Crimson Alliance Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on September 7th, 2011

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While it could definitely have used more meat on its bones, Crimson Alliance is a fine little game that does just enough to provide a few hours of solid fun. It's got a bright and fun visual style, an encouraging level of challenge, and should be the perfect way to keep one's sword sharp while waiting for Diablo III to turn up. You can't say fairer than that.

Despite these setbacks, Crimson Alliance delivers largely as promised. Thanks to its pared-down feature-set and easily mastered battles, the game works quite well as an introduction to dungeon-crawling RPGs. That said, longtime fans of the genre might not find enough depth or challenge to make a purchase for solo play worthwhile. Entertaining, but not essential.

Where Crimson Alliance could have joined the white noise of dungeon crawlers, Certain Affinity has managed to design a solid and - more impressively - distinctive game, regardless of whether the simple, pick-up-and-play approach turns off a few hardcore fans of the genre.

I liked Crimson Alliance, but I felt as if I enjoyed it more because I enjoy this genre than because of anything this particular game does. It is fun and the combat system is smart, simple, and effective. There's plenty of content that's worth replaying, particularly with partners but it's ultimately repetitive, shallow, and I'm not sure that the streamlining away of loot, experience, stats, and grinding works in the game's favor. It also suffers from a lack of inspiration, with completely uninteresting fantasy tropes and enemy types that barely register a blip on the (memorable) scale. I'd love to see Certain Affinity expand the game with DLC or a full sequel because there are good ideas here and good gameplay, it just needs a little fleshing out and a stronger sense of identity.

So to sum it all up, I really enjoyed playing Crimson Alliance. Overall the game was developed and presented really well all the way around. I did not spot any real flaws in the game, other than the ones I pointed out and even those are only opinions and not necessarily mechanical flaws. I definitely have to say give this game a shot, I definitely would recommend it anyone. You will get plenty of playing time with this title and that's always a good thing. A huge thumbs up to Microsoft Game Studios and Certain Affinity for this title. The game definitely deserves a spot in your Xbox Live Arcade library.

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