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Crimson Gem Saga - Sony PSP

Platform : Sony PSP |
Rated: Teen
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 43 ratings
$84.99
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About this item

  • Ambushes and chained critical hits add additional layers of complexity to what gamers will immediately find to be a solid, tried-and-true combat engine
  • Featuring artwork and a beautiful presentation designed to take full advantage of the PSP's high-resolution screen
  • Delivers the crisp character designs, sweeping background art, and stunning special effects gamers have come to expect from elite JRPGs
  • 30+ hours of gameplay
  • Stunning 2-D art design

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Crimson Gem Saga - Sony PSP

Crimson Gem Saga - Sony PSP

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Product Description

OLD MEETS NEW IN THIS PURE JRPG EXPERIENCE FOR PSP! With beautiful, high-resolution 2-D artwork, novel battle mechanics, and a classic tale of fantasy, adventure, and heroism, Crimson Gem Saga delivers the pure, classic Japanese RPG play experience PSP owners have been clamoring for since the hardware's launch. Taking full advantage of the crisp, clear PSP screen and boasting a colorful, catchy musical score, Crimson Gem Saga is a blast from the past presented just as you'd expect a modern RPG to be.

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Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
3.8 out of 5
43 global ratings

Customers say

Customers like the storyline, fun, and voice acting of the video game. They mention that it's a good solid RPG, with great main characters and well cast voice actors. They also appreciate the music. Opinions are mixed on ease of use and graphics.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

6 customers mention6 positive0 negative

Customers find the storyline very well done, solid, and enjoyable. They also appreciate the fantastic animation both in and out of battle. They say the artwork and story are both solid and enjoyable, and that the combat system is good.

"...The artwork and story are both solid and enjoyable. Heres hoping for a sequal." Read more

"...The animation both in and out of battle is fantastic. You can see a character's hair move, or their chests heave when breathing heavy...." Read more

"...The story was classical and i didnt see some of the story line coming. I think this was a well put together game." Read more

"...Battle is also rather traditional, being turn based. Monsters are visible on screen and you run into them to initiate battle...." Read more

5 customers mention5 positive0 negative

Customers find the game fun, with great graphics and combat that doesn't get boring. They also say the facial expressions make interactions more fun. Customers also say it's a challenging game with random humor.

"...The artwork and story are both solid and enjoyable. Heres hoping for a sequal." Read more

"...and even have some exaggerated facial expressions, which makes interactions more fun. The animation both in and out of battle is fantastic...." Read more

"...It really wasnt a long game but it makes up for it in entertainment. The story was classical and i didnt see some of the story line coming...." Read more

"...Great graphics and fun combat that doesn't get to boring. Would loved to see more questing besides the lame few there are.4/5" Read more

4 customers mention4 positive0 negative

Customers find the voice acting in the game wonderful and well cast. They also say the characters have a nice level of detail and the attack animations look solid. Customers also say it's the best voiced title from Atlus and one of the best for the PSP.

"...Everything is done in an anime style, but the characters have a nice level of detail, and even have some exaggerated facial expressions, which makes..." Read more

"...Sprites have a nice look to them and each character has a death animation as well...." Read more

"...Not one single voice acting is terrible, Herbert sounds homosexual at times, but even his lines are done badly, just with a lot of colour, and he is..." Read more

"...3- Voice acting is a little decent but then again voice acting to me is really not a abig deal when it comes to RPGs..." Read more

3 customers mention3 positive0 negative

Customers find the music in the game beautiful, interesting, and nice. They also say the sound in the games is nice and the game strives for a more traditional feel.

"...The sound in the game is nice, with some interesting choices in music for towns and dungeons...." Read more

"...It uses sprites and strives for a more traditional feel, which works very nicely...." Read more

"...breath of fire or grandia but on a handheld..there is some beautiful music in this game,although some of it is generic....." Read more

7 customers mention3 positive4 negative

Customers are mixed about the ease of use. Some mention it's straightforward and to the point, while others say it'll become tedious and rushed towards the end.

