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Crimson Shroud |OT| Matsuno fails saving throw, relegated to eShop release

C

Celine

Member
Played until after the second battle yester-night.
I'm liking very much.

Story is well told, music is top notch.
Battle system seems very rich and interesting.

Glad of the purchase.
 
M

M3d10n

Member
Thanks to the overly dramatic negative nancy impressions, the game turned out much better than I was expecting. The characters not having animation was a bit strange in the beginning, but after I got into the figurines on a overtly-elaborated board I got used to it. It kinda reminds me of Riviera, but with a more complex battle system.

Music is great too.
 
T

TEJ

Member
stuck

The door in "walk in reverie.....how do you open it? I've tried many different things but none seem to work.
 
C

Celine

Member
TEJ said:
stuck

The door in "walk in reverie.....how do you open it? I've tried many different things but none seem to work.
Click to expand...
I'm not there yet but if it is the the dark room talked in a review then ...
a key is dropped in an encounter with a group of skeletons but there is a correct order to follow to dispose them: first the archers and then the mages or something like that.
 
T

TEJ

Member
Celine said:
I'm not there yet but if it is the the dark room talked in a review then ...
a key is dropped in an encounter with a group of skeletons but there is a correct order to follow to dispose them: first the archers and then the mages or something like that.
Click to expand...

just tried that.

didn't work
 
C

Celine

Member
TEJ said:
just tried that.

didn't work
Click to expand...

This is the exact quote from the review if it could help:

In the second chapter, there is a darkened room that you cannot get past without a key item. This key item can only be obtained by killing monsters in a specific room, the Geyserm Waterway. This key item is a random loot drop... I spent at least two hours (out of ten hours total of playtime) going around in circles, fighting enemies again and again, reading the manual, checking the menus to see if I had missed something, some command, some spell I could use to light up that room. I had no way of knowing I had to keep fighting the skeletons of the Geyserm Waterway more than the five times I had already, until I took to twitter and got some guidance from a luckier reviewer and, with someone else in my predicament, figured out that the enemies had to be killed in a specific order (archers, then mages), for the item to ever show up.
 
Perfo

Perfo

Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
duckroll said:
Played about 40 minutes, which is about the first two battles. The presentation is fantastic, and I have no problems at all recommending this game to anyone who enjoys Matsuno's previous games and really appreciate the layers in their mechanics. This is totally a love letter to tabletop RPGs, and it feels so good. It's also the perfect sort of portable game for those looking for Matsuno writing and stat driven battles. It feels like reading a short novel, while interacting with a passive game master from time to time. There's no way to replicate the feel of a real tabletop RPG with other players and a real game master, but this totally captures the presentation tone of the playing pieces assembled on a board, while the actual game mechanics feel more like a really well written choose-your-own-adventure novel. The music and sound direction also feels really high effort, and that adds a lot to the story scenes, since the pieces can't move. Great stuff so far.
Click to expand...

I was just waiting for your comment, I might consider buying it now the moment I finish my other games :)
Hyped! Keep us updated though with more details in future playthroughs please.
 
R

Ryuukan

Member
Perfo said:
I was just waiting for your comment, I might consider buying it now the moment I finish my other games :)
Hyped! Keep us updated though with more details in future playthroughs please.
Click to expand...

Any doubt and you should get rid of that avatar. How about a nice portrait of Lightning or Serah instead.
 
D

Deleted member 20920

Unconfirmed Member
Celine said:
This is the exact quote from the review if it could help:

In the second chapter, there is a darkened room that you cannot get past without a key item. This key item can only be obtained by killing monsters in a specific room, the Geyserm Waterway. This key item is a random loot drop... I spent at least two hours (out of ten hours total of playtime) going around in circles, fighting enemies again and again, reading the manual, checking the menus to see if I had missed something, some command, some spell I could use to light up that room. I had no way of knowing I had to keep fighting the skeletons of the Geyserm Waterway more than the five times I had already, until I took to twitter and got some guidance from a luckier reviewer and, with someone else in my predicament, figured out that the enemies had to be killed in a specific order (archers, then mages), for the item to ever show up.
Click to expand...

Thanks. This works
to remove the fog
...I wonder whether there are any clues in the game that suggests the solution...
 
