Crimson Alliance (Xbox 360)
Crimson Alliance takes an interesting approach to pricing. The game’s first level is provided for free, and in this hack and slash action game, you’ll be free to pick between the Wizard, Assassin, or Mercenary for this initial level. However, to experience the rest of the game, you will have to pay, but not necessarily full price. While you’ll get the rest of the game once you pay up, each character is sold separately for $9.99, and while you can buy the Full Class Pack for $14.99, it is quite possible you’ll only play through this adventure once and might not want to pay a little extra for the full set. There are certainly games out there where you are given multiple options for who to play as where you technically would be paying for characters you never use, but Crimson Alliance unfortunately doesn’t feel like the best test of this pricing concept since your path through the adventure won’t really feel all that different no matter who you go with.
Crimson Alliance’s story tells of a once bustling port town called Byzan that is now an arid desert ruin. The wizard Direwolf is shocked by this severe turn from what he remembers, although the opening cutscene makes it clear a sorceress known as the Soul Siren is responsible for its fall in her search for immortal life and eternal youth. While Direwolf needs time to catch up and learn of Byzan’s fate, he is joined by the mercenary Gnox and the assassin Moonshade who tag along mostly under the vague promise of a worthwhile reward. While the wizard treats this tale like a serious medieval fantasy adventure, Moonshade and Gnox are much quicker to snark about the situation, undercutting things quite often with some tepid humor. The game does allow you to see special scenes depicting their backstory from the character select menu, but the plot doesn’t seem interested in digging deep into these characters or even the world, it instead feeling like a fairly clear adventure to go through Byzan and take down the Soul Siren to save the day.
More disappointing than the lean plot though is the weak variation found among the three playable classes. The Wizard does fight at long range with his magic while the Mercenary instead relies solely on getting into the thick of battle, the Assassin mixing their approaches with her mix of dagger throws and close range combat. This technically means they have different advantages and some enemies do aim to counter them specifically like the monstrous dogs who run in fast to catch the wizard off-guard or the foes who will unleash a burst of power to shove back the physical attackers so they can’t just attack uncontested. However, while the game does try to account for the potential distance your class of choice will have from their target, it also doesn’t give them much else to use beyond basic attacks. You might have something like a stun that can help incapacitate enemies briefly to help control the bigger groups, but you don’t often need to leave your comfort zone of leaning on your basic attacks. Enemies aren’t smart enough, tricky enough, or dangerous enough to push you too far. You do need to respect the ones that can hit hard or have some trick up their sleeves, and it is nice the guard option truly negates most damage so its worth slipping in, but whether you play solo or with up to three other players, Crimson Alliance feels like it can’t muster up too strong a fight.
Despite being billed often as a role-playing game, Crimson Alliance unfortunately lacks the character progression that could have helped you evolve your character over time. At most you’ll be able to find collectibles that unlock additional energy for your ultimate attack that you can use on occasion, but mostly you’re stuck with the same basic skills throughout and the only room you have to grow is through equipment. A good deal of it will pertain to increasing attack strength or health, although the new gear at least isn’t always an easy clear upgrade so there’s some decision making on what you want to emphasize. Some can have extra effects too like inflicting poison, and since gold is delivered at an even pace, purchases at the occasional merchant caravan levels feel weighty. There are secrets in levels that often just involve noticing a small branch off to the side and usually it will contain a decent gold influx, although that’s not enough to undermine the need to make wise purchasing decisions.
Crimson Alliance’s campaign is sorted into a level-based structure good for popping in for quick play, although the few bosses that crop up aren’t big jumps in difficulty and the challenge levels you can discover are just waves of enemies as well. For the most part Crimson Alliance is about fighting your way through whatever creatures you encounter, although there are a few little extras added that all classes can make use of. Consumable items like a turret will fire upon enemies for a bit while monster bait can force them all to target a large steak instead of you for a bit, and these at least expand your options a touch. Explosives and poison urns can be found laying around as well, and most of your healing opportunities come from the jars laying around that could perhaps do with being a little rarer. Crimson Alliance isn’t too difficult and that’s certainly one reason you can get by on your basic attacks much of the time, but it’s not going to be a total pushover once the enemy variety increase a touch, the big monsters that come with forcefields you need to break through first at least ensuring some fights put a bit of pressure on you. It’s not going to make the adventure riveting to have to be a bit more mobile, but it means things are repetitive but not mind-numbing at least and elements like searching for secret side paths can even lead to something the game unfortunately buried.
Crimson Alliance has puzzles, but they’re made entirely optional since they mostly require two players or more to complete. These can, on occasion, be pushed through alone, but some involve trying to get your group positioned properly to attack switches at the right time or overcome death traps with careful timing. Rarely you might get something like this on the main path, but because the game doesn’t want to punish the solo player too much, these puzzles mostly just pay out more gold and aren’t as common of a disruption to the monotonous combat that they should have been. Each character also technically can open special doors that means if you don’t have a team of all three you’re missing something, but again, the game ensures these are mostly gold or a piece of equipment for the relevant class, this variation basic and not really a reason to return to a level if you missed it. The puzzles definitely feel like they could have enhanced the adventure if they were a routine part of the journey to break up the battles, but even if you do have the full crew to properly tackle them, they’re not prevalent enough to push things up and out of the mire of monotony the hack and slash play is stuck in.
THE VERDICT: Crimson Alliance’s pricing structure is more intriguing than its bland hack and slash action, because while you can buy the three classes separately or all at once, the game doesn’t feel meaningfully different based on your choice. The attack options you have will remain stagnant as the opposition can’t really draw too much out of a limited player, and with the character growth tied to equipment solely, you get stronger warriors but not more robust ones. The interesting puzzles are shoved off to co-op side content only, so Crimson Alliance must rely mostly on its repetitive battles that don’t evolve enough to compensate for your stagnant heroes.
And so, I give Crimson Alliance for Xbox 360…
A BAD rating. Crimson Alliance’s crime is being a basic hack and slash. It isn’t flubbing things it tries, the enemies are fine when considered individually and your starting attacks would have been a fine baseline if you kept growing over the adventure. The equipment involving some decision making is a nice step into customizing your hero a bit, but having the only true change in your power being the ultimate ability that usually will get used about once a level is hardly enough to make it feel like you’re growing, and that’s even dependent on finding collectibles so it’s not guaranteed either. The enemies gradually starting to better counter specific attack styles is definitely a step in the right direction but not nearly embraced enough, and it’s not like the trio of heroes is so varied that it would feel like a solo player is screwed if an enemy just happened to be a bit tougher for them. In fact, the consumables were a smart step in the right direction for accommodating more extreme variety, since the wizard could make use of monster bait or the mercenary can make use of the throwing axe. Greater variety even in the basic skills could have kept things lively even if no new powers came along down the line, but instead, you’re going to be the same hero facing similar enemies far too often. Even if the pricing structure didn’t limit some players from only committing to one character, the need to spend gold wisely, while otherwise interesting, locks people out from switching classes too often.
Crimson Alliance does not feel like the right host for this pricing experiment, the game essentially asking you to pick between mildly different flavors of a fairly plain experience. You won’t feel like you’re missing out on too much if you only purchase one, but that’s because you’re mostly just going to experience a sequence of fairly similar dungeon delves where the enemies aren’t pushovers, but you aren’t asked to do much in response in order to survive. Crimson Alliance’s concepts could be crunched down and condensed into an effective start of an action RPG, but with its mostly stagnant characters, this adventure doesn’t offer standout moments or challenges to get you invested in its adventure, emotionally or monetarily.