace and a thirst for power, stole the most powerful of all crystals, the Crystal of Kings, and unleashed a horde of chaotics upon the land.
With Estorea under attack, her cities destroyed and her civilians suffering, the brave dwarven knight, Cocco, must rally the heroes of Estorea, the Comrades of the Crystals to defeat Nightspirit and his minions.
The Comrades of the Crystals:
The player can choose between four heroes (each with their own set of Elemental Powers and a Smart Bomb they can use if their Magic Level is at maximum):
- Cocco, the dwarven knight sent by the King to rally the heroes. On his trusty anteater steed, Cocco is an expert archer whose quiver never runs out of arrows, giving him advantage of range compared to the others.
- Element: Dishing Out Dirt - Cocco can summon earthquakes and fling boulders all over the place, easily clearing the screen of enemies. His Smart Bomb comes as a swarm of rampaging anteaters trampling all over the screen.
- Lustro Furia, a swordsman and mercenary who's often mistaken to be the game's protagonist. A Stock Shōnen Hero and the most well-balanced, Jack of All Stats selectable character.
- Element: Playing with Fire - Lustro have the ability to set things alight with his sword. A single Sword Plant creates a barrier of flames, and when he calls for his Smart Bomb a dragon will fly into the screen and incinerate everything that isn't on Lustro's side.
- Lian Xing, a wizard allied with the Estorean court and a Magic Knight to boot, whose staff can stun and electrocute enemies dealing as much damage as edged weapons, and even paralyze opponents for a few seconds to boot.
- Element: Shock and Awe - Lian Xing's magic are electricity-based, shocking legions and legions of chaos with a single hit once his magic is activated (which happens rather frequently since he's the token wizard). His Smart Bomb summons a powerful genie that obliterates nearly everything in his way.
- Justicia the elven priestess and warrior, whose moveset is seemingly identical to Lustro, save for being faster, at the cost of a lower defense.
- Element: Light 'em Up - Justicia, as an elf and a priestess, have her powers connected closely to the gods, her blade emiting holy light energy that slices up undeads and chaotics like no tomorrow. Her Smart Bomb illuminate the entire screen with radiant light from heavens as well as a silhouette of her guardian deity draining life from the forces of evil.
Go forth, with the comrades of the Crystals!
- Actually, That's My Assistant: Out-of-universe, Lustro Furia is often mistaken by players to be the "hero" of the adventure, given his Stock Shōnen Hero appearance. The game's main protagonist is actually Cocco the dwarf.
- After Boss Recovery: The defeated boss at the end of each stage will drop a Maximum Life Crystal to restore the Life Meter of the player. Unfortunately it drops just one, which could lead to problems in two player mode (unless the players are willing to co-operate and let whomever with the lower health collect it).
- Airborne Mooks: From giant dragonflies in the forest to flying fishes and winged gargoyles...
- Always Chaotic Evil: The forces of evil besieging Estorea consists of orcs, goblins, halflings, skeletons and various minions serving the forces of chaos, all of them thirsting for some blood on their hands.
- Animal Stampede: Cocco's equivalent of a Smart Bomb have him summoning a herd of anteaters trampling all over the screen, crushing his enemies underfoot. It's surprisingly effective, somehow.
- Bewitched Amphibians: There's a Poison Mushroom pickup that transforms the player into a frog, though only for a few seconds.
- Black Knight: A powerful skeleton knight clad in black-and-red armor, simply named "Black Knight", is Nightspirit's dragon and the second-to-last boss of the game. He does appear earlier in the underworld level to taunt the players and summon a doppelganger before facing them directly afterwards.
- Boss Tease:
- At the Title In leading to the start of each stage, the game will throw in a shadowy silhouette of the stage's boss to be encountered at the end of the level.
- The Black Knight boss appears halfway through the underworld level to taunt the players and forbid them from proceeding. When the heroes refuse to stop, the knight then summons a doppelganger (two doppelgangers in two-player mode) before leaving. He only shows up as a proper boss battle at the end of said level, after several minutes of gameplay.
- Cast from Hit Points: The "Emergency Avoidance" special move all player characters can execute, which damages all surrounding enemies. Doing so unfortunately drains their health, and must be saved for dire situations.
- Color-Coded Characters: The four heroes, with their respective outfits, matching their respective elements. Cocco is green, Lustro is red, Lian Xing is blue and Justicia is white.