C

Charoncaori

Member
Celine said:
This is the exact quote from the review if it could help:

In the second chapter, there is a darkened room that you cannot get past without a key item. This key item can only be obtained by killing monsters in a specific room, the Geyserm Waterway. This key item is a random loot drop... I spent at least two hours (out of ten hours total of playtime) going around in circles, fighting enemies again and again, reading the manual, checking the menus to see if I had missed something, some command, some spell I could use to light up that room. I had no way of knowing I had to keep fighting the skeletons of the Geyserm Waterway more than the five times I had already, until I took to twitter and got some guidance from a luckier reviewer and, with someone else in my predicament, figured out that the enemies had to be killed in a specific order (archers, then mages), for the item to ever show up.
Click to expand...
Got it myself, here's exactly what happened for me (chapter 2 spoilers!) :
Went to the room for the umpteenth time, beat skeleton archer a, a mage spawned, beat skeleton archer b, another archer spawned in its place, beat that one too, beat the mage, beat the skeleton. A 200 point item called the obsidian daphne dropped, I'm assuming from the description that it's what I needed.

How ridiculously convoluted. =/ I don't feel like testing it, but I'm going to assume
it's supposed to be a random drop, and enemy order doesn't actually matter...
No way to know without trial and error though.
 
C

Celine

Member
Charoncaori said:
Got it myself, here's exactly what happened for me (chapter 2 spoilers!) :
Went to the room for the umpteenth time, beat skeleton archer a, a mage spawned, beat skeleton archer b, another archer spawned in its place, beat that one too, beat the mage, beat the skeleton. A 200 point item called the obsidian daphne dropped, I'm assuming from the description that it's what I needed.

How ridiculously convoluted. =/ I don't feel like testing it, but I'm going to assume
it's supposed to be a random drop, and enemy order doesn't actually matter...
No way to know without trial and error though.
Click to expand...

The spoiler should be on the OP then, to prevent to sour the experience.
Seems rather random.

What do you think?
 
X

Xristot

Member
This game is awesome!

Bought it last night and I can't stop thinking about it at work today.

Matsuno, man. We need more games from this guy.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Just finished chapter 2. All I can say about the point where everyone will get stuck at is... ROFLMAO. It's definitely Matsuno trolling everyone... for the worse. Lulz.

There's actually a pretty clear in-game hint with regards to what you need to do, but the problem is that the actual way of doing it is so... badly designed that people will either think they're doing it wrong, or get REALLY annoyed while trying to get the item. Looooolz.

The story is getting pretty damn interesting though!
 
A

Akuosa

Member
Charoncaori said:
How ridiculously convoluted. =/ I don't feel like testing it, but I'm going to assume
it's supposed to be a random drop, and enemy order doesn't actually matter...
No way to know without trial and error though.
Click to expand...
Yes and no,
it's a random drop, but from the skeleton mages ONLY, so the enemy order matters only because you need to kill the archers for there to be a chance for mages to spawn. Of course, as it's not a 100% drop, it can be a really funny thing to figure out if you're a bit unlucky...
Fun times.
 
C

Charoncaori

Member
duckroll said:
Just finished chapter 2. All I can say about the point where everyone will get stuck at is... ROFLMAO. It's definitely Matsuno trolling everyone... for the worse. Lulz.

There's actually a pretty clear in-game hint with regards to what you need to do, but the problem is that the actual way of doing it is so... badly designed that people will either think they're doing it wrong, or get REALLY annoyed while trying to get the item. Looooolz.

The story is getting pretty damn interesting though!
Click to expand...
Where exactly does the game tell you what to do?
I think if it didn't
give you the option of skipping the room upon return it would have been more obvious. I knew you could spawn different enemies by defeating them in a different order, but not that they'd drop anything important. There's also a new minotaur that spawns on the level above at any this point in the game for extra confusion.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Charoncaori said:
Where exactly does the game tell you what to do?
I think if it didn't
give you the option of skipping the room upon return it would have been more obvious. I knew you could spawn different enemies by defeating them in a different order, but not that they'd drop anything important. There's also a new minotaur that spawns on the level above at any this point in the game for extra confusion.
Click to expand...

When you first clear the Confessional room, they talk about the spell causing the darkness in the room, and how there is probably an object that can counter the spell. But such an object would only be carried by people seeking to undo such magic wards, so the conclusion you can draw is that adventurer mages exploring the place might have something like that on them. The game also makes it clear that the undead are all fallen adventurers.

The design problem imo, is that it should never have been a random drop. It should be a 100% drop if you do it right. Being random adds a lot of frustration to it because you start to doubt if you're even doing the right thing. That's pretty trollish design.
 
C

Charoncaori

Member
duckroll said:
When you first clear the Confessional room, they talk about the spell causing the darkness in the room, and how there is probably an object that can counter the spell. But such an object would only be carried by people seeking to undo such magic wards, so the conclusion you can draw is that adventurer mages exploring the place might have something like that on them. The game also makes it clear that the undead are all fallen adventurers.

The design problem imo, is that it should never have been a random drop. It should be a 100% drop if you do it right. Being random adds a lot of frustration to it because you start to doubt if you're even doing the right thing. That's pretty trollish design.
Click to expand...
Ahh, I get it now. Yeah, it definitely shouldn't have been random...
 
