Cris Tales is free to keep from Epic right now
Last year's earnest homage to JRPG classics
Cris Tales, last year's earnest RPG with a pop-up book art style, is currently free from the Epic Games Store. If you grab it before March 3rd, it's yours to keep forever.
Cris Tales is a JRPG except for the fact it was made in Colombia, not Japan. It stars Crisbell, a time mage in a magical realist world who explores, helps the locals, and takes part in turn-based battles as a squad of three. There are even crystals.
"Cris Tales shines brightest as you’re exploring its towns, meeting its residents," Nic Reuben wrote in our Cris Tales review last year. "As Crisbell runs through ramshackle favelas and ornate cathedrals, the screen is separated into clean shards that show the future in front of you, and the past behind. Background NPCs become flip-book stories. Just by moving from one end of the street to another, you’ll watch a plucky witch go from a child with a pet winged-penguin-dragon to an adult mounted on the same creature, fully grown. A few yards away, a shopkeeper will fade in and out of existence, leaving behind an outline of static, begging questions about your own abilities to change fate. Sometimes, you can, and you’ll see the results manifest tangibly and immediately."
Which sounds great - and in screenshots and trailers, it looks great, too. I love Cris Tales art style, with characters made from simple shapes and bold, flat colours.
You can head to the Epic Games Store to grab Cris Tales now. The giveaway will end on March 3rd at 4pm. After that will come free giveaways of retro shmups Black Widow: Recharged and Centipede: Recharged.