- Dem Bones: The game, befitting it's fantasy theme, have multiple varieties of skeletal enemies, from the common, easy-to-kill default skeletons to the floating Hades Keepers and powerful Red Skeleton Elite Mooks who can deal far greater damage and are far more difficult to kill. The final stage also have Skeleton Gladiators, the Praetorian Guard servants of Nightspirit.
- Doppelgänger Spin: One of the wizard Mini-Boss, named "Nightmare", has the ability to create mirror copies of himself to confuse the heroes while unleashing lightning bolts on the players. His attacks can only be stopped by attacking his correct form, causing all his copies to disappear, but he'll teleport, reappear, and repeat his duplication until his life is exhausted.
- Dracolich: The boss of the underground cavern stage halfway through is a powerful skeleton-dragon capable of breathing flames all over the place.
- Elemental Powers: All four of the heroes have powers over the elements. Dishing Out Dirt for Cocco, Playing with Fire for Lustro Furia, Shock and Awe for Lung Xing, Light 'em Up for Justicia.
- Elite Mooks: Orc commanders, red skeletons and gargoyles are among the toughest mook-level enemies, dealing greater damage than lesser mooks while having stronger life bars.
- Evil Sorcerer: Various wizard minions serving Nightspirit shows up as Mini Bosses halfway through various levels.
- Expy: Lustro Furia appears to be designed with Cloud Strife in mind. Spiky blonde hair? Check. BFS? Check. Stock Shōnen Hero appearance? Check. Former soldier-turned-mercenary, fighting for the side of good? Check.
- Fairy Companion: You can come across fairies trapped in bottles by the forces of evil, and release them to become your Assist Character during gameplay. These fairies will empower your attacks, shoot arrows at mooks, or give you point boosts for killing enemies, and at the end of each stage you get a larger point bonus for saving more fairies.
- Giant Mook: The trolls and war ogres serves this purpose in the game, being gigantic enemies who can absorb numerous hits. The ogres even have halflings sitting on their shoulders to loose arrows on the players from above. Also the degraded war elephants.
- Golem: Ground Giants are an enemy in the cavern stages, rising up from underground to attack the players. They can take quite a bit of punishment before getting defeated.
- The Goomba: Green orcs are the lowest-ranked and weakest among their members, whose life bar is simply pitiful and gets sliced up with just a handful of hits. These enemies are everywhere in the first level, appropriately enough.
- The Great Serpent: The second stage in the forest at the bottom of a waterfall, have the players battling a water serpent who takes up half the screen, despite it's tail being hidden. The serpent is only vulnerable when lashing out to bite with its gigantic fangs, where the player can attack it's head.
- Harping on About Harpies: The third boss of the game, a winged bird-woman identified as a "harpy" by the game. She's one of the faster bosses in the game, swopping all over the place while clawing at the players, besides having hard-to-dodge Feather Flechettes attack.
- The Horde: You'll be fighting legions and legions of chaotic as assorted mook enemies, from orcs to goblins to skeletons and trolls, all of them serving Nightspirit to enslave Estorea.
- Horse of a Different Color: Cocco's trusty steed is a giant anteater. Being a dwarf, he's half the height of the other human-sized playable characters, so his anteater is there to make him appear less tiny and vulnerable considering the amount of orcs and enemies he'll be fighting. Be warned that if Cocco suffer too much health damage, his steed will die - at which point he's on foot and totally screwed. (He gets a new anteater steed after dying and respawning).
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Your heroes gain health by eating steak, roast, fruits, and assorted edibles.
- Inevitable Waterfall: The forest stage have the player(s) boarding a raft that runs along a river, only to meet a waterfall halfway through. The fall, despite it's height, doesn't really affect their current health though, they simply land in the water below and gets back up to continue fighting.
- Lizard Folk: The forest level contains hostile lizard-men working for the forces of chaos, who ambush the players when they're on a raft, leaping from the other side of a river to force their way aboard.
- Magic Knight: Lung Xing may be the only wizard among the playable characters whose attacks are mostly magic based, but he's no slouch when it comes to close-range combat, his melee attacks doing as much damage as the others. And of course Nightspirit, thanks to his demonic powers.
- Magic Staff: Lung Xing's weapon is a magic sceptre. Some of the wizard Mini Bosses also use these weapons.
- Mana Potion: The Magic Potion (which comes in small and large bottles) can restore the player's magic level.
- Mirror Match: In the underworld, the player must fight a doppelganger enemy (two doppelgangers on two-player mode) who transforms into their clone, with the exact same movesets, which must be defeated.
