Crimson Shroud

A very short RPG yet somehow enticing, that is the impression that i get from Crimson Shroud. Bought this game along with other Level 5 Guild project few months ago when they were on discount though never bothered to touch the game until i took a short break from Monster Hunter. Crimson Shroud sets itself apart from other JRPGs for having a Tabletop RPG feel like D&D or WH40K which is rather uncommon for its kind. While Crimson Shroud has the Tabletop game feels of it by no means it is a real TRPG. However the game got its mechanics implemented well to have an interesting experience. When i goes through the story, it really give me a certain unique vibe which turns out that Yatsumi Matsuno is behind this game. This guy is known for being creator of FF Tactics, Vagrant Stories and Tactics Ogre which all of these have something in common; very good RPG story. The size of the story is roughly as big as a mini campaign of RPG games which takes place in one dungeon. The story of a Crimson Shroud is about an adventure of 3 Seekers in search of a "Gift", relics that grant its wielder magical power and the one that they look for is the "Crimson Shroud" a legendary gifts that was said to grant great magical power. The adventure leads the adventurer's  to a place called Rahab Palace that used to be a magnificent palace that become a center of civilization but now forgotten by time. As the story continues to unfold the Adventurers will find more sinister forces hiding in this Palace and it is up to their ability to survive this ordeal.

At first for me, it is rather hard to grasp the gameplay mechanics since there are lots of mechanics crammed at the same time. You will need to loot your enemies spoils to get better weapons and keep augmenting it. Once you understand the mechanics you will this game enjoyable otherwise you will only deal one damage to the enemy. Crimson Shroud is divided into 4 Acts which will roughly last about 4 hours and most of the time you will spend is to get the key from random encounter which can be very frustrating sometimes. There are 2 endings available in this game which you can only access the second one after you finish the first playthrough as more areas become available in new game+. My suggestion for this game is once you get Falchion try to find more Falchion to upgrade it as high as possibly since the weapon will simply wreck the enemy once upgraded with the special move. Overall i find this game is one of the better Guild project titles and wished there would be some kind of continuation by Matsuno with the same game mechanics. So whenever the game in discount again, just grab it without hesitation!