Crimson Gem Saga is the sequel to Anstonishia Story which is a Korean developed RPG. The game must have been a hit in its Mother land as it has been remade and ported several times in the last 15 years since it was released. The game was ported to PSP a few years back and courtesy of Ubisoft of all publishers it finally graced western shores for the first time to complete disappointment of the buyers. It is known to be one of the worst PSP rpgs. In 2010 a s sequel was Developed by Korean developer !IronNos and because it was so drastically different from the original, only salvaging the same world,3 returning characters, and some remixed music, combined with negative opinion from Western and Japanese gamers the game was renamed for its release everywhere outside of Korea. Now we have Crimson Gem Saga and this game is fuckin awesome ad totally redeems the franchise.
Crimson Gem Saga is a traditional RPG through and through and does nothing to hide that. Matter of fact, it often makes fun of itself for how traditionally everything pans out. But lets not confuse traditional with boring as the game does a great job of keeping distance between the two words.
PlOT:
You play as Killian von Roncoff,who is almost about to sleep through his graduation from the Green Hill Military Academy, which from the way it is viewed in game, is like the equivalent to Harvard. Things turn sour when the Valedictorian( number 1 student) is announced to be Herbert von Guterrian, Killian's rival and complete jerk, like on a Gary from pokemon level jerk, leaving Killian to have second place scraps. Not only that, but Herbert has his life already in order as he was given a high ranking position in the Order. That bums Killian out but things look better for him as his headmaster offers him a letter of recommendation to a PMC force owned by a previous Valedictorian. From that point on a series of unfortunate events has Killian surviving a massacre of said PMC, hunting a Wicked Stone with 3 other friends to succeed and then be arrested by Herbert, jailed, and then given a choice of hunt down remaining Wicked Stones or be executed ... Great way to start his life out of college.
* GOOD
There are no surprises in this story that player will not have already guessed by the games end, but that is ok though, because what the game lacks in plot interest it makes up for in great writing and great characters and a good dose of humor.There is a lot of dialog in this game and it is well presented and all natural. No typos or weird sentence structures that make it seem like its a direct translation. The characters of the game are great and have a charm to them. Even characters like Killian who is kind of stick in the mud, and constantly whining about his luck are entertaining especially when arguments between him a Spinel occur. Your team is made up of characters that are working together by circumstance and not choice so there is a lot of bickering and snide remarks. The game is also pretty funny too! lot of jokes about JRPG cliches like for example, in one scene right before the PMC unit gets massacred there is a lot of chat between soldiers and one can be heard saying " I think this is the scene where we die". Lots of stuff like that can be found throughout the game.
*BAD
Plot chains: We have to go here, but to get here we need that, to get that we need to do this. This would'nt be so bad if the minor stories that fill these plot chains were not so rushed. They start then end quickly and just don't have any sense of closure to them.. what happened after that? we don't know because the game rarely allows you to visit the characters involved after its done...they just disappear. Tons of plot of elements left unanswered and the stuff that goes down in the final dungeon is like okkk? why now all of a sudden. There is obviously a sequel hinted at but that's not a good reason to leave such a bad ending.
PRESENTATION:
*GOOD
The game uses lush, colorful pre-rendered art. They take it a step further by adding tons of animation which helps make areas look lively and less like static portraits your characters run through. The sprites are my number 1 favorite thing about this game. I have read a few times that some ppl believe that Koreans are overtaking Japan in the animation sector. The work in this game has me agreeing. The sprite are nicely sized, great detail and smoothly animated in and outside of battle. I enjoy looking at all the characters pull off all their moves which are also well animated. A lot of charm and personality was put into them. Finally the art for portraits are awesome! The artist uses a realistic look with a hint of manga/anime that gives a look I think fans of anime and non fans can enjoy. I want to see this technique used more. *
BAD
The dungeons are not given the same love everything else is given. The first room of every dungeon is the basis for every other room. There is also no map in dungeons so keeping track of where you been and have not been can be a pain when everything looks the same. In the final dungeon the 3 rooms before the last room are just repeats of the same room with minor differences. The creativity in the monster design could be better as well. Lots of typical stuff like wolves, birds, man eating plants, ext... nothing really to be impressed with. The bossed are great though.
SOUND:
*GOOD The Voice acting in the game is great and each actor nails their respective role, with special mention going to Spinel and Henson. They are perfect. They are no annoying voices to report. The sound effects are also top notch as well.
*BAD Music is average. When I turn the game off only the boss theme and one of the world map themes come to mind. I have trouble recalling the battle theme. Also a weird looping thing happens with one of the tracks.
GAME PLAY: There are 5 chapters and each chapter has their own map with dungeons and towns available. You receive quest then carry them out. Enemies are seen on the field. This game is challenging, not hard and certain design elements make such. This is the most abridged of the rewrite.
