Crimson Gem Saga is another in a recent line of "pretty good, but not great" role playing games from Atlus.

User Rating: 7 | Crimson Gem Saga PSP
By Swoosie | Review Date:
The PSP definitely has been holding its own in the RPG arena, largely thanks to Atlus. In their 2009 flood of RPGs, Atlus' latest Japanese translation is Crimson Gem Saga. It's a very likeable, well done, but ultimately not an extraordinary RPG.

The good:
* Great hand-drawn sprite-based visuals, though again our sprites are very small...
* Decent musical score
* There aren't many voice overs, but what are there are decent.
* The storyline and character backgrounds, while not super creative, will still keep you engaged
* Good skill-tree system
* Some good variety in monsters and environments as you play through.

The bad:
* Repetitive turn-based combat
* Backtracking and unnecessarily maze-like dungeons make the combat that much more tedious (can you say 'level grinding'?)

Overall, while the game may not break any barriers, it's a "good enough" JRPG for those anime RPG fans to enjoy a playthrough. I wanted to really like this game, but it somehow lacks pizazz, and never blows you away. Still, it's worth a look. But if you want this style of game with a bit more "meat", try Mana Khemia or Star Ocean.

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