New Review Posted: Crimson Sea 2

Daniel Weissenberger · 08-11-2004, 12:10 PM

Our erstwhile guest critic Jason Karney reviews Crimson Sea 2 and realizes that:

"if Andrew Lloyd Webber were to make videogames (and perhaps decided that he was turning Japanese), Koei's Crimson Sea 2 is a game that could have been produced by the musical man who crafted works such as Phantom of the Opera and Cats. As a space opera with a glamorous hack-n-slash veneer, Crimson Sea 2 serves as an attractive piece of entertainment in interactive form. The soap opera-like plot set among the stars has a tortured hero fighting demons from both within and without, trying to sort out his love-life and realizing that despite super-human powers, he's just a guy looking for love—albeit in all the wrong places."

You'll be able to find the rest of the review here: http://www.gamecritics.com/review/crimsonsea2/main.php

Boy · 08-11-2004, 02:30 PM

Rock on Jason. I've actually been reading up on this game for some time now, and was wondering why good ol' GC didn't have a review. Now they do.

One quick question, did you dabble at all in the 2-player mode? Most reviews I've read only have about a sentence or two regarding it.

Hypatia93 · 08-11-2004, 03:03 PM

Good job, ol' chap!

Actually, I'd been considering this title (as well as the first) for some time now. Your review helped me cross this one off my list. (That's a good thing, too, considering how long my list is. I /want/ to play so many games, but time simply does not allow for such an induldence. Thus, it's good to weed out the "mediocre" or simply "okay" from my list, which, most assuredly, has higher requirements.

)

Jason Karney · 08-13-2004, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boy

Rock on Jason. I've actually been reading up on this game for some time now, and was wondering why good ol' GC didn't have a review. Now they do.

One quick question, did you dabble at all in the 2-player mode? Most reviews I've read only have about a sentence or two regarding it.

Ha ha, thanks Boy. Yeah, I played the game a while ago, but real life caused a hiatus of sorts, which that kept me from writing the review.

I must answer negative, to your question. I only recently have (extremely casual) gaming friends; and both of them own XBoxen. Ironically, the one platform I lack.

Hypatia, thanks for reading.

--Jason

ashurei · 08-18-2004, 10:05 AM

Well written.
Nice that you gave mention to the character designs, as they are well done.
The artist, Shishizaru (I'm guessing, since he was the one that did Crimson Sea) is quite creative in terms of colours and detail, and he certainly can mix it up with the likes of Nomura-san.

David Stone · 08-28-2004, 10:01 AM

Sorry to resurrect a long-dead thread, but I finally got around to reading a bunch of the reviews that I've missed.

Now, Jason, you know I love you. In a manly way. But I have to take exception to the review. Not necessarily about the content - I haven't played the game - but in the way the review is presented.

Notably, the Andrew Lloyd Webber metaphor doesn't seem right to me for a few reasons. First, I don't think referring to Andrew Lloyd Webber means precisely what you think it means. I always have heard that name used for something pedestrian, average, with a few small successes that try to make up the entirety of a whole with questionable success. Secondly, the whole metaphor just felt kind of forced.

I understand that there are certain stylistic guidelines that GC adheres to - that's part of the reason that the site's reviews are as good as they generally are. But it can be a double-edged sword in some cases.

The meat of the review seems quite sound, and explains the game wonderfully. Sounds like a decent rental, but the extra surrounding material felt like fulfilling an obligation rather than part of the flesh.

Please don't hate me!