- Leveling does not play a significant role in getting stronger. This is done to eliminate overpowered characters. Each character has stats they are good in and stats they are bad in. Upon leveling up HP and MP are the big improvements with each character getting a few points in things they are good at a very few if anything in stats they are bad at. Example: I got Lahduk at level 41 who had a defense of a Shitty 7. 50 levels later it is 13
- New gear is the primary way your characters get stronger but buying gear is not enough as you have to worry about the element system. Each weapon and gear gives positive and negative bonuses in each of the 5 elements: Fire, Ice, Wind, Thunder, Holy, Dark but by using gems that convert weapon affinity, elements that add bonus points to each element,and monster cards which add stat increase to armor you can semi customize your gear to fit any situation.. up the 3 times per weapon/armor of course. You have a sword with a Fire affinity and 3 points in fire category giving you a 30% damage increase to enemies weak to fire and 30% damage reduction to fire enemies. Well now you want a ice sword but the sword has a -2 in ice category, so you use 3 ice elements to boost bonus point by 2 each, leaving Ice element at 4 ( 10% increase per point up to 9 points per element) and use a Ice gem to covert weapon to Ice and now you have a ice sword with 40% increase in damage to enemies weak to ice. Same applies to armor minus gem part. I did not use this that much but when I did I saw good in improvement damage given and received.
- Skills are the second way to get better. Each character has a skill tree and something that they are proficient in. They can dabble in other professions but not at the same skill as characters who master those. You want to learn all skills as quickly as possible. One nifty feature about skills is that they come in 2 tiers unlocking and learning the skill. You only need to unlock skill to move one in skill tree. Skills can be upgraded with different medals found throughout the game.
- The Battle system is your standard affair with turn based battles with order decided by speed,but some features help to make it more interesting. Critical combos are an extension of the attack command. Every time character lands a critical hit, which are frequent in this game especially with Lahduk and Spinel, a prompt will flash on screen for a second. Timing your buttons right lets the characters extend there attacks to add multiple hits. They are cool to look, satisfying to pull off, powerful, and serve as a good alternative to MP usage when you get good at them. Enemies can and will do this as the game goes on.
- Formation is a little more important here. There is a front row, 2 middle rows, and a back row. Front row gets 20% bonus to damage given and received, middle row not bonus, and back opposite to front. Formation also effects enemy attack choices like for example wolves like to gang up on the character in front while archers like back and mid row characters.
- Status effects are more deadly in this game. While they do heal after battle they don't by themselves in battle. Status like confuse and sleep will last throughout the battle if not recovered by recovery magic, item, or death and revive, even if physically attacked. That is weird. Also poison is harsh, does waaay more than the standard 10% per turn. Its like 20% here. Heal statuses
- Combination moves are attacks/recovery techs that involve more 2 or more characters. They effective, they cost little MP, and they only use the casters turn. What's the catch?The characters involved must be next to each other on turn order. Killian and Spinel have a tech called Wave Motion. On the turn order it must go Killian - Spinel or Spinel - Killian if a enemy or another team mate is in between them it wont work. This is easier said then done as getting faster and slower characters together can be a pain.
= Defend and run work differently here. If you defend the character will go into a ready stance and will block more than haff of the damage ... for the first attack and all other oncoming damage will be full damage. If you try to run a roulette game will pop up. Win you run,fail and you cant attempt to run from that battle anymore.
Overall I think all these elements will not actually new, gives the game a different flavor from most other turn based rpgs.
*BAD - This game expects you to grind. If you don't you will not have the money or sp to buy new gear or finish skill trees. To update your teams gear can be in the millions. In chp4 510000 for one armor, you have six characters btw. Sp is shared between characters and each character has a decent sized skill tree which mage characters having twice the size. 300 to unlock skill then 450 to learn *feints* There are places to build up SP quickly but take awhile to reach and just waiting to get there can leave your characters with no options. Skills like Blade of Fury, Hammer of Doom, Final judgment and best Grace of good will help speed up the process
- lots of enemies are just recolors, with boosted stats, different element weakness/strength, and a added status effect. They also rarely have more than one attack. That even applies to some bosses. More types of enemies with better attack patterns would have been great.
- Battle speed can be improved. - enemies become tanks towards the end and regular attacks and even critical combos start to lose effectiveness, so skill spamming starts to be to the go to thing. Grace of God, Blade of Fury, use em. This game has enemies drop HP and MP restore items like water some go all out.
That pretty much sums up my review of Crimson Gem Saga. I really really really enjoyed this game. Matter of fact I almost put the game down halfway and reviewed it right then and there with a A grade on mind but I'm glade I resisted, because there are a few things that keep this game away from the A range. My top complaints are the The grind, the enemies design and game play wise, and the dungeon design. Those sap the fun out of the game. if could have been a A.. now its a B. I recommend it, especially to those always whining about lack of turn based traditional rpgs. This is what your asking for.
and its only 4.99 on PSN
Score B
