Ex's 2016 beat list:
50. Crimson Shroud|3DS|2012|JRPG|6h 55m|7/10Crimson Shroud is what you'd get if you mixed Dungeons & Dragons with HeroQuest, while letting Yasumi Matsuno be your Dungeon Master. Truly, if you're a fan of traditional paper & dice RPGs, there's a lot to love in Crimson Shroud. Yet, this pocket RPG is not without some significant faults.
First the good stuff. Crimson Shroud is a labor of love without doubt. Level-5 contracted Matsuno to design and direct a small 3DS game for their Guild series, but likely got more than they bargained for. Yasumi-san is not one to think small, and his consistent desire for complexity and grandiosity permeates every line of code in Crimson Shroud. It's a testament to Matsuno's tight design chops, that with such limited assets, Crimson Shroud still manages to be a beefy and deep experience. In that regard, Crimson Shroud is a master class in doing more with less.
More good stuff. Graphically Crimson Shroud is quite limited, barely having more graphically than what you'd see in a real board game, yet this is charming in and of itself. Musically this game soars and will surprise you with its magnificent orchestrated score. The actual writing and localization are both on another level, way beyond what you typically get with a JRPG. The battle system is deeply complex and multi-layered, as you'd expect from Yasumi Matsuno. In addition, there's a robust gear crafting system in place, which must be mastered to beat the hardest enemies. Yes Crimson Shroud is no push over, the difficulty level ranges from medium to high, remaining consistently challenging.
However, all is not perfect. Being of limited assets, Crimson Shroud attempts to maximize its completion time in some unsavory ways. The worst example being a required random item drop received from a particular enemy. Some people have spent hours trying to get that drop and never did, quitting rightfully in disgust. Battles tend to drag on and on, since strategy is so dependent on buffing and debuffing, and doing so takes many turns to achieve. In my opinion the dumbest design decision though, was to lock 20% of the game's content behind a New Game+ mode. Being already a short enough game as is, Matsuno should have just included that 20% in the primary campaign instead.
Crimson Shroud is a very good proof of concept. But it needed a lot more content, better balancing, a few design changes, and another round of graphical polish to be a masterpiece. (Yes Yasumi Matsuno has created some masterpieces, such as Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story.) Given the very limited budget and constrained development time, it's still extraordinarily impressive what Matsuno-san did accomplish with Crimson Shroud. This unique experience is the closet thing you can get, to sitting down with a pen & paper RPG, while rolling die with a legendary Japanese game designer as your own personal DM. The honor and privilege of doing so, makes Crimson Shroud a must play for the hardest-core RPG lovers out there.
http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/f_ ... Vj_hnA3d69