"This game is great the story line is good very easy to follow because of the goal tracker. I would recommend this game." Read more

"...Straightforward and to the point. While it is a little grind requiring, the combat actually never gets tedious..." Read more

"...Party of 4, move select and go. Straightforward and to the point...." Read more

"...I enjoyed this game quite a bit, and though I feel it was a bit short, and a bit rushed at the end I was able to play all the way through it without..." Read more

5 customers mention3 positive2 negative

Customers are mixed about the graphics in the game. Some mention the graphics look pretty nice, with nice looking sprites and death animations. However, others say the spell graphics are uninteresting and crudely animated.

"...The backgrounds for all the areas I've visited so far are all quite lovely and there is a variety in monsters, skin swapping included though...." Read more

"...Great graphics and fun combat that doesn't get to boring. Would loved to see more questing besides the lame few there are.4/5" Read more

"...In addition to that the spell graphics are fairly uninteresting until you get the best ones, and even then they won't melt your eyeballs out of the..." Read more

"...The Graphics in the game look pretty nice...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Grayz
5.0 out of 5 stars As Blessedly oldschool-traditional as it gets!
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2019
Verified Purchase
I'd argue this is possibly the BEST turnbased 'oldschool' jrpg on the psp. Party of 4, move select and go. Straightforward and to the point. While it is a little grind requiring, the combat actually never gets tedious (theres a critical hit combo system in place that keeps you watching the fight closely.) The artwork and story are both solid and enjoyable. Heres hoping for a sequal.
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RPGee Wiz
4.0 out of 5 stars Short but fun
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2010
Verified Purchase
Crimson Gem saga was a game I took a chance on after reading the description here on Amazon. I liked what I heard which was that this game is essentially an old school experience. For the most part its true save for a few little additions which I will mention more later.

I enjoyed this game quite a bit, and though I feel it was a bit short, and a bit rushed at the end I was able to play all the way through it without getting bored and switching games. Atlus has a pretty good reputation in the JRPG community for producing fun games with good localization, and this title is no exception.

Graphics and Sound

The Graphics in the game look pretty nice. Everything is done in an anime style, but the characters have a nice level of detail, and even have some exaggerated facial expressions, which makes interactions more fun. The animation both in and out of battle is fantastic. You can see a character's hair move, or their chests heave when breathing heavy. All of the attack animations for characters look pretty solid. One of my minor complaints is that some characters have really boring attack animations. The main character does a sideways slash with his sword that could really be a lot more exciting considering he is the main character, and he will be using that same move over and over again throughout the game. Even a downward or diagonal slash would have been better. The Cleric Geltz is even worse, wielding a massive war hammer, that he just sort of impotently drops on the enemies. Oh well its small potatoes.
In addition to that the spell graphics are fairly uninteresting until you get the best ones, and even then they won't melt your eyeballs out of the sockets or anything. Most of the time whatever spell effect it is will just sort of fall out of the sky on the enemy...

The sound in the game is nice, with some interesting choices in music for towns and dungeons. I don't feel I need the soundtrack, but there are certainly no complaints.

The voice acting is wonderful in the game. All of the main characters have well cast voice actors, that bring them to life, and the characters themselves have such interesting personalities as well. The main problem I see is that there isn't enough voice acted character interaction in the game. there is a decent amount, but just not enough, especially towards the end. You will find yourself wishing for some more conversations, even pointless ones, as the group dynamic is so well done in this game.

Game play

Get ready to save every lead dime in this game. Not since Final Fantasy 1 have I played a game with such expensive items, requiring hours of monster fighting for gelders. I personally hate this as I feel its a cheap way of milking some extra hours out of the game. Fighting monsters for money and experience, or "grinding" as many call it can be fun for some, but there is definitely a point, where you will get tired of fighting monsters in an area you can't leave for hours so you can buy a couple pieces of armor and a weapon maybe. There are some really cool items in the shops too, but good luck having any gelders left over after buying your armor and weapons. Heck good luck just buying your armor and weapons for that matter. This right here is what will kill off any player that is not an old schooler from the days of yore. If you started playing RPGs with games like Final Fantasy 7 you will probably find this aspect completely unbearable. On the other hand I do get a bit tired of more modern games just handing you everything, as it makes gold a fairly meaningless reward. I like a good obsessive grind-a-thon myself, its in my blood, and I can do it while I watch TV but even I was a little put off by how steep some of the items in the game were.

