Crimson Moon, a co-op crusade started too early – PC Review

Crimson Moon knows how to get noticed. The ProbablyMonsters title offers an action-RPG formula in the souls style seasoned with rogue elements, with the possibility of tackling the entire adventure in co-op with a friend; all at a pretty good list price. The impression, however, is that the American studio could have used a few more months to refine the experience, or at least consider the early access hypothesis. As it stands, too many blunders prevent it from reaching its full potential. But let's go in order.

Crimson Moon adopts a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy setting. Hordes of demons have invaded the city of Gildenarch, killing the population and corrupting the surrounding environment. As a Nephilim, a human-angel hybrid, we must recover three magical stones, the hearts of three major demons, to prevent the infernal legions from spreading to the rest of the world. It will be our task to clear a series of districts, powering up along the way, until we reach the boss guarding the crystal, purify it after the necessary beating sequence, and return it to the church.

The first “run,” which introduces events and locations, features two paths of three levels each, at the end of which a dedicated arena battle awaits us to obtain the coveted stone. For the third, however, the game cuts short with only the final battle, incidentally recycling a previously encountered enemy, who for the occasion has appropriated the attacks of past bosses. A lazy solution that smacks of cut content, but at least it keeps a total duration under 5 hours. Few for a regular campaign, but this is a roguelite, so you'll return to it often. And obviously, in case of premature death, you'll have to start over.

There are five difficulty levels, which gradually increase the monsters' resistance and damage dealt, but also the amount of gold, souls, and experience points obtained, as well as the quality of equipment found around. A meta-progression system allows us to improve our Nephilim's performance, with additional lives, a greater number of consumable items, more health, stamina, and mana... Furthermore, we will keep weapons, armor, and accessories worn for subsequent games, only reset to the lowest rarity and without extra modifiers.

Before reaching the credits, we will have already seen most of the content, and it's not even that difficult to make progress once you get the hang of the (lacking) combat system. The main incentive will therefore be to challenge ourselves with ever greater challenges and see what build emerges with the loot and blessings accumulated. The scenarios are linear, but the route to follow is not always the same; there are also documents with story details to collect, side quests for allies in the central hub, and particularly tough secret bosses. The problem is that variety is scarce.

The game showers us with loot, but basically, the arsenal includes only one one-handed weapon and one two-handed weapon. Yes, design, parameters, and timings change between longsword and mace, spear and halberd, but the moveset is the same and abilities are shared. The only good shield, however, is one with 100% absorption, and I found nothing to convince me otherwise. And the blessings? Many on paper, extremely limited as soon as you get your hands dirty. Stat increases, bonus and/or residual damage, auras, and niche effects that you quickly learn to avoid. There's little room for experimentation, so you end up falling back on the usual “safe” options, making all runs very similar to each other. Also because it's not possible to freely change equipment.

A limited assortment of variables would even appeal to me if the combat system were engaging, but Crimson Moon's doesn't seem to have been designed too well. There's something profoundly wrong when the best way to deal with enemies is not to engage them at all. We have the usual soulslike action-RPG approach, made of cautious movements, patterns to study, limited resources, parries and rolls calculated to the millisecond... Unfortunately, the player's attacks have a ridiculous range, there's an annoying input delay (especially for dodging), and it takes just a breath to end up on your back. Conversely, any beast, except the dumbest skeletons (but only if we strike first), will ignore any form of damage and can track us with its slashes or projectiles as if they were surface-to-air missiles (I've repeatedly seen arrows curve in the air just to hit me).

This means we can risk at most a couple of light attacks at a time, while heavy ones are out of the question; parries remain an option, but in my opinion, there's little to gain compared to the risk. The erratic camera doesn't help. Lock-on is necessary to land hits, but it will start shaking the view nauseatingly as soon as the target moves, if it doesn't get stuck in walls first. In addition, the stamina bar, with its pale green transparency in the center of the screen, is often not visible, unlike health and mana, which are clearly highlighted in the bottom right. I also find it very gratifying to execute an elite and immediately be beaten up by its companions at the end of the animation; stopping the “spectators” during the act or mapping it to a different button than attack would be appreciated.

At a certain point, you understand the flow and start making rapid progress, realizing, however, that the ideal use of the sword is to throw it at enemies. It's a shame, because the level structure works, the level design is not bad at all and it's enjoyable to explore, and the bosses are mostly convincing, until they decide to become invulnerable to pose or spam AOEs in a game clearly not calibrated to handle them. However, there are no weapons, skills, maybe a class system, something that expands the current formula and justifies the presence of rogue dynamics, which are currently more of a hindrance than anything else. The co-op is nice, but it cannot alone sustain an infrastructure poor in attractions. We hope for the already announced expansion.

On the technical side, at least Crimson Moon manages to hold its own. The gothic aesthetic with ultra-detailed designs (the central hub is particularly impressive), the bright colors, blood, and destruction everywhere recall the good old Darksiders. The scenarios are rather traditional, among medieval villages, cathedrals, castles, and battlefields carpeted with corpses and a strange reddish substance of infernal origin, but they boast a decent variety of environments and also develop vertically. The absence of fall damage encourages some platforming phases that would otherwise have caused more than a few controllers to fly out the window. I wouldn't have minded a more extensive roster of monsters.

Performance is solid, with the frame rate remaining locked at 60 most of the time, but it can be unlocked on more powerful machines to run smoothly between 100 and 120 fps. Some sporadic drops in the most chaotic situations and a couple of crashes, which fortunately take us back to the beginning of the level and not the entire campaign. The enemy pathfinding needs reviewing, as they don't seem to know how to bypass destructible elements, and the animations of the poor dragon, which instead of falling down ends up in a T-pose inside the tower; strange that no one noticed...

The English voice acting is good, but the Italian text adaptation, done with AI, is less so, especially when characters speak in a less “conventional” way. The soundtrack alternates atmospheric tracks during exploration with tense ones for combat, then switches to heavy metal for boss fights. It's fitting and enjoyable to listen to.