The album debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in October 1997 for shipping 500,000 copies in the United States.

Seven years after its original release, the album sold 850,000 copies in the United States and won widespread praise from rock radio programmers.

In 1992, Megadeth released Countdown to Extinction, which contained songs with compact, accessible structures that resulted in strong sales and significant radio airplay.

[4] Frontman Dave Mustaine, speaking about the band's commercial breakthrough, said: "I think a lot of our success now has to do with the fact that we're willing to study the marketplace and educate ourselves.

[8] Instrumentally, the band introduced a more melodic mix than the previous albums, filled with crunchy riffs and speedy guitar solos.

[9] In addition, Mustaine re-evaluated the band's songwriting techniques, recasting some lyrics to better reflect the sales and radio airplay environment of then's rock arena.

[9] These releases also included a Vic Rattlehead collectible card which promoted "The Cryptic Writings Of Megadeth", an issue run by Chaos Comics.

[5] Two years after its original release, the album sold 850,000 copies in the United States and won widespread praise from rock radio programmers.

[18] A remixed and remastered version, featuring four bonus tracks, was released in 2004 through Capitol Records as part of the group's reissued back catalogue.

[19] According to the liner notes of the remastered version of Cryptic Writings, Dave Mustaine had to alter many lyrics at the request of their new manager, Bud Prager.

The liner notes suggest that Mustaine was not a fan of the changes, but other interviews indicate the band actively sought and eventually accepted Prager's advice for the album.

[9] "Almost Honest" was the second single of the album, and like its predecessor, entered the top ten on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, peaking at number eight.

Billboard's Chuck Taylor commented that the song contains catchy hooks and the band's "signature guitar howl" and classified it "somewhere between Def Leppard and Bon Jovi".

"Use the Man" (which started with a snippet of The Searchers' "Needles and Pins", which was removed in the 2004 remaster) is about drug addiction, while "A Secret Place" describes losing touch with reality.

"Have Cool, Will Travel" is about school shootings; in the remastered version, a snippet of the schoolyard song "The Wheels on the Bus" was added to its introduction.

"[34] Dean Golemis of the Chicago Tribune panned the album for being "predictable and annoying" and assumed that Megadeth were "destined to follow Metallica's leap into mainstream sounds".

[38] Neil Arnold from Metal Forces observed that Cryptic Writings is not "a bad record", though it comes "pale" in comparison to their 1994 opus Youthanasia.

[22] Wolfgang Schäfer, from the German metal magazine Rock Hard, stated that Cryptic Writings followed the musical direction of its predecessors.

[33] Shane Mehling of Decibel reflected that the "nearly thrashless" Cryptic Writings, alongside Metallica's Load and Reload (1997), left the "metal community [...] trying to pick up the pieces".

Menza stated that Mustaine had dismissed him from the band two days after his knee surgery via phone call telling him that his services "were no longer needed".