docs

Introduction

Welcome to Crystalis Randomizer. This project seeks to provide fresh gameplay experiences through the classic NES game Crystalis, while remaining as faithful as possible to the aspects of the original game that made it fun in the first place.

Getting Started

• Start with a casual flagset, even if you’re super-familiar with the original game! Many of the flags, especially the “hard-mode” flags, are simply not suited to beginning players, and will most likely lead to frustraton.
• A good way to get started is to turn on some casual flags and to use a tracker (such as the one provided here, or else the emotracker pack). Clicking on “Track” in the top menu will automatically use the currently selected flag set to determine availability of each item on the mini map. Availability is indicated by colors, from red (completely blocked) to orange and yellow (available via hard mode strat or glitch, respectively) to greenish yellow (available but not considered by the current flag’s logic) to green (available and probably expected). Locations may be marked as “checked” by clicking on them, or by right-clicking on the major item that’s usually there.
• Learn the dungeon maps to the main key item locations.
• Do not shuffle minor items in with the major ones, and then do not worry about the minor item chests.
• Expect to spend 2-4 hours the first time. With some practice it’s not too difficult to get down to the 1-2 hour range.
• Grinding is not as time-consuming in the randomizer as in vanilla, but levels are a huge help to scale down the difficulty. Pay attention to the EXP from different enemies and grind out a level or two if things get too difficult.
• Medical herbs (especially buffed) are often more valuable than magic rings. Warp boots are also very helpful, both for fast travel and for getting out of a pinch. Always keep one or two in inventory. They can be stolen from Brynmaer.
• Learn to exploit the most important glitches:
  • Shop glitch: get an item for cheap (or free) by selecting a neighboring item (or blank space), then press the direction toward the item you want and very quickly afterwards (next frame or two) tap A to buy it for the previously-selected price. Take advantage of this at the start of the game by walking through the new passage to Portoa and stealing some better armor. See video explanation
  • Statue glitch: pass a number of spots that are supposed to be blocked by statues or guards by approaching them from the right, then holding left and down while continually dismissing the dialog. You will be pushed up a little each time and eventually will pass them. To do the reverse, hold down and right to be pushed left. See video explanation
  • Stom fight glitch: warp to Leaf immediately after Stom takes the first stab to win the fight right away. Don’t warp anywhere else as it can softlock the game.
  • Sword charge glitch: higher level charges can be used temporarily without having the ball or bracelet if a different sword does have the higher level upgrade. To do so, equip the sword and the higher upgrade and leave the inventory screen. Then go back into inventory, equip the sword without the upgrade, and before leaving the menu, press “start” to save the game. Soft-reset the console and load the game. The higher charges (and higher damage) will be available until the inventory screen is entered. See video explanation
  • A few very specific skips are also possible: Teleport skip, Ghetto flight
  • Many of these glitches may be disabled completely. If the shop glitch is disabled, then larger gold drops will be provided.
• The early game is the hardest, when you don’t have many sword options. Once it starts to open up a bit, things usually get quite a bit easier.

Gameplay Changes

A number of gameplay changes have been made to support randomization.

• Items are shuffled throughout the game. Items are split into five categories (key items (anything required for progression, like swords, orbs, bows, and fetch quest items), bonus items (unique items not required for progression, like the passive equipped items), consumables (non-unique items), magics, and traps (mimics). Flags are provided to control exactly whether and how these categories are shuffled.
• Adds a “difficulty level”, which can be seen in the bottom-right corner next to the player’s level. Each key or bonus item that is picked up increases the difficulty level by 1, to a maximum of 47.
• Enemies are shuffled throughout the game.
• Enemy stats (attack, defense, HP, experience and gold rewards) are normalized based on the difficulty level.
• A passage is (optionally) opened between Valley of Wind and Lime Tree.
• A number of triggers have been slightly changed (see below).
• A number of characters spawn in multiple locations independent of game events (e.g. Zebu remains in Zebu’s Cave the entire game, rather than “moving” to Shyron after calming the sea).
• Some minor bug fixes: screen shaking is fixed, and Vampire 2 no longer speeds up near the start of the fight.
• Swan gate now has a pair of guards on the opposite side, to allow going through either direction (with Change). The guards will only despawn after the gate is open.
• It is now possible to teleport out of the tower, and to get back in via the crypt.
• Sword of Thunder always teleports to Shyron, no matter where it’s found (though this can be disabled). The warp checkpoint is immediately set, and in case there’s no way back, Asina will teleport the player back to Mezame Shrine.
• When continuing, a minimum amount of “pity” HP and MP are given. Normally this is 5 HP and 1 MP (to prevent immediate death from terrain and ensure Flight is possible), but when swordless it is 20 MP (to ensure Change or Teleport is possible as well).
• The “quest item” inventory row (3rd row of second page) has eight extra invisible slots to accommodate situations where quest items build up without being consumed. To access the additional items, “drop” one of the visible items and it will cycle a new item into its place (the item is not lost: it can be recovered by repeating this process enough times).

