Crimson Alliance is a “hack n' slash” action RPG developed by Certain Affinity. Crimson Alliance had a weird release. If you purchased all games in the xbox live “Summer of Arcade” you received this game for free. If you did not there were multiple ways to pay for Crimson Alliance. The main game is free on the xbox live arcade, but that was pretty much a demo. If you only wanted to play one of the three classes,mercenary, assassins, or wizard, it would cost you 800 Microsoft points or 10 dollars. So you could, in theory pay 30 dollars for Crimson Alliance. There is also an “All Class Pack” which is 1200 Microsoft points, or 15 dollars. It is not recommended that you buy a single class pack as the “All Class Pack” is a much better deal.
The current story in Crimson Alliance focuses mainly on the wizard. The mercenary is tasked with bringing the assassin to the Crimson Empress. On the way they both meet the wizard who joins their party. The group ends up making it to Byzan, where the wizard grew up. They find Byzan destroyed, and they head out to find out why. It ends up that a past lover of the wizard has come back and taken control of Byzan and ruined it. Certain Affinity has stated that they want to release episodic content to further continue the story of the three characters. The story definitely ends in a way that adding more story content would not be difficult.
As stated earlier this is a “hack n' slash” game. It is much like a mix between Torchlight and Diablo. All three classes have their own version of a doge maneuver, stun attack and basic attack. The assassin (who I played the most) has a slash attack for her basic move, and her secondary attack is a dagger throw. The mercenary has a light attack for his basic move and a heavy strike for his secondary attack. The wizard has a fire shot for his main attack and an area-of-effect move for his secondary attack. For the person who has not played many of these types of games I would suggest the mercenary, as he start with the most health and is the easiest class to just kill things with. The wizard is a class I would not suggest for anyone that is playing solo. The wizard has the least amount of health and is not good at dealing with crowds, which is the main way enemies will attack you. If playing co-op the wizard can be a good class. I played through the single-player as the assassin. She has the fastest movement speed and health is in between the mercenary and wizard. The dagger throw is helpful for picking off enemies from a distance and thinning their ranks before they get close to you.
The single-player is a set path of different levels which are completely separate from one another. All levels are set in dungeons with multiple secrets to be found. Many levels have at least nine secret areas. Many of them are just full of gold, and many of them are pretty difficult to find. Another item usually found in the secret areas are consumable items. There are four different consumable items,monster bait,a turret, health totem, and throwing axe. The monster bait, turret, and health totem are pretty self explanatory The throwing axe is the one that needs some explaining. When thrown the axe will explode and burst into flames hurting all around. When used in conjunction with the monster bait the throwing axe is insanely useful in the first half of the game. There are stages for the types of enemies. At first you fight monsters, the you move on to humans(?),then zombies, and lastly skeletons And as you may expect the enemies past the monsters are not effected by the monster bait. Besides the single-player there is four-player co-op, which allows players to use any combination of the classes you fill out the four spots. Also when going through the story mode you will eventually find challenge maps. All the challenges are is up to five waves of enemies that you must defeat, and once you do you get rewarded with gold and a medal.
The comparisons between Torchlight and Diablo are more than just genre. The art style of Crimson Alliance is very similar to Torchlight when in game. All cut-scenes are done in a motion comic style, that looks really good, and for the limited time it is seen it does not over stay its welcome. The sounds that the enemies make sound fine for the first few minutes you hear them, after that they kind of get annoying. As for most of the game you are fighting the monsters you get weary of their sounds really quick. This also goes for the sounds each character makes.
Crimson Alliance may be one of those games many people do not play as it is a smaller game on the xbox live arcade. With Torchlight also being on xbox live arcade, there is not a lack of quality “hack n' slash” games, but Crimson Alliance is ,while similar to, is different than Torchlight. The story mode takes only a handful of hours, but awards players for going back and looking for all secret areas and collectables. If you have played Torchlight or Diablo and are looking for a similar game with co-op Crimson Alliance is a good pick up for the price.
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