Two things always stuck out in my mind about Crystalis.

1. The character moves very fast. It makes the entire game feel better. 2. There's a part where you have to beat a guy in a competition by hammering the a button as quickly as you can. Turns out that's a lie, consistent timing is more important than speed. I found this out when I attempted to use a 3rd party controller with turbo functionality and still lost.

I still maintain that game did a lot right that many games even today don't.