Crimson Alliance Preview

The folks at XBLAFans have published a hands-on preview for Certain Affinity’s XBLA action-packed hack’n’slash Crimson Alliance. Considering how many titles in this genre are slated to come out soon or have already been released, it should be interesting to see whether the game can offer the experience the genre’s aficionados are looking for. Here’s a sampling:

Crimson Alliance is very heavy on the action and very focused on providing a balanced experience for all three characters. Better still, gameplay doesn’t require much setup time so players can get straight to the action. A wizard, fighter and assassin will be playable in the full game, but the Comic Con demo only had the wizard and fighter; we chose the wizard to test how well he would do solo. As it turned out, the wizard felt incredibly capable: very offensive and full of awesome multitasking greatness rather than simply a robed supporter.

The wizard comes equipped with a spam-able fireball spell, an ice attack that emanates from the player and freezes baddies, a lightning attack that affects a close area around him, and a quick but short blink or teleport to get into and out of the fray. To accompany the basic moveset, there are also items that players can pick up including potions, monster bait, throwing axes, and a deployable automatic crossbow turret. Last but not least is the ever-powerful ultimate attack, which for the wizard calls down lightning to zap all around him. Players can also pick up items with left trigger and throw them with any face button, or block incoming attacks with the right trigger. The control scheme is intuitive, straightforward, and works well despite making use of every button on the controller.