Final Fantasy meets Wizardry seems to be the latest fad.
Or at least, I've played two games this year with that mix of mechanics and I think two is the legal amount required to make a fad.
Crescent Tower mixes things up by giving each character two skills: one based on their Race and one on their Class. Each has a use in combat and during exploration. This, I must admit, is pretty neat in concept. Unfortunately, it mostly comes down to different types of keys. This isn't entirely a bad thing, as some come late enough in the game that you finally get to unlock some parts you saw on the map early on, and it does have a bit of a satisfying taste to it.
One problem is the entire mapping system. To start, you must use a specific item that marks down what you can currently see on your map. And those items are consumables. So you need a bunch of them. Or the spell, that one character soon learns. Except that means you are doing this every few steps, which is mostly annoying. Later on, one of the Classes learns a skill that does auto-mapping. But it's not as if you can map it out by hand. (Which, I admit, would also be annoying.) So you have to angle yourself in a way that your light source gets a chunk of the map you haven't mapped out yet, and then use the item or spell. And since the game uses Spell Levels instead of Magic Points, you'll run out pretty quickly.
So that was annoying.
After a few trips through the dungeon to map out most of the first few floors and unlock the ability to create other party members, I was hitting my stride and enjoying myself. The mapping system still annoyed me, but I was making enough progress each trip that I didn't hate it.
Then, the game ended.
Okay, not that suddenly. There were a few bits of the story that hinted that the end was coming. Then I finished it. I think? This is a problem I have with some of these games. Is there a different ending? Is it hidden behind the harder mode? Was there something I did wrong that didn't grant me the ending? Any hints would be great, please and thank you.
But, overall? Good fun was had. If you enjoyed Dungeon Antiqua, I'd also give this a play.