7.8

 
Crimson Alliance
Crimson Alliance is exclusively for the Xbox360 and is Developed by Certain Affinity

Crimson Alliance is an action RPG with four-player co-op. You can go through this game with the strategies to look around the dungeons for secret areas or strategy to just hack and slash your way to the end. If you were familiar with games like Gauntlet, you wouldn’t mind picking this game up to add to your RPG action experience. It’s almost nostalgic while still bringing something new.

Let’s talk about the game play of Crimson Alliance. The game world is in Byzan, this once proud empire is now a fallen waste of what it once was. Now Bryzan is under the merciless rule of the goddess, the Soul Siren, letting lose with her dark minions to crush any one that opposes under their boots. All is of course not lost and as we always have to have some awesome heroes in these adventures, so too do we here.

In the game world of Crimson Alliance they are Direwolf, Moonshade and Gnox. Their character classes break down as wizard, assassin and mercenary. Our heroes join forces to bring down the Soul Siren.

Each of the characters has their own fighting style, so depending on the type of player you are, you are sure to find a character that suits you. In battle each of the characters has a basic attack as well as a heavy attack and each character has a chance of stunning an enemy giving them a few extra attacks or a chance to rush on past without engaging. Though if you’re like me in a game like this, why leave an enemy alive? Direwolf, being the wizard can use long range attacks. Old school roleplaying gamers will at once know the value of keeping the wizard at the back while doing his best to flash fry the enemy. Gnox the mercenary is an up-close and personal fighter type so he is going to be the one to wade in weapons a swinging.

Moonshade, is an assassin, this character is kind of the dual class character of the three. They are at home using long range or close melee style of attacks. As soon as you pick your type of player you are able to customize your character in small ways. As the story goes, not to give a lot way, you are on a mission to take on the Soul Siren cult. With your players you are able to combine your special skills. Once you level up, you are able to continue to make your special ability more special. The great thing about combine specials is how well it works when your enemies surround you.

Play through with each character and you shall find the combination that best suits you. Once you go through the levels you can also access your skills with the Back button. Each character has three equipment slots, making it easy to customize your characters weaponry. The graphics of the game are just like your regular RPG, nicely detailed, but nothing to extreme. Your surroundings are what you would expect. For those that like to explore areas rather than rush through willy nilly, they may find some of the secret areas and GASP class specific areas. These areas hold items so characters can upgrade armor and weapons.

Though the levels are very well done, there is never really any doubt on where to go, nor are the hidden rooms ever really well hidden making the whole thing seem perhaps overly friendly in that regard, but after all this is an Xbox Live Arcade game and accessibility to all levels of players and the fun factor is the name of the game. Nothing disappointed me about the levels considering each one was different and fun to explore with your team. There are some pretty cool challenge maps, though these are the standard defeat the hordes style of enemies. They are fun none the less and are the ultimate team work challenges.

Like any sword and sorcery game rife with dungeon crawling adventures, there are also Merchants so characters can use that Gold to make purchases and improve items.

The sound in the game was all right. Once the cut scenes end you don’t really hear from the characters during battle. The background music and sound effects were on point. My team and I were able to enjoy the sound while we entered each room and the music started where we were pumped for the next enemy raid.

After each level you are given a rating. You are scored on your time, enemies killed, and the secrets you have found. You are however given the chance to re play the level if you want to make your score a lot better. You also pick up gold and special side attacks that can be use with your D-pad. Making the game a little more interesting to use the special side attacks to help you take down the horde of enemies. Also you have the chance you buy your upgrades in your weapon and armor, which is the great thing about RPG’s.

On a multiplier note, no one really likes to be scored based on how much fun you’ve had. The leaderboard system that’s in place, highlights the dungeon hack and slash gaming. Killing more enemies of course gets a higher score. Though wait, killing off enemies without even getting hit gives an increased score multiplier. There by giving an even higher score. Now the crux of the matter here is, if even one of the adventurers gets hit in battle, drops down the score. Higher difficulty settings also increases the points earned. In some ways we can’t help but feel points kind of ruin the aspect of the fun in some small way.

Crimson Alliance is a great game to pick up. Grab some extra remotes because it’s teamwork time. You can buy this game when it comes out for Xbox Live Arcade.

Noemi Portillo and
Edwin Millheim
Impulse Gamer