Conquest of the Crystal Palace
System: NES
Release Date: November 1990
Developer: Quest
Publisher: Asmik
Genre: Action
Restore peace and unity as you take your rightful place on the throne in Conquest of the Crystal Palace! You’re one of two survivors from when Zaras the Terrible War Spirit destroyed the prosperous kingdom. The citizens were all transported to the stars and areas of the sky not seen before. You, Prince Farron, were transformed into a 6 month old, while the castle keeper Zapolis was transformed into a dog, called Zap. Now at the age of 15, Farron must complete five stages of action in order to save the Crystal Palace.
The beginning of your adventure has you choosing one of the three crystals. They each grant you a power. Each crystal forgoes the need of buying an item in the shop. The attack crystal gives you permanent access to the fire magic. The health gives you the life potion you can buy to increase your life. The flight crystal gives you the jumping boots for extra height. No matter which you choose, you come equipped with a sword that you slash with the B Button. Jumping is handled with the A Button. You can jump and slash, but your upward momentum is stopped as you do. If you currently have a magic spell, you can switch to it by holding down and pressing the A Button until it is highlighted.
Upgrades can be purchased at Kim’s Convenience shop when you can find her in the stage. You need a lot of money to buy things from Kim’s shop, because she likes raising the price each subsequent purchase or levels you reach. That’s why, when you find spots where little faces continuously float down from the ceiling, I took some time to grind some cash. Upgrades to the magic are temporary and only grant you a certain number of uses. They aren’t absolutely necessary, especially if you took the attack crystal at the beginning of the game. There are certain enemies that will drop magic upgrades, a sword upgrade that shoots a wave, and an armor upgrade that grants temporary invulnerability.
A couple levels feature pits that if you fall down, you don’t die. You are sent back to the beginning of the level or last checkpoint. This is both a blessing and an annoyance, because just when you get past a difficult area, you can get sent right back! The last level is a maze and if you take the wrong door, you end up doing it all over again. The end of each level has a boss you need to defeat. That handsome fella from the game’s box shows up as the boss of stage 2 and he was a tough one to figure out. It took me a couple of minutes to take him down when I first reached him.
You can bring Zap into play in the same way you change your weapon. He runs around on screen, attacks baddies, and collects coins. I didn’t figure this out right until the final boss, but if you have the dog whistle and hold up while Zap is out, he’ll spin around you like a top and you can throw him to attack enemies. This made the final bosses a cinch to defeat. Like no trouble at all. I went back to try it on the boss of stage 2 and killed him in three hits. You can keep playing at a higher difficulty when you win, but I didn’t see the appeal.
Graphics: 3.0
Overall, I found the graphics really nice. They weren’t breaking a lot of new ground, but they were doing things correctly and it shows.
Sound: 3.0
Music and sounds are above average in quality.
Gameplay: 3.0
Farron controls mostly well. It took getting used to the jumping sword slash stopping your upward momentum.
Difficulty: 2.5
Levels are straightforward until the end. There are a lot of cheap spots that require a lot of practice to get through unscathed… or even lightly scathed.
Fun Factor: 2.5
There were a couple times that I was more annoyed by than enjoying the game, but a second playthrough might be more enjoyable.
Overall Rating: 2.8
Conquest of the Crystal Palace earns a B. This is a game I had in my collection for decades and never really played. I missed out, don’t make the same mistake.