This game has a combat system with some great pros and some major cons, depending on what bothers you. First off let me just mention that the game is turn based, so if that is a deal breaker then you need not bother with this one. However it is well implemented and fairly challenging compared to most RPG games that have come out recently. The monsters really don't cut you any slack. Some of them can wreck you fast if you make a careless error in judgment.

One thing I loved about this game is the fact that status effect attacks such as poison or confusion, not only work, but can really turn the tide for you. However that can go both ways, should your enemies manage to confuse half your party. You may find yourself just barely limping away from some random group of enemies. In fact the normal monsters you fight in this game can hardly be brushed off. Its a challenging game. The bosses are also fairly difficult in the beginning but begin to become somewhat arbitrary towards the end of the game particularly when you have a 4 person combo move that just makes the party invincible for 8 turns. Its clear that they realized this and so their solution for the last couple of bosses is to take away all your party members except 3 which you cannot even choose.

I think this is what really pissed me off about the game. I don't want to spend an entire adventure leveling up 6 characters and buying them ludicrously expensive equipment, only to have 3 of them completely removed from the most important battles of the game. It does make sense for the plot which I will not give away, but let's just hope you have been training everyone...

There is a quest system in the game, sort of. There are really only about 3 side quests, for all the big deal the game makes about this quest tracker thing it has. The quests are generally boring, and offer little in the way of rewards. There should have been way way more of these little quests. It just doesn't feel like it belongs in the game. Usually the side quest is just something in the dungeon you are about to go to anyway, so its not really like you have to go out of your way, unless they fluff the game time out by making you go back through a whole dungeon just to pick up some thing which will get you a marginal reward. it wouldn't be so bad if there were more and you could do them as you go. This just feels like some half cooked up idea that got all but dumped as time constraints got heavy.

One other game mechanic I want to mention is the critical strike system which is fun, if not totally unbalanced. Oh and when I say fun I mean its fun to do it to the enemies. Its not real fun when they do it to you.... You will see what I mean. You see every time you get a critical hit on an enemy you have a chance of having the X button pop up on screen. if you hit it fast enough you will execute a few more attacks. If those attacks also "crit", then you can hit the X button again for even more hits. This makes your Will stat, which governs critical rating, the most important stat for a physical fighter, even more so than strength. Most normal enemies will not survive one of these attacks, and boss monsters will eat it pretty fast with this kind of punishment happening. Critical hits happen fairly often in this game as well. I'm not sure what the math is exactly but at least two of the characters get critical hits with a percentile chance over 50% for certain. The big downside to this is that the enemies can do the same thing to you. Its just not a strategy element I feel was necessary. Sure challenge is important but the game just becomes a matter of kill them fast before you get hit, and that's not very fun. Honestly no one wants to have their strong and noble hero obliterated by one attack from a slime or a goblin, but it can happen if the laws of chance are against you. Maybe they should have put a similar button timed block in the game to balance this out. I don't know. The enemies already hit you hard even without critical hits so you have to be extra careful, and most of the strategy is about deciding which enemies to kill first. Sometimes you may actually need to gamble on a death spell or a confusion spell, rather than face a volley of slime beatings that could potentially kill you. In other words its a mixed bag.

Plot and Characters

This game has a great set of main characters. They have fairly generic job classes, but the underlying personalities of each along with the overall group dynamic serves to make the group memorable and fun. The plot is pretty cut and dry without many big twists and turns until the end. Even the major twists at the end are either unsurprising or are surprising, only because they hadn't been set up properly.

