Crimson Gem Saga (PSP)

Crimson Gem Saga
IRONNOS / Atlus

Lauren: Once again, Atlus has managed to select another great RPG to bring over to North American shores. Crimson Gem Saga was produced in South Korea, and it's a technically a sequel to a game you've probably never heard of (Astonishia Story, if you must know). But don't worry about that - it's just a fun, quirky RPG that's a very welcome addition to the PSP RPG library.

Crimson Gem Saga is basically a traditional-style RPG with the expected modern improvements. You play as a 2-D sprite roaming around a simple yet pretty world. Enemy encounters are represented by a moving monster sprite, and can be avoided with good timing, patience, and/or luck. Battles are turn-based with occasional button-timing required for extra attacks on a critical hit. Pretty straightforward, really.

Special abilities can be gained with SP, which drops from enemies along with the usual experience points and money. Each character has his or her own "skill tree", which allows you to select which abilities you'd like to learn first. The catch is that you have use points to reveal a skill before you can learn it, and before you can reveal any skills located further along a branch. Skills are pretty expensive to reveal and learn, but certain abilities are so powerful that they're definitely worth the wait.

Additionally, abilities can be powered up with items called medallions. These can drop from both regular enemies and bosses, and can also be found in treasure chests. They increase the level of an ability, therefore increasing its power without increasing the amount of MP required to use it. Very useful.

One thing that struck me as unique in Crimson Gem Saga was its "high number" system. For example, equipment is very expensive, but the stat increases provided by equipment upgrades are absolutely huge. As I mentioned, the SP required for skills is high, but the skills are generally very useful. (Put enough points into one ability and you'll be able to make your whole party invincible for 8 turns, for instance.)

You can also find well-hidden items in towns, including otherwise expensive equipment upgrades. I was surprised to see the costs of new weapons in one town in particular, only to find -two- of those expensive upgrades in a bedroom in the same town - appropriately, on a weapon rack. Thorough searching is definitely rewarded in this game.

Speaking of high numbers, enemies do a -ton- of damage. Even after upgrading everyone to the most recent equipment, regular enemies in the following dungeons will often take off 1/3 or more of a character's health. While this may sound annoyingly difficult, there's a balance for it - enemies also drop a ton of HP and MP recovery items. Again, the numbers are big in this game, but it all ends up balancing out. ...As long as you aren't an RPG item-hoarder like me and Anthony.

Since equipment upgrades are pretty much essential in CGS, you'll definitely want to spend some time level-grinding to round out your characters as well. Somehow, even with a simple battle system, it's still fun to do this. I sometimes spent several consecutive sessions just idly levelling up, and it was enjoyable enough to not tire me out. This is certainly welcome, considering the difficulty of some optional bosses later in the game.

One complaint I have for the battle system stems from that last point. There are a few sidequests available; however, the strategy for the two optional bosses is pretty linear and predictable. Still, the rewards from these quests are fantastic, and certainly worth the effort required. I must also point out that some of the dungeons get repetitive (another lever puzzle, eh?), especially when enemies respawn each time you enter a room, but this was only a minor problem overall.

The in-game graphics are a small step above your average 2D RPG of this generation. The backgrounds look beautiful, and the sprites are large and fairly detailed. I could have done without Spinel's chest shaking around during battle like a DOA girl, but then I remember that this is an Atlus game. Anyway, the character art is especially well-drawn - very detailed and even realistic-looking while maintaining an anime style. Even though the abnormally large portraits can block a lot of the background, it never bothered me - I was too busy being impressed by the art itself.

The game's plot has sometimes been criticized for being too generic. I can see that argument - it has many of the same story elements that older RPGs tended to have. And while that would normally bore me, it doesn't with CGS. Why? Because it's hilarious. The dialogue had me laughing out loud right off the bat during the introduction, and then at many other points throughout the story. It reminds me very much of the Lunar games, and that's definitely a good thing. Because of the goofy dialogue, I didn't take the storyline (or weird ending) seriously. And I don't think the developers did, either. Not a problem when it makes me laugh the way CGS did, though.

The music is generally nice. Nothing in particular really stood out to me, but it served its purpose just fine. Where the sound really stands out is in the voice acting. The actors did a wonderful job of bringing these humorous characters to life. The comedic deliveries were particularly great.

Crimson Gem Saga is a fairly lengthy RPG for a handheld system. I clocked in about 60 hours, though I also spent a lot of time levelling up my characters and completing their skill trees. The aforementioned end-game sidequests are challenging enough to add a decent amount to your overall playtime. There isn't much need to play it through again, though there is a New Game + option that allows your skill tree progress to carry over.

