The cover might've worked if the characters weren't unknowns.
Do y'remember Dream Factory, per chance? They were involved in Ergheiz, Tobal and The Bouncer. While Ergheiz and Tobal were fighting games, they also had a rogue-like RPG submode, remember? It kinda played like a beat'em, like The Bouncer. Well, Dream Factory collaborated with Spike to create a full game out of their tried and tired formula. Welcome to Crimson Tears, a beat'em up/rogue-like RPG fusion.The story... was way too weird and way too uninteresting for me to care. You play as any of three ridiculous looking cyborgs('Mutanoids' in the game), Amber, the leader that sports a glorified swimsuit, Kadie, a quirky blonde girlie girl that looks like any other fanservicey Japanese female character design and Tokio, a dude that's wearing a tank-to two sizes too small. And they collaborate to bring down other stripperific-looking androids. Character design is awful, the story is unintelligible Japanese mumbo jumbo that tries to appear deep but is just nonsense. You will not be playing this game for its story.
Character design is trash, but the game is worth it I swear.
Luckily, the gameplay is pretty darn good. Square punches and X kicks, while triangle performs a super move that makes the Heat gauge rise(More on this later), circle shoots your equipped gun, L1 can be used to perform a short hop backwards, that seems useless until you realize that you're invincible throughout the entire animation and R1 can be used to block. The combat is amazing, making combos feels very organic and landing hits feels very satisfying. Different enemies have widely different attacks and tells, as well as some will react differently to different moves, so you can't just juggle every enemy with the same combo. It's a fantastic beat'em up engine. Now, add to this the fact that all three characters have very different movesets, even when they can equip the same weapon. Oh, weapons, there're swords, knives, claws and gloves and every character has different equipment. Tokio can only equip two-handed swords or gloves but is the only one that can equip a few exclusive guns. Amber can equip a knife, two knives, one handed swords or even two one-handed swords, as well as gloves. Lastly, Kadie is the only character that can equip claws, but she can also use one-handed swords and two-handed swords. And remember, even though Kadie and Tokio can use two-handed swords, they wield them in different ways. All this variety makes it rather disappointing that the game doesn't have a two-player co-op mode.
Alright, so if the game is SO good, why did it fell through the cracks? Why doesn't more people know about this game? Well.... because this is also a roguelike game. There're eight dungeons, as well as a secret ninth in which you can unlock Retro Capcom costumes(Like Amber in Chun-li's clothes or Tokio in Ryu's), and they are all randomized squared areas with no personality. You go from room to room, searching for keycards to open up the teleporter to the next floor. I will admit that dungeons have very different themes, and each theme has a few exclusive pieces which in and of itself already makes it less repetitive than Persona 3's dungeons but still makes progression a bit rigid. You aren't waiting to play a new setpiece, nor will you get exciting moments like, say, an explosion altering the stage.... it's just square room after square room after square room after square room.
Characters have the personality of a brick and less development than a rock.
Then there's the difficulty: The game is hard, man! The first boss will easily kick your butt until you get comfortable with the controls. And as soon as you think you've got it, the game will throw blue-demon dogs at you, that steal your hard-earned items with a single bite and then escape. And then you're thrown into a massive 10-floor dungeon with two bosses. And all throughout the game you'll have to deal with Heat. Your character is an android, and as time passes he or she will overheat. Certain actions, like blocking, Super Moves or evading make it rise even faster and once it fills... you'll become extra strong and extra fast... as you defense gets halved and you'll start losing health constantly. Eventually, the Overheat status can go away... but it will leave you with less than 10% of your total health. There're items to reduce the heat gauge, but you can only carry up to 5 items of each, in an inventory that can only hold 24 items.
Alright, so just try to hoard and purchase as many coolant items as you can. Fair enough, but you also need to carry spoils from fallen enemies to upgrade your items. And you also need to carry your weapons. One will not suffice because weapons break with usage... and when you get hit, and if they do, they're gone for good. Items grow stronger the more you use them, but the more you use them the more they break. And there're only two ways to fix them: Be lucky and have them level up when you defeat an enemy... or run back to town and fix them for a fee. So: You need to carry multiple weapons, you need to carry coolants to keep your temperature in check, you also need to carry healing items, you also need to carry scavenge, you also need to be careful that your weapons don't break or get stolen. You can probably see how this game can get pretty hard.
The unlockable Capcom costumes are pretty rad.
Did I mention that if you die you lose everything? You can also try to rescue your fallen character with one of the other two remaining characters, in which case you'll get to rescue your items as well. It's a tough game. But there's another thing that makes it even harder: The camera. You can't rotate it, so you will get attacked by enemies that you can see. You will fall into traps, like explosive mines, because there was no way that you could've seen them. The camera is the most annoying recurring enemy that you'll face in the game, so get ready to get hurt by stuff you couldn't even see coming.
I kinda loved Crimson Tears. I'm used to playing rogue-likes and I kinda like them every now and then. The beat'em up mechanics are just brilliant, dealing with the various enemy types was a blast and the animation helped make every blow hurt. That said... this not a game for everyone, and not everyone will get as much mileage from it as I did. You need to be ready to deal with odds against you, with a camera that works against you and to stress over how little you've got left until you overheat and you're all outta coolants. It's a tough game, a game that won't reward your progress but where the fighting is the reward in and of itself as you take down enemies with combos of your own creation.
8.0 out of 10
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