Crimson Desert Real Honest Game Review

Crimson Desert is an action adventure game developed and published by Pearl Abyss, who created Black Desert Online, a widely popular MMORPG. The reason I’m mentioning this is that they’ve planned Crimson Desert as sort of a prequel for it but decided on making it a separate game. Thank whatever deity you believe in for that. I’ve played it since release and I waited a little bit to review it, just to gather my thoughts and let my emotions calm down. But now I feel ready to talk about everything. Here are all the reasons why Crimson Desert is one of the best games out there:

Story 

I’ll start with its weakest aspect — the storyline. The main protagonist of Crimson Desert is Kliff, a guy that resembles yours truly so much that I should maybe be reimbursed for it. Anyways, he is a highly respected member of the Greymanes, a faction filled with skilled warriors that at the start of the game was almost completely wiped out by another faction called Black Bears. Luckily, Kliff survives and that’s where the story begins. 

Since that moment I’ve invested a decent amount of hours into playing the game and I can confirm that the story peaked at the intro, which kinda sucks because I feel like that’s one thing that’s missing that would make this game an absolute masterpiece. At the same time, I’m not devastated by it because the game is still pretty great, even with the story’s missing certain pizazz. 

Gameplay

The Crimson Desert gameplay includes a large array of things that even if I tried I couldn’t remember them all. So in order to spare myself from writing a whole book about it and sparing you from that nightmare, I’ll keep it as simple as possible. 

Let us start with clearing the elephant in a room. I’ve noticed in the past few days that whenever people speak negatively about the game, the only argument they bring up is the story. And while I agree, I feel like they are missing a whole picture. 

People are looking at it as a story driven game and I just don’t know if that’s what the devs had in mind. And quests are there as sort of a side thing. Heck the first time I met that “beggar” and I gave him a coin, I wasn’t even aware it’s part of a mission. 

The open world of Crimson Desert is filled with all sorts of stuff and it’s so vast that I can’t help but think it’s meant to be looked at as an open world explorer/sandbox type of game. If you look at it that way, you won’t find any flaws with it. As matter of fact, you’ll even praise it. 

Anywaaays, let’s start with combat. It features classical slash slash dodge/occasionally parry type of combat mixed with cool finishers. There’s also a bow, spears, greatswords, katana, and others. I’ll be completely honest, I haven’t used any of them much besides the sword and shield. 

They’ve hit the right spot with difficulty. At some points it feels easy but at others it feels like you need to pause and think how to approach it. I’m glad they didn’t go with “curse all of your ancestors” difficulty, even though I believe they could have. 

Other interesting features in the game include foraging, mining, lumberjacking, climbing various places, launching yourself like a slingshot, and many others that I forgot (or simply won’t name because lazyness) or didn’t even discover yet . 

Oh, there are also puzzles that I almost forgot. Which in itself aren’t memorable things but I remembered the first time in sky island there was a puzzle that I “couldn’t” do and almost lost my mind trying to figure out what went wrong. Turns out that it bugged out and I just had to ragequit, exit the game and next day try again. That only happened that one time, not once after or before. 

Genuinely talking, Crimson Desert is one of rare games where based on the content, you not only feel like you got your money’s worth but it actually feels like you’re ripping them off. I could sit here and talk about it for days but I’ll rather play it and let you experience the game for yourself. 

Graphics 

If you ever read any of my previous articles, you would know that the bane of my existence is my PC. I was making plans to replace it before GTA VI and now I’m regretting it so much. I should have done it sooner. Definitely before the release of the Crimson Desert. 

I was forced to play the game on low settings and even then there were moments where my PC was so hot that I thought it would catch on fire. 

With that said, the game looks amazing, the amount of detail (even on low) is on another level, I was blown away by this. Whoever was in charge of world design, deserves a huge raise because this is something. 

For the audio portion of the game, compared to my recent gameplay of Warhammer 40K SM2 where the voices and sound effects were 5 seconds delayed or simply missing, the Crimson Desert felt like an absolute masterpiece. Nothing was out of loop. And on top of everything, the voice actors have done a good job. 

There was a moment the first time I launched a game where it took a couple of minutes to load and the music combined with those mesmerizing cubes had me in a state of tranquility. Which made this game already so worth it. 

The performance overall wasn’t great but considering everything, it was decent. Even with my PC, I didn’t have any crashes, bugs (except the one I mentioned), or long loading times.  

Conclusion

While Crimson Desert isn’t a perfect game, it’s damn close and if you didn’t figure it out by now, I really like it. I’ve enjoyed playing it so much. I don’t remember feeling this strong about any games I’ve played recently. I’m going to take my sweet time with it. I’m even considering pausing the gameplay till I get a new PC so I can enjoy it fully. Yet to be decided. I highly recommend getting the game if you’re into world explorations. 

Did you like Crimson Desert? I would love to hear some secret tips or hidden stuff that I haven’t discovered yet.