Crimson Alliance Preview

After some hands-on time with the game, G4TV has conjured a preview of Certain Affinity’s hack’n’slash Crimson Alliance, which should give you an idea of what the game brings to the table to scratch your Diablo-like itch. Here’s a snippet:

Exploring through the first level, I was smashing open every possible container in sight and looking for money and health, while battling with lower level baddies. You’ll encounter the standards like explosive barrels and the like, and it’s all rendered in a fun, near-cartoonish art style reminiscent of Torchlight. But that’s about where the similarities end. Crimson Alliance quickly ramps up and brings the action to you very quickly.

While the game is a hack and slasher at heart, if you’re playing with the Mercenary or the Warrior solo, you’ll be very thankful when someone playing as a Wizard joins up and adds ranged combat to your party. You can also pick up several special “skills” throughout the game that get mapped to your d-pad, and those are basically equippable items for each character. The Mercenary, for instance, can drop a turret that automatically fires bolts at enemies, and so on.

The game features a combo meter that builds up as you battle without taking hits, and that gives you a multiplier on your score. There’s also an “Ultimate Power” for each class, which has to be acquired in the game. That power will fill up over time, and the more full the meter is, the more impressive the power will be when you unleash it. Health will regenerate very slowly over time, but you’ll definitely want to find and keep health potions handy whenever possible.