Cris Tales Gameplay Preview Revealed

Modus Games has shown off a detailed new look at their promising new game Cris Tales, and after watching the game in action, those who love turn-based roleplaying games with a modern and fresh twist will not want to miss out. Cris Tales is described as a love letter to RPGs of the past, with classics like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and more highlighted as inspirations. As you can tell from the footage, it's also stunning, featuring hand-drawn animation and layered to create the 3D effect. Players will take control of Cris, who has the ability to see and affect events of the past, present, and future, and all in real-time.

When you're guiding her you see the present in the center, and on the left, you'll see the environment back in the past. On the right, you'll see that same environment in the future, and you can affect the future by changing things in the past or present. In one instance is an Apocathecary shop that's been destroyed in the future, and if you talk to several people in the current timeline, you'll find a way to stop the rot and keep the shop from being destroyed.

That will require you to send one of your pals, Matteus the Frog, into the past to manipulate the environment, thus allowing you to find the ingredients to a tonic that lets you save the building in the future. You see all three versions of the environment onscreen at the same time, and you can watch it in action in the video above.

We also get to see some of the turn-based combat, which seems quite traditional but does jazz combat up with some timing mechanics that can allow follow up attacks and elemental buffs. The coolest part is that you can use Cris' time abilities to affect enemies in combat. You can send an enemy to the past and they might have lower-level abilities and become easier to fight. Likewise, other enemies won't change at all, though other enemies could get stronger too.

An example they used is that an enemy in the demo requires you to rust their shield, which means you'll need to hit their shield with water and then send the enemy into the future so that it is completely rusted.

There are also Synchro abilities, which allow you to set up combos with your teammates, and it looks incredibly fun. You can check out the new gameplay in the video above and the official description can be found below.

"Cris Tales is a gorgeous, indie love letter to classic JRPGs with a new perspective. Peer into the past, act in the present, and watch as your choices dynamically change the future — all on one screen as you play! Beautifully hand-drawn 2D animations bring to life a world where your choices will change both the present and the future across more than 20 hours of gameplay."

Cris Tales will be available for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in early 2021, and the demo is available now.