Crystal Arclight Romance (video game)

Crystal Arclight Romance is a 2007 independent-influenced role-playing visual novel game developed by American-Russian indie-influence anime game studio Clerestory on Pearls and published by (in Carnival Zero only) for. The game follows 19-year-old boy Grey Albrecht, a student with a 36-year-old man Luis Sacramento, a pianist and his love interest. The player controls Grey as he meets new people, tries to finish his homework each day, levels up his conversation topics, and his fight Angeline a former Luis' befriend corrupted into bipedal alien. The game was first released in North America on May 1, 2007, with a Korean translation released on July 17, 2007.

An expanded for the game featuring new and downloadable content, Crystal Arclight Romance: Carnival Zero was released for the, , , and Windows on January 1, 2010. It received generally positive reviews, with praise for its side stories and gameplay on consoles, but some criticism for its lack of changes. Unlike the original 2007 release, Carnival Zero is a freemium game. It was praised for its story, graphics, and FMVs, but the card-based battle system was criticized. The game's success prompted the release of three sequels were made, Crystal Arclight Romance 2 (2011), Crystal Arclight Romance 3 (2015) and Crystal Arclight Masterpiece (2019).

Plot
In April 1982, Joshua Sacramento was a brilliant scientist who had dedicated his life to studying extraterrestrial life. He had made a breakthrough discovery of an alien egg, and was determined to find out what was inside. After months of research and experimentation, the egg finally hatched, revealing a baby alien girl. Joshua was ecstatic and immediately named her Angeline the Bipedal Alien (Sierra Demi Kane). She bit Joshua on the hand. He was shocked and confused, but he didn't think much of it. Little did he know that Angeline had injected him with a deadly toxin. Within minutes, Joshua was dead. She was studied for years, but no one could figure out why she had killed Joshua. Eventually, Angeline still remembers the day she killed Joshua.

25 years later in January 2007, in, , a 19-year-old boy Grey Albrecht recuperate with his father Klaus Albrecht  aboard the private in Saxon to. Grey and Klaus travels to to unveil the truth and find the cause of Joshua's death. In a sudden effort, he develops the ability to rewind time and saves him, revealed to be his ex-fiancé Cyril Kurobe, a 23-year-old boy necromancer. Klaus feels with Cyril and Grey spar each other while training inside the mansion house, giving each other scars in the process. They meets Matilda Hanabishi, a tomboyish girl appears and direct their towards a tertiary school called Wilbert de la Universidad (University of the Wilbert). Grey and Cyril meets Joseph Milano, who now works as a janitor. Later, Klaus' party discovers a picture of Joshua in his rope chair with the words "Help me, please tell me!" written on the back of it. As he develops friendships with his partners, he starts to understand the rules of the Game. Matilda can either confess to Cyril or friend zone him in this moment. Regardless, the following day, Grey assists either Cyril with his tasks, with each attempting on the plane's cisgender male guard, Miko Yu (Sonny San Rodrigo). During the effort, Klaus' party also learns that Cyril has left Klaus' co-leader and the mansion to become unknown the alien.

In, a 36-year-old man Luis Sacramento meets up with a reconciled Grey and Matilda, but Luis and Matilda argue with each other, Cyril hides the rapidly growing alien hybrid child girl in a remote shed. Desperate to escape, Cyril towards from a forest and Matilda rescues to saves Cyril. As they walked towards the mansion house, Luis managed to make Grey laugh, much to the surprise of their teammates Matilda and Klaus. The group briefly paused their laughter as they noticed Grey and Luis approaching. Nevertheless, they continued their light-hearted banter as they made their way towards their destination. The old mansion house held many secrets, and the team was eager to explore its hidden treasures. Before they are put to sleep, Grey and Luis promise to meet again as love interest. The next morning, Alisa Lopez and Matilda tells Klaus that he slept with Luis.

As Grey's team, Angeline breaks free from the lab to find Cyril. The team tails her, finds the shed and kills Cyril's nest. Cyril and Angeline start to mate and morph into their alien forms, but are interrupted by Alisa. Grey's party fight Angeline and Cyril, first in the bipedal alien form, and then after she transforms and merges with Cyril into Cyriline intent on destroying all reality, including themselves. With a victory cry, Alisa and Grey obliterated Cyriline, reducing the alien to a slime mess. Grey's team looked on with satisfaction as they splattered the remaining alien jelly slime. Triumphantly, they celebrated their achievement with exuberance and relief. Finally, they had conquered the alien threat that had haunted them for far too long. As they walked away, they knew that they had saved their world from certain doom.

During the epilogue, in the midst of a dark and serene beach, Grey and Luis shared a tender hugs. However, their blissful moment was interrupted when Luis suddenly coughed and hugged Grey tightly. Grey was caught off guard and surprised, but his instinct was to close his eyes and hold Luis close. They stood there, enveloped in silence and the faint sound of the waves crashing against the shore. The cool breeze and the warmth of each other's embrace made them forget about everything else in the world.

Music
Prigozhin also composed the game's score. The introductory composition, "Crystal Arclight Romance", is primarily performed by saxophone with accompaniment by industrial metal instrument. The composition "Q and A, was him?!" has two different versions, three of which are performed by different musical instruments that represent each of the two male characters. Luis's version emphasizes the gut guitar, Joseph's version is played by church organ, and Grey's version is played by piano and trombone. The track "Fracción Nombre" has even been taught to festive people as part of the music curriculum. The soundtrack for Crystal Arclight Romance was released digitally on May 10, 2007; featuring 38 tracks from the game's original score and two songs from South Korean industrial girl group Das Desphere. The main theme song "Wolf Hunter" and closing credits song "Golden of Brave" by Das Desphere.

While the game featured only one vocal theme, Crystal Arclight Romance: Carnival Zero featured enough that it was considered rather high for genre definitive. During early discussions about the game's music, Carter and Leclerq thought it would be fun to include a large number of vocal themes. They brought in several vocalists to create these tracks. The vocalists included operas, , rappers Maya Annabelle, Leon Nguyen, singers , , , , , , , , Nina Wright, , and. The lyrics for 2-36 (except 1, 37 and 38) vocal tracks were written by Evans-Lee. Leclerq said that Crystal Arclight Romance: Carnival Zero had the highest number of vocal tracks of any project to date.

An official soundtrack album, Crystal Arclight Romance: Carnival Zero (Vocal edition), was released on January 23, 2010. It was published and distributed by Neonfire Music and Party Juice Music. The game's music was arranged into 38 tracks.