The main character is a man named Killian who is a Chevalier, or knight for the less French oriented. He happens to be the second best soldier at his academy (A fact which the game humorously doesn't let go.) and he is set upon the path of adventure inadvertently while looking for a good job and a stable future. The other characters include a quirky and larcenous elf girl, an oddball sardonic wizard, a wacky old cleric, a strong silent type monk, and a personality-less female knight who doesn't join up until near the end of the game.

The plot of the game revolves around the adventurers seeking out rare magical items of great evil called wicked stones. The game doesn't go into great detail about them until near the end of the game, but suffice it to say that they are magic rocks that make you powerful, but in one ring fashion corrupt your soul. This is a serviceable idea if not a little unoriginal, and the game sets itself up as a travel the land collecting the X number of rings/crystals/magic wands/other plot device, type of ordeal. Now I sort of suspect that this game was intended to be much longer, or at least have several sequels. it does describe itself as a saga after all. If there does end up being a few installments, then you can disregard my following remarks...

The game feels very rushed towards the end. For the first part you go along and collect a couple of wicked stones, then it almost feels like the developers started to run out of time and just rushed for the end of the game. It creeps up suddenly and very anticlimactically and leaves you feeling a bit cold. The ending is barely more than a quick whats everybody doing now and there is literally 0 closure on the major plot twists of the game. Its really sloppy. I was left feeling a bit pissed, having enjoyed the ride up to that point. i can only imagine that they intend to release at least one more title to sort of fix this, but knowing how these things usually go, it probably won't sell enough copies and be forever doomed as an abandoned project. Perhaps i am just being pessimistic only time will tell

In the end its a good solid game with a few idiosyncrasies that you may be able to deal with just fine. All of my complaints about this title seem to creep up in the last 2-4 hours or so of play and there's plenty of great game before, with fun random humor
11 people found this helpful
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Just A Review Guy
1.0 out of 5 stars Great Artwork, Bad Everything Else
Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2020
I think the headline speaks for itself. The sprite work and art style of this game are pretty incredible. Sadly, that's where the positives end.

The Story: Mediocre
The Combat System: Average turn-based
Dungeon Design: Convoluted
Ending: I wasted x hours to see this?
Shop Prices: W T F

Seriously, the shop prices in this game are absolutely mind boggling. You can grind for hours to buy a single piece of gear. Also, grinding for levels is actually pointless, as gear is the only thing that truly matters when it comes to how much damage enemies can deal to you. In the end, the only thing you're grinding for is money, and the fact that you get levels in the process is just a placebo. If there's one instance that drives home the money problem in this game, it's that you can get 20,000 of it in the very first town by talking to a hidden NPC twice, which is about 200x more money than what you have at that point in time. Sadly you'll have spent every single ounce of it by the time you leave the 2nd town.

Honestly I think this game could have been amazing. Had levels made a difference, gear been fairly priced, dungeons made sense, and the ending not suck, I feel like this could have truly been one of the best RPGs on the PSP. As it stands, though, only pick it up if you're a completionist or a glutton for punishment.
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Pinger
2.0 out of 5 stars The opposite of fine wine
Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2011
I don't know what went wrong with this game. It starts off with great potential and then it just falls down a sewer. When people initially play this game, they will likely be awestruck by its beautiful hand-drawn artwork, its traditional RPG mechanics, incredible humor, and fascinating story; but then it seems the further you get in the game, the more the game frustrates you.

Contrary to others have said in the more "negative" of the reviews here, I do not think the armor system is that broken. I think the leveling system is broken. Leveling seems to have no affect on your character whatsoever, while armor and weapons make a much bigger influence. Unfortunately, most of the gear and accessories- especially in chapters 3 and 4- require an unreasonable amount of money to purchase, forcing players to grind to no-end. And without the armor upgrades, a normal equal-level mob can take 50% of your health away with one hit (assuming they don't crit, because then they can attack again up to 3x, basically killing you).