B

British Monsoon

Member
Man, this game is so damn charming. I love the art style, the music is great and the writing is fantastic. The area descriptions really put me in mind of the old Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and in general the writing does a great job of emulating the dungeon master, giving the game a definite old-school feel. Battles can take quite a while, but the mechanics in place during and after them (combos, dice bonuses, bartering system, etc) really help make the battles an enjoyable experience rather than a chore. Looking like a surprise GOTY contender for me, very glad I picked it up on a whim last night, I couldn't bring myself to put it down until 3AM.
 
terrisus

terrisus

Member
Got it this morning, and played through the first three battles so far. I'm really loving the style of the game, it really does have a "classic tabletop D&D" feel to it.
The battle system's not grabbing me quite as much yet, but I'm sure it will be fine. In general though, as I said, just really enjoying the feel of the game.
 
C

clo1_2000

Banned
Gotta agree that it's totally worth the price, especially if you like Matsuno. I was never heavily into pnp or tabletop rpgs, but I find the game fun and the story engaging. It has drawn me in...
 
S

Sadist

Member
Okay I'm dumb

Where do I go next?

I beat the Minotaur and got the contents of the treasure chest, but I don't know where to go. I already had three random battles with goblins :')
 
T

Thoraxes

Member
Fimbulvetr said:
Even with little in the way of animation, I'm really enjoying the aesthetic; it actually makes the fourthwall breaking tutorials(which are written to feel less like you're reading an instructional booklet and more like someone just talking you through the games systems) feel like they fit, whereas they'd just feel out of place in most games.
Click to expand...

I'm really liking the translation.
 
M

M3d10n

Member
I was getting a bit annoyed that the game darkens the image whenever there's text on screen (99% of the time) making the colors muddy, until I found you can toggle the darkening on/off by pressing Y. Now I can appreciate the graphics at their proper colors.
 
I

idlethreats

Member
Reluctant-Hero said:
Good lord, this music. You guys definitely need to play this with headphones!
Click to expand...
Seconding this. I was not expecting anything special for such a bite sized game but it's really quite good. Even the clip that plays when you put your cursor on the game's icon in the 3DS menu is great. Overall, I'm really impressed with the production values of the Guild 01 releases. The localization work in Crimson Shroud is great, Liberation Maiden had great VO, etc. Much better than I was expecting all around.
 
R

Reluctant-Hero

Member
Ghost Dad the Whip said:
Picked up a 3dsXL today, will download Crimson Shroud tonight.

Any other RPGs worth checking out on the 3ds eshop?
Click to expand...

I definitely recommend The Denpa Men. A demo is available on the eShop. You can also check out GAF's Denpa Men OT.

Also Unchained Blades, a first person dungeon crawler, was given an eShop release date today. It will available for $29.99 on January 3rd, 2013. This was a full retail title in Japan and was released for US PSP/Vita this past summer. Check out GAF's Unchained Blades OT.
 
T

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Sadist said:
Okay I'm dumb

Where do I go next?

I beat the Minotaur and got the contents of the treasure chest, but I don't know where to go. I already had three random battles with goblins :')
Click to expand...

If you're still on the top floor, wander around a bit, and you'll get to the next part of the story when you get to the right place.
 
V

vagabondarts

Member
This game.... This game was made for me.

Matsuno, please do a larger more fleshed out version of this...
And create add on adventures and sell them as DLC expansions that carry your characters progress over.

Either that or make real figures and sell them

Or sell an art book. Anything.

I'm a couple of hours into it and I can already tell its going to be over too soon. Just awesome.
 
D

Deleted member 20920

Unconfirmed Member
@MUWANdo said:
Matsuno quit Level-5 recently, didn't he? Probably not gonna happen.
Click to expand...

Yah that was what happened. He has some project lined up though but no one knows what it is yet. I don't think the IP really matters since all the games he creates have similar beats in terms of plot and gameplay. Even in this game you can spot some of his usual themes and terms( renamed but conceptually similar to the Ivalice and the Ogre Battle universe). He really just needs to regain his confidence and start making full games (on whichever platforms) soon.

Just reached the final chapter and the music is awesome. I like the ambience music too, along with the cheering/clapping during battles. Before getting the game I thought that the lines extending from the characters and monsters look really weird but they work really well in 3D.
 
S

Shaheed79

dabbled in the jelly
Anyone who has ever played table top RPG's will love this game and demand for a full featured Wii U eshop sequel. We need way more rpg's that give direct homage to its roots without being scared of alienating the casuals. This game is so much fun and involves a lot of deep strategy.
 
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