- Necromancer: The first Mini-Boss enemy in the game, named "The Necromancer". He's one of the easier mid-game bosses since his schtick consists mostly of summoning weak, easy-to-defeat lowest-level skeleton mooks on the heroes.
- Oculothorax: Hell's Eye are floating eyeball enemies which can electrocute players. Later in the game there are upgraded Hell's Eyes who can fire a thick and massively powerful electric beam that shreds entire chunks of health from players, but thankfully these are Glass Cannon enemies that dies easily in one to two slashes.
- Our Gargoyles Rock: Gargoyles are the toughest airbone enemies, being very difficult to hit due to hovering above the players constantly, and dropping fireballs on the players besides throwing their spears. They do lower themselves upon being slashed, at which point the players can repeatedly lash out and cut them down.
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: Two red-skinned chaos Minotaurs armed with swords serves as a Dual Boss in one stage. They appear to be carnivorous too despite their bovine appearance - when first encountered, one of them is shown stuffing a slab of roast into it's mouth, only to grab a sword as you interrupt its meal.
- Playing with Fire: Lustro Furia, one of the four heroes, can use fire-based attacks. Several of the wizard enemies can also launch fireballs or create pillars of flames sprouting from the ground, as does the gargoyle Elite Mooks and Nightspirit the Final Boss in both his forms.
- Power Crystal: Much like what the title states, the source of power for the entire kingdom of Estorea lies in the magic crystals owned by members of royalty, these orbs of great power rivaling even the gods. Unfortunately, a wizard serving the Estorean Court named Nightspirit decides to dabble in crystal of chaos.
- Power Floats: The various Evil Sorcerer Mini-Boss opponents doesn't need to walk, since they can just float around while summoning enemies on the heroes and blasting them with their magic.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: You know what kind of game you're getting when the first stage begins with an orc army massacring the population of Estorea...
- Red Shirt Army: The local Estorea militia absolutely doesn't stand a chance against the forces of chaos. Right in the first level, the entire city is strewn with dead and dying militiamen, some of them getting hacked into pieces by orcs.
- Sequential Boss: Nightspirit, when you face him at the end of the last stage. His first form is already as powerful as one can expect from a Final Boss, and taking him down while braving his multiple attacks is difficult enough, but after his defeat a cutscene have him going One-Winged Angel into a powerful Red Demon wielding a giant scythe, sporting a new - and longer - healthbar, and spamming fireballs all over the area.
- Smart Bomb: All four of the heroes have a special attack that clears the screen of most enemies, and deals severe damage to bosses, at the cost of draining their magic.
- Sinister Scythe: Nightspirit, in his One-Winged Angel form as a powerful Red Demon, wields a scythe whose blade is larger than the players.
- Teleport Spam:
- The Hell's Eye enemies can teleport at will to ambush players.
- The Mini-Boss sorcerers, all of them disappearing the moment they're hit and reappearing elsewhere onscreen. It's slightly easier on two-player mode, since each player can guard one side of the screen and attack as soon as they reveal themselves.
- This Cannot Be!: Nightspirit, the Big Bad and Final Boss says this almost word-for-word, after you defeat him for the first time. Unfortunately he's only preparing to unleash his One-Winged Angel form to continue the battle.
- Title Drop: Besides the opening line of the prologue, the final stage is also called, "The Crystal of Kings".
- Token Minority: In a Medieval Fantasy-inspired setting where every major human (or humanoid) characters are Caucasian, Lian Xing the Wizard is the only named character of Asian origin.
- Unique Enemy: The final stage has four Killer Giants, enemies with Sword Beam attacks that deals plenty of damage, but given their health they aren't really tough enough to be bosses. They only appear in one single platform in the whole game. There's also the Skeleton Gladiator enemies who serves as Nightspirit's Praetorian Guard showing up around his quarters and nowhere else.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: The first stage begins with Estorea under attack from the forces of chaos, and while you're assigned to defend the city, every now and they you can come by fleeing soldiers and civilians - and kill them for no reason other than for fun. Also during the second stage in a forest you can cut down harmless wildlife like deers.
- War Elephants: The forces of chaos have monstrous elephants as their steeds. The first level ends with fighting an elephant carrying halfling archers as a boss (an easy Warm-Up Boss), and later on there's a pair of elephants right before the Minotaur fight.
- Weapon Tombstone: Every now and then, you can come across graves of fallen Estorean warriors marked with their swords during gameplay. And you can actually destroy those swords for points and power-ups, somehow.
