Crimson Sea

"Exterme action in a decent package"

Graphics
At first glance Crimson Sea will remind you of Final Fantasy X, the character models look as if they were pulled straight from SquareSoft’s premiere RPG, got a slight polygon boost, and some new higher resolution textures thrown in the mix. This gives the game a style, whether or not it’s a good style is all a matter of preference, I tend to like it, and chances are 90% of gamers everywhere will share my opinion. The animation in Crimson Sea is decent, its not over the top or absurdly amazing, but it gets the job done, whether it be the basic running and jumping, or a combo with your sword, its all there and it all looks good.

Game Environments, while not lush with detail do convey the atmosphere and the mood KOEI was going for, everything is futuristic, and almost has a Phantasy Star Online feel, while at the same time not being as colorful or bright. The real power of this games graphical engine comes during battles, one minute you will be running down a hall with no enemies in sight, and then two seconds later your screen will literally fill with hundreds upon hundreds of creatures of varying size, all trying to take a bite out of your health bar. There is the reason this game is only on Xbox, and now you know why.

Another aspect of the graphics worth mentioning is the particle/lighting system. Incredible is the word ill use, when you bust out your Neo-Psionic powers for the first time you will gaze in awe at all the excellent lighting effects. They get better as you go, and that alone is a reason to finish the game, I haven’t seen spell effects this cool since Grandia on Dreamcast, they really are a sight to behold.

Sound
The sound, is iffy, Voice Acting can at times be worse then that in the Resident Evil series, I guess what I am trying to say is, its never good, hell its never decent, it does however move the story, and it can be funny as long as you don’t come in expecting to hear dialog that’s as high caliber as the movie Freddy Got Fingered.

The games music is what you might expect from a futuristic “killem till they’re dead” style game, lots and lots of guitar rock. Of course it also has its softer side, and by softer I mean an Orchestral score, which is always nice and relaxing…or downright creepy.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that this game supports real time (in game) Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, we all know how much I love my Dolby. There is no better sound then hundreds of little creatures swarming you in 5.1, you know where they are coming from at all times and it really gives those with a nice sound system an advantage over those playing in stereo.

Gameplay
Unlike most hack and slash games, this one seems to have a little extra depth. Aside from just swinging your sword, or staff, and shooting your guns, you can also bust out some impressive magic called Neo-Psionic energy blasts. They work just like magic in other games, you have a certain amount of mp, and once that dries up you either find some more via med kits, or your out of luck.

Crimson Sea use’s a Quest based system ala Phantasy Star Online. You start out in the HUB, where you buy your weapons, and items, or talk to other people on board the ship, once your done schmoozing you go to a terminal and select your quest. Come to think of it this game is an amalgamation of many different popular games, like Dynasty Warriors, Phantasy Star Online, and Final Fantasy X, which of course is not bad, in fact it’s pretty damn cool.

Once your quest has begun, you’re presented with objectives, generally they are just kill everything and move on, but sometimes you have to rescue someone, or find certain objects. Along the way you will encounter literally 1000’s of enemies per quest, normally each is followed by a boss character of some sort. The biggest problem is some quests are just so hard, or they have ridiculous time limits, you could make it all the way to the very end, which can take upwards of 30 min, then die or run out of time, and have to start all over again, this of course leads to frustration that will make you curse the game many times over.

One of the cooler game play aspects is the weapon system, your gun, which is fully upgradeable, also acts as your melee weapon. You start with the basics, but you can upgrade the barrel and power supply to further enhance that guns abilities, add that to the fact that there are a ton of weapons to find or buy, and you have a pretty in depth, and very customizable weapons systems that just begs to be tinkered with.

Of course for all the good, there is always one really bad element, and this games biggest offender is the camera system. Often times it just gets in the way making it hard to see what you should be killing. The way its setup makes turning around really difficult, but ill get into that in the controls section.

Controls
Everything about the controls is responsive and executed in a decent manner. That is of course everything except the camera system. Basically like most 3rd person perspective games these days you can control the camera with the right analog stick, the problem is as soon as you move it and let go of the stick it snaps back to where it started, which is just odd. Another problem that stems from the clunky camera is turning your character around, the game is setup to have the B button do a quick 180, the only problem is you have to be standing still to do this, and when there are 500 creatures at your feet it becomes a problem, if only you could do a 180 jump or some sort of roll it would help a lot, but as it stands anytime when your not facing the proper direction your going to lose some health.

At first due to the setup of the camera you initial reaction to the controls will be to say they suck, since targeting, and just getting your character to move where you want them to will be a feat in itself, but after an hour or so you will get the hang of it, and you will start busting out 250 hit combos that would make anyone in the Mortal Kombat series cry like little school girls.

Graphics 8
Sound 7
Gameplay 8
Control 7
Replay 7
OVERALL (not an average) 7

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/04/03, Updated 02/04/03