The battles early on in the game are pretty standard, but when I decided to upgrade my equipment, I realized that the game is pretty flawed in terms of balancing. I had enough money after the first dungeon to buy the best equpment for all three of my characters that I had at that point. I expected to do a crapload of damage since Spinel alone had a sword that was more than 10x more powerful than her previous weapon. Needless to say, it didn't work out that way. While I did do more damage, the new enemies seemed to be coded so that the battles felt exactly the same as before. Afterwards, I finished chapter 1 and trained a bit so that I had enough to fully upgrade my equipment again and the same thing happened. I decided to reload my game and try to fight them without buying the equipment, and I got decimated.

Crimson Gem Saga's battle system seems to be structured around a need to buy the newest available weapons and armor pieces. If I don't buy them, I would get destroyed, and if I do buy them, I would be allowing the game to progress at a reasonable difficulty. Anyone else feel like that is piss poor game design??

Am I missing something, or is this how the game is going to be all the way through? Do I have to grind in order to buy all of the new weapons and armor to avoid dealing pitiful damage and receiving large amounts in return? Maybe this all goes away after a bit more playtime, but I really don't feel like going back to the game at this point.

I know this game isn't that popular, but could anybody who has spent any sort of time with this game help me out?

Thanks.

I actually enjoy the way that weapons/battle/tech are set up. You need to be aware of the monster weakness and fight them accordingly.

Every time you come across a teleport to the tower, you should work your way up and train that way. It won't feel like your grinding as much.

It gets hard after you lose the mage. He's a beast with his magic. Magic is more powerful in this game and the spells that hit more than one enemy are devestating. Work his skill tree first. Also work on the girl's magic skills. Everyone else can clean up after them.

I'm the type of person that needs to find every treasure, talk to every person more than once, find out where every path leads. I hate the feeling of not knowing.

What made me stop for now is this one dungeon, where it teleports you back to the beginning if you go the wrong way. It's hard to memorize if you keep stopping and playing. When I have the time, I'm going to do it the old Dungeons & Dragons style and draw a map on grid paper. The lack of an overhead map is kind of annoying in the dungeons, but I do look forward to drawing a map though.

LOL .. why do you think it is bad design? It keeps the game interesting and why would you even want the challenge to go away as soon as you have enough money to buy a newer weapon??????

I would say it was an intelligent design.

ROFLMFAO. I'm sorry, I just found that hilarious for some reason.

OT: Well, sounds like it forces you to keep your characters strong and therefor you can't exactly breeze through the game... Which sounds somewhat nice to me.

@ sapient

I'm not complaining about the difficulty, I'm complaining about the linearity of the game design. In this game, buying each and every new weapon when it becomes available seems to be much more important than stats, skills and strategy. It's really linear in that regard.

Train in previous area -> buy weapon -> train in new area -> repeat

It's overy simplified and pretty much takes out all of the strategy. The enemies also feel like reskinned versions of each other. It feels like they all do the exact same amount of damage, and have the same amount of hit points. It's pretty sad.

Like I said, I'm still really early on, so I have no idea if all of this changes as the game progresses.

@ Dgc1808

I actually like difficult games. The difficulty is not my problem, it's the way that the designers decided to create difficulty. Instead of creating difficulty through strategic choices and a skill tree, the game's difficulty is based on how much money you have to spend on armor and weapons.

Yea. When you put it like that, it's easy to see why someone would have a gripe with the game. I haven't really followed much news on the gameplay mechanics, from what i've seen in vids and what I've skimmed through in a review, it all seems fairly basic, just well done. Which reminds me of what alot of people say about Valkyria Chronicles.

Also the story seems to be on the more humorous side, which reminds me of Disgaea.

Since I like Disgaea and I'm enjoying Valkyria Chronicles, I figured I would give Crimson Gem Saga a shot.

Well, I took Pbroy's advice and put every single skill point onto the mage, and it's making the fights much more tolerable.

@Dgc1808

The writing/story is why I'm still playing the game. The dialogue is funny, and really well written. I love the Disgaea series as well, so I always enjoy a story that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Good to hear!

Now if i could just get the game for less than $50 in this city somewhere...

@cactus
Magic is fairly powerful in the game so spending sp on magic is good. I have tried to make my characters more balanced and so far I have been doing well. I did go to the tower dungeon as soon a sI had access to it and thus I am more powerful than the majority of the enemies I meet. Getting mercury boots has helped a LOT.

The card system to upgrade armor/weapons etc. is gr8. I just wish there was a way to swap them and get your originals back. I also don't like the fact that your upgraded armor/weapon sells for the same price as a normal one.

So far I am really enjoying it. I am not breezing through the game as I want to enjoy it for longer :).

For Henson, you want to work the fire skill up so that he can get  Blaze & Conflagration. Use Bronze and Silver Medals on them, later on Gold. I skipped Blaze completely at first and got Conflagration. Try to get his Wizard's Aura too.

For Spinel, use her mainly as a secondary mage, when Henson is gone she will be your main mage. Work her wind skill up so that she can get Whirlwind and Gale Force. Use Bronze and Silver Medals on them, later on Gold. I also skipped Whirlwind to get Gale Force first.

After getting Conflagration for Henson and Gale Force for Spinel, get Gale Force also for Henson. Then get Inferno for Henson.

I don't mind wasting magic, so I always cast the highest level spell I have in battle, so that the enemies die in 1 or 2 rounds. So in each battle cast Henson's fire and Spinel's wind. If fire isn't working well, cast wind with both. Punish with your magic and clean up with the other guys.

Later on you'll fight monsters that are weak agains't ice. So work ice after fire and wind.

Also use charms and accessories to raise Henson and Spinel's magic power and accessories to raise attack power on the others.