Crimson Tears is a guilty pleasure. It can be repetitive. Neither the graphics nor the audio are really spectacular. The story is 100 percent disposable. Most of it we’ve seen before in better games. But for some reason this game rises above the sum of its parts and is a solid and entertaining experience that had me playing way longer than I ever thought I would.
Crimson Tears is the story of a group of biological weapons called “mutanoids” (think a kind of cyborg) that are out to rescue their creator and a fourth member of their group in 2049 Tokyo. The mutanoids are nicely cell-shaded, stereotypical anime metro-sexual male, scantily-clad babe and scantily-clad schoolgirl types. Each has their own specialty in battle, but very little real personality. Things are not going too well in Tokyo either. An experiment by the A.R.M.A. Company has gone awry and a large part of the city has been sealed off. The area has become an unstable labyrinth that shifts from one visit to the next and is the domain of various bioengineered weapons that are not quite as friendly as the mutanoids.
The game offers some interesting play mechanics. Only one mutanoid at a time can be sent into the labyrinth. Before the player goes in, he picks either Amber (the babe), Kadie (the schoolgirl) or Tokio (the metro-sexual male) to be his avatar. The base of operations is a garage where the two non-playing mutanoids wait as the third fights. As mentioned before, each of the mutanoids has their own battle specialty. What they all share is how they do battle. Two buttons control the melee combos with a third button launching a special, stronger attack. A fourth button launches a ranged attack. Shoulder buttons initiate evade and guard maneuvers. Launching any attack causes the temperature of the mutanoid to rise a little. Special attacks cause a more rapid rise. Getting overheated is very bad. If a mutanoid is allowed to stay in an overheated condition he will lose hit points and can become inoperative. Mutanoids can be cooled down with – what else – coolant. Hit points can be replenished with energy drinks. These items must be carried in the mutanoid’s limited inventory space. Cooling and energy gels can also be found by the player as he moves around the labyrinth. These cannot be stored and are used immediately upon being found.
Before teleporting to the labyrinth, it is a good idea to go into what is left of town and get a few essentials in the way of weapons and medicines. What is left of Tokyo is home to various people who can help you. The most important ones are the medicine, gun and bladed-weapons vendors. The vendors are who you’ll go to in order to buy the items that fill your inventory. In addition to the somewhat standard health and weapon items, there is one other that is indispensable – the returner. The returner allows the player to teleport back to the garage from anywhere in the labyrinth rather than just after defeating the end boss. It’s just the thing for saving your bacon when you’re in trouble. It is a good idea to always keep one in inventory. The problem is the character’s carrying capacity is frustratingly small. It really takes a bit to learn the balance of things to take.
That kind of segues into the upgrading system. Not only does the character "level up" much like an RPG, but the fighting abilities and weapons do as well. Experience points are obtained anytime an enemy is vanquished and are used for overall character improvements like increased hit points. Parts are found in the labyrinths that allow the player to upgrade a character’s fighting combos, special moves and weapons. To pick up an item and bring it back to the garage or town where it can be used to make an upgrade, there must be room in the inventory to store it. The small inventory space really becomes a pain here.
Better weapons and items also become available from the vendors as the game goes on. But the availability of better items only happens if the player makes it so. This is done in a rather clever way. It seems in 2049 the tax collecting system has broken down in Tokyo. Now the mayor stands out in front of the sealed-off portion of the city and duns the player for contributions to rebuild the city. If the player keeps giving a good portion of the gold he collects in the labyrinths to the mayor, the shops of the vendors keep improving with better items. Since there is always more money found than is needed by the player to fill his meager inventory slots, giving it to the mayor for building up the vendors is really not painful.
In addition to the main quest, various non-player characters in the town may ask you to do side quests in labyrinth levels already completed – generally for a nice reward of course. About the only guy I ended up shunning was the gambler dude. His wagers don’t really add a lot of gold to your pocket and artificially lengthen the game without being much fun.
Labyrinth enemies are varied and have several attack modes. The level bosses are fun and challenging. If a mutanoid becomes inoperative during a boss fight, another mutanoid can be sent in to challenge the boss and rescue the fallen comrade without fighting through the entire labyrinth again. A rescue mission can also be mounted if a mutanoid falls in regular battle, but this does not happen as often and involves fighting quickly through the level to reach the downed friend.
Controls are very responsive and take only a little while to completely master. Graphics and audio are a bit workman-like, but do not detract from the game experience.
It all sounds fairly good, right? There is a dark spot – the camera. It is fixed so that (this is the best I can describe it) it is always facing north. Sometimes it is closer or farther away from your character but it is always looking in the same direction. This means that when you send your character barging into a room it is likely that you’re not going to be able to see the enemies that are inhabiting the space and you’re first going to have to conduct a fast-running recon to make sure that a bruiser of a robot tank is not going to run over you while you’re busy dealing with some low-level grunt trooper. This fixed camera makes it easy to match up your movements with the heads-up-display map, but that is about the nicest thing that can be said for it.
