Crystal Picnic

Crystal Picnic is a lightweight RPG that has you playing as two witty characters who embark on an adventure that might be more than they can handle. Ants have stolen magical crystals from the castle and since one of them is almost a knight, it’s your job to get them back.

Visually, Crystal Picnic is inspired from the old-school RPGs that are based in pixel art graphics and simple gameplay. You play as Egbert and Frogbert, two friends who have a different view on what it takes to be a hero. One wants to recover the crystals while the other feels it’s best he heads back and tend to his garden.

Both of them are gifted with personalities that pop out and make the entire storyline much more attractive and entertaining. World design, just like that of the characters, is equally vivid and charming if you’re into these kinds of RPGs. At first variety doesn’t seem all that promising but as you play, things quickly change for the best.

In terms of difficulty, that depends on your experience with classic RPGs and platformers. The latter doesn’t really make sense but it’s actually about a really nice feature that has been added to the game. Instead of having the fight between your guys and the enemy in the standard turn-based system, the action is carried out in a platformer manner.

This means that you will have to do a lot of jumping, dodging and sword swinging at the enemy. You’ll be fighting a bunch of interesting characters such as sunflowers, ants with bazookas and fat birds that have killer poop.

In terms of controls, Crystal Picnic is very easy to master without actually making the game less challenging. Fights are serious and if you die, you die for good. Luckily, there are items to equip and make you stronger, potions to heal yourself and more.

On a closing note, Crystal Picnic is exactly the kind of game you want to play on a casual afternoon where you just want to relax with something colorful, lively and challenging.