Loop Hero Chrono Crystals Guide: How to Use This Powerful Card

Part of the charm of a game like Loop Hero is figuring out how all the interlocking pieces work together. The roguelite RPG takes great pride in its difficulty, so it’s only fitting that you’ll need every advantage you can get in order to respond in kind. One aspect of Loop Hero that can be used to your advantage in a few different ways is the Chrono Crystals card.

Chrono Crystals “doubles the effect of a day’s passing on adjacent tiles.”  Here’s a brief rundown of what that means and how you can use it to your advantage to take down the toughest foes in Loop Hero.

Chrono Crystals Explained

To use the Chrono Crystals card, you have to progress a bit through the game. It is unlocked by defeating the Lich boss in Act 1. Once you’ve taken this enemy out, Chrono Crystals will be a selectable card, which you can take on your next expedition. It’s located in the second row of your Deck Building Menu.

Chrono Crystals, like the other cards in its row, can only be placed adjacent to a road tile. On longer expeditions, that means you’ll want to plan ahead and know what you’re going to be doing with it. At best, placing it in the wrong spot will have no effect. At worst, it could wind up being a deadly mistake!

The best way to think about Chrono Crystals is that any card that triggers on a day passing triggers twice instead. The easiest way to make sense of this is using a card like the Spider Cocoon. It normally spawns one spider per day. However, if there is a Spider Cocoon next to Chrono Crystals, it will spawn two spiders per day.

One of the best ways to use Chrono Crystals is this method: using it to build up loot and experience with enemies’ per-day spawns. The Cemetery, Grove, Spider Cocoon, Ruins, etc., will all spawn more enemies than normal if placed next to Chrono Crystals. Use this to farm specific resources much quicker and to build up your equipment before taking on a boss.

The Chrono Crystals aura only extends to the immediate tiles surrounding it, so Chrono Crystals can, at most, affect eight other placed cards. The effects of the card don’t stack with duplicates, either. Sorry, but you can’t get exponential days passing with overlapping Chrono Crystals auras!

You can also use Chrono Crystals in a few ways with Meadow cards. Since Meadows give you healing per day, having them within the aura of Chrono Crystals will double that output.

Another benefit that takes a bit of fortuitous timing comes if your character is within the Chrono Crystals aura when a day passes. This will double the total healing per day, so having a lot of Meadows will make for a huge influx in HP. It’s not something you’ll always be able to make happen, but it’s a major boost if you can!

Mastering interactions like this is what will push you to the later acts of Loop Hero. Now that you know how Chrono Crystals work, you can start using them to max effect. If you’re looking for more on Loop Hero, check out our game page!