Game of the Week: October 12th 2025
Gaist Crusher (3DS, 2013)
Developer: Treasure Publisher: Capcom
The logical end result of unregulated rare earth mining.
A curious Japan-only 3DS title I stumbled across while looking up who the developers of Sin and Punishment were. This led me down a small rabbit hole where I also found out there was also a 51-episode anime, a manga series published in V-Jump, toys and merchandise as well as a remake/sequel: Gaist Crusher God released the following year on the same system. Unlike the games, the anime has English subs and you can watch it in its entirety on Youtube. God bless people who sub obscure anime.
First things first, there is no English patch for this game as of writing, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that almost all text in the game has Furigana over it and that there was voice acting. I suppose if you're looking for a 3DS title to help you learn written and spoken Japanese, this is one you could play.
As for gameplay: It is a 3D beat-em-up set in the year of 2064. You are Rekka Shirogane, a kid with a stupid haircut who becomes a Gaist Crusher when his friend Ken Nitta (or, as Rekka calls him, Nickel-kun) gets attacked by a Gaist, a strange creature that is born from Gaimetal, a crystal-like substance that was found deep within the earth 15 years before the events of the game/anime. At the start of the game, you only have the Flame Fennir Gaist Gear at your disposal. As you progress through the game, you can unlock more playable Gaist Crushers and Gaist Gears.
You attack using the Y, X and A buttons. You can lock onto enemies with the L button and change between the Melee and Weapon forms with R. I found myself switching to Weapon form alot cuz I liked beating the enemy Gaist to a pulp with a sword bigger than my entire body. I've made it through the first 5 missions without much incident, but I did struggle considerably with the boss of the fourth mission: Tekkou Ryujin. I was mashing every button in a panic because I didn't have a strategy and even lost a life because I didn't know how to counter his laser beam attacks. Dispite this, I beat him and won the Crush Chance minigame where you beat up a glowing rock within a time limit on my first try, which got me his Gaist Gear.
I don't have any major complaints about this game. I really liked how fast-paced it was. The game starts out slow and hand-holdy during the first four tutorial missions but the game begins to pick up once the training wheels come off and you unlock the ability to equip different Gaist Gears. My biggest gripe, however, is the game's UI, the designs of the Gaists and the human characters, especially the human characters, are painfuly generic. The Gaists at least try and make an attempt to be unique, but Rekka's cookie cutter, run-of-the-mill, Dollar Tree Beyblade Protagonist design angers me in a way I cannot describe in words.
But I'm willing to look past that because the 3D segments of this game are bathed in these dark, almost black shadows and subtle outlines that makes it look like a moving comic book. This game should come up when discussing "Pretty-looking games on the 3DS".
I also cannot speak on the quality of the plot or dialog. All I can say is to not expect Metal Gear Solid 2-level writing from this game.
It's also worth mentioning that additional content (New Gaist Gears and Missions) is unlocked through the QR codes on Gaimetal toys, just like in Yo-Kai Watch. Speaking of toys, there was also a Gaist Phone-themed 3DS case that came with special editions of Gaist Crusher. You could put Gaimetal toys onto the case and they would show up in-game! Wow! As much as I would like to have this case, it looks like it only fits on the Original 3DS models, meaning it won't fit on my Galaxy Edition New 3DS XL. *Le sigh*.
Final Verdict:
Gaist Crusher is a hidden gem hiding in the 3DS library waiting to be discovered and appreciated by fans of beat-em-ups and fans of games where you run around beating up animals to use their skin as armor.
