I went ahead and pulled the trigger on this. I hesitated, not solely on price, because I'm a bit skeptical about the comparisons to Chaos Rings. I didn't want to be disappointed based on placing my expectations on a comparison to a game I feel is the class of the app store. I bought it based on the fact that it is a PSP port, and I'd like to see more of those, and the strong support SZ has given. I really hope that it can live up to the lofty standard that CR has set. If it can, than I'll be a very happy camper indeed. One thing is for sure though, and that is that I won't snap to judgements too soon. In a game with this apparent scope, I need to give it some time to reveal itself. I'll post impressions once I've put some time into it.
Whether it surpasses CR kinda depends. If you're more into JRPGs and the like, you'll probably appreciate the much deeper mechanics in CGS, CR was simply not deep enough for me in terms of gameplay. But CR beats it in terms of interface controls and storyline.
Plus the art style and art direction in CR was absolutely fantastic, which is just what you would expect out of SE games. But I totally agree that CGS is a much deeper gaming experience, and it does lose out to CR on the interface asset purely because CGS is a port while CR was released as a native iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad app. Many traditional RPG elements are here which are lost when playing CR as well.
What? Hybrid has great story? Compare to the cheezy scripts, CR has extremely deep story. Hybrid's story reminds me of pokemon's which is extremly cheezy. If you didn't get 100% of CR, you didn't get the whole story of the game. It's like watching 1/2 or 3/4 of the movie.
Yeah, though I deliberately avoided graphics because I appreciate 2D art, and CGS has some really good spritework, so I think that comparing two completely styles is a little unfair.
I was one of the few (or many) who actually hated FFXIII. The gameplay just seemed like a over-lengthened tutorial with virtually little or no actual control over your characters or any real decision making that would provide a challenge while playing the game. It seemed like an overdrawn cinematic experience which I soon got tired of. That being said so, does Chaos Rings have a good amount of 'substance' or am I just going to have to run around and deal with random encounters, tapping one/two buttons to execute the same three/four spells or attacks over and over while the victory music plays? That while seeing a few cinematics and solving some puzzles? I'm guessing Crimson Gem Saga is a lot more about GRINDING to level up, getting more varied items and upgrading characters instead focusing on a solid storyline. Tough choice in either case.
The main draw is in the deep storyline, the combat is the usual turn-based stuff, but there is an element which works in a triangle sort of system. The core gameplay is a little barebones, but the story makes up for it, IMO. You'd be guessing pretty wrong. You seem to be describing some sort of Zenonia type game, but CGS follows a usual JRPG formula, which is mainly story focused. That said, there is a lot of variety in the gameplay, each character has their own upgrade tree, different types of equipment, etc. that differentiates from being 'yet another JRPG'. Also, there's been no need for grinding for me 10+ hours into the game.
I was just reading the CGS instruction manual PDF and was delighted to discover this is actually a Korean RPG published on PSP by Atlus. Some of the SK Telecom guys were mentioned in the credits as well. The best JRPG on the app store is Korean.
Anyone who is just getting this: make sure to switch from the default floating d-pad (which is pretty much broken) to the fixed d-pad, which is pretty good. Though this is a turn-based game, you need the controls to be fairly accurate to both avoid enemies and to catch them by surprise -- I have no problem doing either with the fixed d-pad.
i notice that too a lot of my games take up more spaces like gta chinatown war and other stuff why!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i only got a 8gb ipod touch i need more spaces!!!!!!!!
They are compressed like zip/rar files so that they download faster and take up less space while sitting on your computer's hard drive
REALLY? I've been using the fixed D-pad for a day now and I'm getting much more ambushes than before, but evading the monsters is still pretty hard, though it's not because of the controls. Whenever I try to sneak past the enemies I get ambushed and then I have to go all the way back to the starting screen while swearing never to try sneaking past enemies again. Then I load the latest savegame only to be taken 10 minutes into the past and that's when I almost throw my phone on the wall and swear to remember to save after every encounter.
Enough. The one surprising thing in this game is that it's actually tough which can't be said about too many JRPG's. Then there's of course the ambush stuff which can make the game even harder or really easy depending how good you're at it. You can ambush monsters by moving next to them from behind their backs so that they can't see you. Monsters can ambush you if you've gotten their attention and try to flee, or take too much time engaging them after they've seen you. Succeeding in ambush takes steady fingers (which I as an oldie don't have anymore) and some patience while you wait for monsters to turn their back on you.
After an enemy sees you they rush after you at full speed, and they always ambush you. The best strategy is to either attempt to ambush the enemy and if you fail and enter battle you can attempt to escape. To avoid the battle completely by sneaking past them you need some kind of barrier. The enemy follows you in a straight line so turning a corner quickly can cause them to snag a corner and unable to follow
or you can use the clever method. After battle you have a second of invulnerability and invisibility so just quickly run behind the next monster and you'll get the advantage
For me it's a combination of patience and getting a good feel for the monster's awareness distance. Also, being conscious about map edges (you always get away when you leave the current screen). In any event, I find the fixed controls to be good enough that I can manage to stage ambushes a fair amount of the time. When I get caught is almost always because I get cocky, not because I can't manage to move in the right direction. And soup: in the dungeons I save pretty much after every successful encounter.
One thing to add to the "save after each encounter" rule is to save before changing to another area. I've had a lot of occasions where the game would crash when entering a new map. It might be that JB of my device is causing that since I have some programs eating memory all the time.