So, while the music and few serious scenes of Crimson Gem Saga are just "there", the excellent voice acting, fun battle system, nifty skills, and great humour all make this a very worthwhile RPG. And if you're especially entertained by games that break the fourth wall, you definitely need to give this one a try. The many comments that mock traditional RPG memes (load-bearing bosses, bombs in treasure chests) are funny enough to warrant a playthrough.

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Anthony: They really don’t make RPGs like Crimson Gem Saga anymore. Or wait... unless you count Lauren’s aforementioned Lunar comparison, they never really made RPGs like Crimson Gem Saga at all. This title stands out to me as a very unique offering in that it takes traditional turn-based combat and old school RPG mechanics, then throws in a good helping of bizarre humor and extremities in numbers and difficulty.

I’ll get some complaints out of the way now, because most of what I have to say is positive. The battle menu is awkwardly designed, and even when you get used to it, there’s no option to take it off the default “memory” action setting. The lack of a “confirm” button for certain actions thus may result in an accidental Defend or Run - and an ill-timed Defend can ruin a battle easily. Though menus are clean and pretty, some oversights exist like shops not showing your current inventory as you make purchases. Some detail is woefully under-explained: it’s often very difficult to gauge why an enemy is basically immune to an attack or why the least defensive member of a team took the least damage from an attack.

Dungeons never have maps, and boss battle scenes are frequently triggered at invisible points within nondescript rooms, making it very easy to stumble upon a major story scene or challenging fight completely unprepared. Given the difficulty, a skip-scene button or a way to rapidly advance text would’ve been useful. And in a classic RPG jerk-move, multiple characters are taken away for the final battles, and you’re not even given the option to re-equip those you’re forced to use.

With that out of the way, there are some excellent things to point out here. For one, Crimson Gem Saga has some incredible artwork, rivaling Knights in the Nightmare for some of the best character design I’ve ever seen on a portable system. The voice acting is surprisingly top-notch, occasionally providing laughs solely due to how well the lines are delivered. And the humor in general is a great change of pace, with the game both mocking traditional RPGs and messing with the player in ways I’ve never seen in an RPG. It’s always nice for a game that may be destroying you to also make you laugh frequently.

And ‘destroy you’ it will. Although it generously showers you with recovery items throughout, make no mistake, Crimson Gem Saga is a tough game. Enemies become increasingly merciless throughout the game, to the point where losing a full-health character from a single monster’s turn is very common. Certain areas will likely have you avoiding enemies altogether, as combinations of brutal status effects and extremely high enemy damage will make full-party wipes and the “Game Over” screen an imminent threat even in random battles. Not every Boss and enemy is brutal, but the game rarely gives you a break in difficulty aside from the first few hours of playtime.

That isn’t to say the game is unfair by any means. If anything, it’s just that it’s designed with RPG players in mind. The skill tree that Lauren spoke of gives a nice bit of specialized progression that you can use for your characters. The eventual six party members are fairly unique and well-balanced, with each having debatable pros and cons for using in your party. Although you’ll inevitably run into a host of skills that seem pointless (am I really going to spend a turn casting a spell to give one character temporary plague immunity?), in the end this means you can go about progressing the game in several ways. Lauren and I found different characters more useful than others, we powered up some skills/equipment differently, and though her increased time levelling had her get through certain portions of the game more smoothly, we both managed to get through it despite our different methods.

They also have a few nice features as far as RPGs go. For instance, they give the mage character enough MP that he’ll never be forced to use physical attacks. Monster HP is easily viewable, with one cheap shop purchase permanently showing you every monster’s weakness and attack type. Non-dungeon zones have a map overlay system for navigating areas that’s very useful. The game is quite well designed overall; I never really felt like the game’s core mechanics were flawed or just trying to tick me off, even with the randomness of ambushing enemies in the field and a borderline cheap final boss.

I don’t have much to say about the storyline, and that’s partly because I’m not sure what to make of it. The game tows a thin line between tongue-in-cheek parody of RPGs and what seems to be a generic genuine storyline. When the game was being serious, it was well aided by great voice acting and some admittedly tense scenes, but there’s just not much to it. It’s neither insultingly bad nor anything remotely surprising. To that end, I enjoyed it most when it was being absurd, especially with some very funny NPC conversations, “quests”, and reactions to items found in the game.

Playtime can run anywhere from 25-60 hours depending on how much time one dedicates to character development and preparation. The new game+ feature doesn’t offer much, and while it doesn’t necessarily bear another playthrough, we both really enjoyed our playthroughs and swapping stories about the various sections.

Crimson Gem Saga seems like a nice treat for RPG fans who want a fun and casual RPG to kill some time. It’s very funny, and balances a nice line of simplicity in not being too complex, nor being obtusely retro.