#CRIMSON SHROUD PC ISO DOWNLOAD#

With further excursions towards the characters’ pasts or pieces of lore in between, the game strings a complex and colorful narrative in a world dominated by political intrigues and power struggles between the Gatherers, the church and the senate. This approach allows for a string of interesting literary techniques and twists, and they are applied masterfully. In fact, the adventure is already over when the story first sets in, and the actual interactive scenes are all flashbacks, told by the captured Frea after things went wrong. At the beginning of the adventure, Giauque’s party has already found poor Andolay’s lifeless corpse, and narrowed down the whereabouts of the “Defense of Heresy” to the palace. For most of the game it is kept uncertain what he is really looking for at the palace, but he has deeply rooted ties to Giauque.Ĭrimson Shroud is really only half RPG, and half interactive novel, told in interleaved narrative layers. He and his troops arrived late at the Palace of the Rahab, and he is seen in the chapter interlude sequences, interrogating a badly wounded Frea after the adventure. Charactersįlint commands a unit of the Knights of the Peace. All that was not enough: Andolay believed that the manuscript would lead him to the Crimson Shroud, the legendary first gift. The manuscript cost its author his life, and was kept locked away by the church, until it disappeared. The “Defense of Heresy,” then, is a treatise written by the theologian Natanael, which gathered evidence for the proposition that the gifts were indeed sent by the Devil to seduce mankind. The original gifts, however, were sought out and jealously kept by a secret society, the Gatherers. Those lend their owners magical power, and soon people found ways to copy them in lower quality. This shall require further explanation: According to legend, the world of Crimson Shroud used to be devoid of any magic until a thousand years ago mysterious artifacts, the “gifts” appeared and where soon declared God’s miracles by the Conclave of the church. This particular contract actually involves both – an influential member of the aristocracy sent the heroes on the trails of a young monk named Andolay Cleantis, who reportedly unearthed the most forbidden manuscript of all time, the “Defense of Heresy.”

Not quite like the Risk Breakers in Vagrant Story, Chasers are mercenaries who specialize in finding and retrieving lost, escaped or stolen persons or items. The game follows the Chaser Giauque and his companions on their quest into the ruins. As its spiritual predecessor, the quest takes place entirely in a single building, here the Sun-Gilt Palace of the Rahab, the monument a king of a long-lost dynasty dedicated to his queen.

#CRIMSON SHROUD PC ISO DOWNLOAD#

As part of Level-5’s Guild01 project, a bundle of small-scale creations by renowned Japanese game auteurs like Goichi Suda and Yoot Saito, Matsuno’s latest work retailed only in Japan, while the West got it as a download exclusive in the 3DS eShop.Īlthough Crimson Shroud takes place in a new fantasy world, it harkens back to Vagrant Story a lot. Well, at least he now has thrown his fans a bone with Crimson Shroud. Whenever he leaves one of his creations in the hands of others, only half the heart ever remains – the “true” Matsuno games are deep, dark and serious, with no plucky 18-year old “veteran” world savers or silly slapstick sequences. It truly is a shame, for even though his style is distinctly Japanese, it’s at the same time very unique, and very atypical of Japanese RPG storytelling. Not only are half of them hidden behind obtuse mechanics – as is the case with Vagrant Story and at least the original version of Tactics Ogre – strictly speaking there hasn’t been a true Matsuno fantasy story since Final Fantasy XII, which is arguable, since he had to bow out in mid-development due to health reasons, and what remains is only a twisted travesty of Ivalice. It isn’t always easy being an admirer of Yasumi Matsuno’s enticing worlds and narratives.

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