Capcom is traditionally known for making some of the best fighting style games in the industry and they’re also recognized for creating generally high quality titles ever since they introduced games like Legendary Wings and Mega Man to the NES well over 15 years ago.  But times, they are a changing and today’s gamers demand more and more complexity out of their games.  Enter Crimson Tears, essentially a straightforward beat-em-up but with a modern day RPG twist.  It’s easy to simply write off Crimson Tears as another button mashing punching-and-kicking ordeal, as that’s pretty much what it is at first, but the character building dynamics and challenging nature of progression will keep you button mashing all the way to the bank.

Advancing your character, earning experience and watching them grow more and more powerful is a gameplay dynamic that just never gets old, regardless of how many times it’s used.  That facet of the experience, coupled with the mildly satisfying melee and ranged combat is enough to keep a lot of gamers hopelessly hooked, but Crimson Tears’ excellent weapon system ups the ante even further.  As your character excels in terms of statistics so too will their weapons.  Not only that but the various weapons in the game, while initially only numbering around half a dozen, quickly grow in assortment and dramatically change up the character’s style of fighting. 

The game’s three playable characters – Amber, Kadie, and Tokio – begin the experience as undeniably weak fighters that sustain serious damage from attacks from even the game’s weaker enemies.  But as you defeat opponents and earn experience they’ll receive healthy hit point boosts, stronger and longer combo attacks and a better chance at surviving through floor after randomly generated floor of unrelenting monsters, soldiers, and robots. 

Fighting mechanics are simple and straight forward, but they’re also upgradeable and intuitively designed.  You can bang out different melee combos using the square and X buttons in different orders.  You can block.  Use ranged attacks (assuming you have a ranged weapon equipped) with the circle button.  Execute powerful special moves with the triangle button that slows down time and basically obliterates any enemies in front of you with a single devastating attack.

These special moves do not work like you may think.  They don’t rely on magic points or any type of traditional RPG points – instead they increase your overheating meter, as does all attacks in the game, though special moves heat you up considerably quicker.  Once your overheating meter is full you’ll go into something of a trance state where offense is doubled but defense is nearly non-existent, plus your health will gradually deplete until you cool down via specially designed coolant items or simply sit tight long enough to cool down.

The three characters in the game range drastically in terms of personality and aesthetic style, but that’s pretty much where their differences end.  They all control identically, differing mostly in the frames of animation used for their moves.  The only real difference between Amber, Kadie, and Tokio are the weapons they can handle and some slight deviations in their attributes.  But having three characters at your disposal does have its benefits.  For example, if you enter a level with Kadie and die before completing it you can opt to rescue her with another character.  You’ll guide the second character through the maze-like corridors that make up the majority of the games levels, following the directions you are given to track her down, and you’ll only have a couple minutes to do so.  If you are successful then you’ll retain all the items and such that Kadie collected before she died, if your rescue attempt is a failure then you can kiss all that swag goodbye.  It’s an interesting dynamic that gives players additional chances to salvage the fruits of their efforts.

It is drilled into the player’s mind early on that you should always have a ‘returner’ in your inventory.  A returner allows you to warp back to your garage base while retaining all the goodies you’ve collected on the level.  Returners are especially useful when you know your character is just not strong enough to complete the level, or if your character is in bad shape you can utilize a returner to avert rescue efforts.  Of course, returners are not the only items you’ll want to keep handy; it’s a good idea to have a pile of health boosts and cooling gels at the ready as these are essential items to surviving extended outings. 

Visually, Crimson Tears is a good looking game but not really impressive or standout in any particular way.  The randomly generated environments are essentially just pieces of multi-pathed pipe; some segments are straight others are elbows.  The problem with this is that you’ll quickly grow tired of staring at the same pipe piece segments over and over again and you’ll feel as if you are moving through a simple maze area instead of a genuine fighting game environment.  Character models are nicely detailed though, especially the three playable characters and the various end level bosses.  Some of the lesser enemy thugs in the game are recycled a bit much but it doesn’t detract too much from the overall enjoyment of the game.  The sound presentation is probably the game’s weakest technical aspect.  Sound effects are incredibly redundant and generic, weapon sounds aren’t drastically different from each other, the various yelps and grunts on the part of the playable characters get old quickly, and the music is your run-of-the-mill beat-em-up fare that goes in one ear and out the other.

Aside from Crimson Tear’s inherent repetitiveness it can actually offer quite a few hours enjoyment under the right circumstances, assuming you can overlook its glaring downfalls.  The character advancement system is satisfying as is the combat dynamics and the weapons system adds an additional layer of depth to the intrinsically deep RPG dynamics.  Overall, Crimson Tears is certainly worth a rental and possibly even a purchase. 

Gameplay: 7.6

Simple and straightforward yet surprisingly scalable and intuitive.

Graphics: 7.1
Something of a mixed bag.  Characters look great but environments are far too generic and repetitive.  The bosses look excellent.

Sound: 6.2

Standard issue sound effects and forgettable soundtrack.  Voice acting is merely passable.

Difficulty: Medium

Be prepared to venture into the game’s levels multiple times before sufficiently powering up your characters to confront the boss.

Concept: 8.4

Combining straightforward beat-em-up dynamics with inherently satisfying RPG mechanics is a great idea.  Hopefully we’ll see more of this type of integration in the future.

Overall: 7.6

As repetitive and basic as the game can be I enjoyed leveling up my characters and upgrading my weapons quite a lot.  Definitely worth checking out.