The Crystal Bearers had a lot going for it, and a lot of potential. It had really good graphics, a great soundtrack, tolerable voice acting, etc. The main thing that held it back, was a lack of realization of it's main gameplay mechanic, and the controls themselves. It didn't control BADLY, but it should have been better. And while they had a genius gameplay mechanic in the TK power for Layle, they wasted it by basically only letting you use it to levitate things above your head, and then throw them at other things, with the occasional "manipulate that lever from a distance" type of deal thrown in. There were other small issues, chief among them being the battle system out in open areas where there is an invisible timer (you literally can't see it) that goes off, and when it does, all the enemies go away, whether you've beaten them or not. And then later when you come back to an area? The enemies are back, which robs a sense of accomplishment in "clearing" an area. Another being that they really could have stood to make more NPC's interactive with the player, as there are a lot of NPC's especially in the city that you can't interact with at all, unless you levitate them and throw them around.
The problem with this game, and what kept it from being great, instead of just decent, was the fact that in the (very well done) cut scenes, Layle can do ALL kinds of amazing shit with his powers. And if you're anything like me, that just leaves the player sitting there going "why can't I do that in the GAME?" It's obvious that they spent a good amount of time developing the game, they obviously crafted an at least fairly interesting game world and story, they took the time the make the graphics actually look pretty great for a Wii game, made a good soundtrack, and semi-solid item forging system, etc. But if they had JUST taken the time to bother fleshing out the TK gameplay concept more, use the potential of the Wiimote and it's IR pointer to greater effect in telekinetically interacting with the game world, making more things IN the game world manipulable, etc., basically, if they had bothered to make it so that you could do even half the stuff Layle does in the cut-scenes, the game could have been truly special.
As it is, it IS a good game. It's worth playing, and I felt worth owning. It just doesn't live up to it's potential. Which is why I'd love to see a Crystal Bearers 2 on Wii U. With the Gamepad, they could possibly do the TK power a lot more elaborately, and with more console power and disc space, they could have a huge, more fleshed out and interactive world.
