Crimson Memories

Crimson Memories. This is a short action game made in 2012, a simple adventure but one that requires amazing skills to be completed. Let's begin the tale of the angelic tower:

Entering the tower
The story is quite simple: there's a magical item, a fruit that grows and can be found on the top of this magical Angelic Tower once every houndred years, that can cure every illness and even revive the dead. Of course many people wants this item, and our protagonist, the swordsman Teodor, is just one of them.

Now, I played another similar rpgmaker game with an almost identical premise, in which three characters were looking for this kind of artifact AND decided to join forces to reach the top, promising to fight among themselves once found the item (sadly that was a demo and I'll never know what was supposed to happen in the end!). Teodor, the red swordsman is not so lucky, because every other challenger will oppose him as soon as he or she notices his presence, and act as bosses (one each floor). Yes, this is a quest that will see Teodor competing alone against everyone, to get the magic fruit!


Teodor looks at the sky one last time before entering the tower, while a raven mocks him because he knows how hard will be his quest to reach the last level!

Climbing the tower
The floors are four, and each one, besided the boss, will present some opponents, traps and even little puzzles that will have to be solved to unlock the various doors. Other doors instead opens when you kill every hostile creature in the room, but remember that as soon as you leave the area enemies respawn! This is quite useful since grinding is necessary to amass good quantities of gold and level up.
Did I say gold? Oh yes, inside the tower it is possible to spend gold to buy healing potions (that are used pressing the Shift key) and improve Teodor's stats.
But this is not all: inside the tower there are also the Gobies, friendly creatures that will be extremely helpful because they act as both healing and saving points.

Gameplay is simple and well done: realtime action combat, you swing the sword and kill things (you have a life bar and a pow bar that acts like the Stamina in Dark Souls)! Combat is fast and furious, really, but there are also some parts in which you have to swim and avoid snakes, because it's not possible to attack while swimming! The system is simple and effective, and apparently it works well, but... well see my final thoughs!

Music is very good, I liked it a lot, and I liked graphics too: it's a simple, short game but well done, maps are ok and enemy sprites are nice, Teodor and bosses have various animations. Story is simple and dialogues are few but flawless. Nothing I can complain about for these aspects, really.


She looks like a maid but she's so powerful! Teodor has levelled up a bit and has bought two potions. Will be enough? (no, of course!)

To the tower's top
Unfortunately here come the bad news: game is ok for the first half then bosses becomes extremely difficult and frustrating. Not only they have several attacks and moves, but Teodor seems like a hopeless warrior since he has no ace up his sleeve, unlike them! He also doesn't seems to become powerful quickly, instead it's necesary to grind a lot to make him a decent fighter! Too bad! This is the only real problem with this game, bosses need a lot of pratice and concentration to be defeated, no doubts that people who love challenge will love this, but everyone else will probably feel discouraged. Anyway there's nothing else to say, I think!

Oh yes, the rating! Simple graphics, simple gameplay but everything well cured and nicely detailed, a short action game doesn't need a complex story at all, unfortunately the extreme difficulty of the second half may turn some players away.
3.5/5 is deserved nonenthless (a lower difficulty and maybe some kind of alternate/super-attack or defense/parry skill would have improved the still good game). In short, this is the Dark Souls of the Rm2k3 games, really.

So this was Crimson Memories, that's just one (I think maybe the first episode) of a series, I've found also a Crimson Memories: Witch Hunter that has a blonde protagonist named Delvin and plays more or less like Teodor. But that's another story for another time!