Another big problem with this game is its dungeon design. The first few chapters had a great set-up, they were simple but not too simple. In the later parts of the game, the dungeons all become these giant mazes where every single new room and floor looks exactly like the previous. To make matters worse, while trying to traverse through these labyrinths, you still have to solve puzzles on top of it and look for treasures. The worst feeling is when you finally find the exit, but then questions yourself whether or not you found all of the great items in the dungeon (especially considering how expensive gear is, as previously mentioned), making you save and turn back around into the maze, praying that you can find your way back to the exit again.

The skill system is also broken. In order to upgrade your skill from level 1 to 5, you need a series of medallions (bronze, silver, gold, platinum). If you have 100 silvers, 100 gold, and 100 platinum but no bronze, then your skill will never get higher than level 1. Unfortunately, bronze medallions are extremely difficult to acquire and once you get to the mid-point of the game, you can't go back to try to grind up some. In total, you have over 100 different skills and I only acquired 10 medallions throughout the entire game, most I used prematurely since I just assumed you'll be given the opportunity to get more later. I assumed wrong.

The last big issue I have with this game is the final dungeon, boss, and ending. I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say it sucked. It's short and lacks the needed substance to give you that closure and reward for all the hard work you put into game. [Minor spoilers]: The final set of boss fights are just as awful. For one, characters that you've been leveling this entire game will be suddenly omitted from those fights. One character in particular, receives his final weapon just a few floors from the bosses and then he's ejected from the final two fights completely. What's the point, then? Also, you're only allowed to use 3 instead of the usual 4 characters for these fights, and all three characters are characters you don't get to choose. One of the forced characters in particular is just awful too. Lastly, the final boss doesn't matter...literally. If you beat him, you get the ending. If you wipeout, you get the same ending. There was no point in even fighting him.

All-in-all, this game had so much potential and I really did love it initially, but then as it progressed, it just got worse and worse to the point where it actually kind of makes you angry. I recommend this game only if you can get it for a good deal <$20, anything higher and you'll feel like you've just been ripped off.
11 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on December 31, 2017
Verified Purchase
Excellent service quality product
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Digital Tiger
3.0 out of 5 stars Crimson Gem Saga had so much potental to be a great game, but some simple core problems kept this game grounded.
Reviewed in Canada on August 29, 2009
Verified Purchase
Crimson Gem Saga is a standard rpg that I enjoyed playing but suffers from a few core problems. Still, I am not sorry I spent 46 hours playing it and not all the problems are that bad. The main plot to the game is you and your party go out to find the wicked stones. (powerful magical artifacts) These stones are also being gathered by a religious army that isn't to happy with your group, so the bad guys and the good guys are out to get you.

Game play is where the problems are in this game; basically the problem is about system balance. Combat is standard turn based but it takes so much magic points to fight the normal monsters that you spend most of your money on recovery potions that you can't afford the expensive weapon and armour upgrades. By the time you do have some money you're to far away from that weapon shop and once you progress to a new game chapter the previous areas are unreachable. Basically in order to do well you have to grind a lot in every new area, the normal battles are very tough and the boss battles are a cake walk.
The skill system however is great, you gain points in combat and you can use the points on which ever character you want. So skill customization is quiet good.
The dungeons can be a bit to maze like but if you're paying attention there are clues to navigating every dungeon well.

The graphics are awesome; this game is very easy to get into just on the looks alone. If you have played Jeanne d'Arc then you will really enjoy the graphics on this game because their just as good.

The sound is good but I had it muted most of the time so I can't really tell you any details. When I play hand held systems I have the stereo or the TV on.

The value isn't really that hi, $40 Canadian for this game and there isn't any good reason to play this game more then once. As rpgs go second play throughs are standard and this game falls short here. So buy it used or when its price drops and then you will be getting a better deal.

Basically this is a good but not great game, I didn't regret buying and playing it but if some game play aspects had been better balanced this would have really scored higher with me.

Game play: 5/10
Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 7/10
Value: 6/10

Overall: 7/10
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