Maps

• A passage may optionally (via the Rp flag) be opened between the Valley of Wind (outside Leaf) and Waterfall Valley (outside Portoa).
• The back entrance to the windmill cave is closed until the Windmill Key has been used in the windmill.
• The back entrance to the summit cave (next to Portoa) is now closed until the Key to Prison has been used. The key can be used on either side of the cave.
• A small piece of land has been added to connect the entrance to the underground channel with the beach that the hurt dolphin spawns on. This prevents some possible softlocks.
• A number of cave entrances in the game are closed until the player exits Mezame shrine. This should be unobservable unless the player wild warps out of the starting screen, rather than exiting to the south.

Items

• Inventory sorting is disabled for swords and orbs/bracelets to prevent items from clobbering each other.
• Key items can overflow into an invisible buffer; if you have items in this buffer, you can “drop” a key item to recover the overflowed items. The “dropped” item will take its place in the buffer.
• Alarm Flute is now a key item, given by Zebu’s student (along with the starting cash) in Leaf.
• Alarm Flute and Flute of Lime are now multi-use items. Each will disappear after the second successful use.
• The second Flute of Lime chest now contains a Mirrored Shield and is counted as a bonus item for shuffling purposes.
• Orbs and bracelets are progressive upgrades: the first item will be the orb, and the second will be the bracelet, regardless of the order the chests are opened in.
• Orbs and bracelets may now (optionally) be automatically equipped. Just change swords and the powerup will change, too.
• Sword damage has been renormalized. Rather than depending on the element (normally, wind=1, fire=2, water=4, thunder=8), the sword power depends on the number of upgrades (no upgrades=2, ball only=4, bracelet=8).
• Stab damage no longer doubles the sword base power, but is now always just 2, on top of the base power of the sword.
• The Power Ring is nerfed to double the sword base damage, rather than the level.
• Pendant of Deo is buffed to provide MP while moving (under Td).
• Iron Necklace and Shield Ring are buffed to double the armor/shield value, rather than the level.
• Rabbit Boots now also allows charging swords to level 2 while moving (under Tr).
• Leather Boots are (optionally) replaced with Speed Boots.
• Medical Herb and Fruit of Power can be optionally buffed to three different levels: in hard mode (Hm) there is no buff (32 HP, 32 MP), in default mode (no flag) they are buffed to 64 HP and 48 MP. In easy mode (Em) they are buffed to 96 HP and 64 MP.
• Mimics will only ever shuffle into visible chests (this does not include boss drops).
• Consumables and armor/shields can only shuffle into chests, so that a full inventory does not cause the item to disappear.
• Opel Statue now works automatically and cannot be selected. It also correctly clears status effects.
• Psycho Shield and Psycho Armor are nerfed to only provide 20 DEF each. Battle Shield and Ceramic Armor are now the armors with highest (32) DEF.
• Sacred Shield now prevents curse instead of paralysis. Ceramic Shield blocks paralysis.
• Platinum Shield and Mirrored Shield each have 2 DEF extra.
• Powerful armors will only provide up to a maximum of LVL*3 defense.
• Shops are now randomized (under Ps). The prices of tools and inns increases over time (doubling every 10 scaling levels), while the prices of armors decreases over time (halving every 12 scaling levels).
• Flute of Lime can be used twice for both the “guards” as well as Akahana.
• Alarm Flute can no longer be found in shops but is instead shuffled in as a multi-use key item for windmill guard and Kensu.

Triggers

In the following, items in brackets refer to whatever item is shuffled into a slot, while unparenthesized items refer to the actual item.

• Zebu, Tornel, Stom, Akahana, Asina, and Kensu are always available in the different locations as long as they need to be, regardless of any other story events that occur.
• Zebu will spawn the sleeping Windmill Guard even after starting the windmill.
• The Leaf abduction will not happen unless the player has talked to Zebu and Kelbesque has not yet been defeated.
• Defeating Kelbesque is an alternative condition (rather than talking to the rabbit) to get into Mt Sabre North.
• [Paralysis] and freeing the villagers now both require having defeated Kelbesque, rather than just stepping into the cave. It can be learned at either entrance.
• [Barrier] now requires calming the sea, rather than just ghetto flight.
• The Queen of Portoa will not “go on vacation” and reveal herself as Asina until after the Mesia recording has been viewed (this ensures both Sword and Orb of Water are acquired, guaranteeing that the back room is reachable).
• If Queen of Portoa doesn’t give [Flute of Lime] before turning into Asina, just talk to her again after getting [Recover].
• Fog Lamp cannot be returned unless Shell Flute is acquired. Optionally (with the ‘Rd’ flag), it’s also required to have healed the dolphin (note that this means that without the flag it’s possible to heal the dolphin while riding the dolphin. Don’t worry, it’s his sister).
• Kensu will not appear in the beach cabin until Fog Lamp has been returned.
• The Shyron massacre requires both the actual Sword of Thunder and getting the [Key to Stxy] from Zebu in Shyron.

Bug Reports

Please report bugs either on GitHub or on the Discord. An effective bug report includes the following:

• All relevant information about the seed: the software version that generated it, the flag set, the seed, and the checksum. These can all be seen in the “codename entry” computer upon starting a new game, but the easiest way to get it is The easiest way to get this is to extract it directly from the image.
• As much detail as possible to reproduce the bug. A link to a twitch clip of the bug manifesting is ideal, together with explanation of any preceding events that seem relevant. At the very least, answer the following questions: (1) what were you doing, (2) what did you expect to happen, and (3) what happened instead?