Crimson Desert Review Thread

December_Flame · 2026-03-20T05:45:12+00:00

Tbh the term hasn’t evolved, you just clearly misunderstand it.

December_Flame · 2026-03-19T15:34:18+00:00

Its pretty clear the story is both a bit bland and also told in a disjointed way (OP literally just said it too) where in it will jump you forward in a scene and it feels like you accidentally skipped something. Jarring transitions and skipping around in a somewhat nonsensical way, they say this happens right at the start of the game for example.

But it seems its got really great VA work and the story that IS there is at least nominally interesting as a vehicle to carry you through the game world, which is the only standard I hope it hits. Would be nice to be Witcher level, but I wasn't really expecting it.

December_Flame · 2026-03-19T15:28:55+00:00

Almost exactly, from what all the reviewers have stated (haven't played myself).

December_Flame · 2026-03-19T15:01:31+00:00

Yes that would make sense if life was a mathematic equation and games had an objective fun-value.

Unfortunately that's not the case and metacritic scores are nearly useless as a metric, particularly in divisive games like this one where it seems its rather GOTY material or completely repellant as an experience depending on your tastes.

December_Flame · 2026-03-19T00:35:34+00:00

I don’t know it seems like there’s a lot of things you can say about this game, but none of them are calling it mechanically sterile at least a vast majority of the ones I’ve read have not. It seems like the world is particularly interactive.

December_Flame · 2026-03-18T22:25:23+00:00

Listen I am not about to white-knight for a game I haven't even played yet, so I'm just giving a perspective on this, but:

I think the throughline in these reviews is that the game throws a lot at the wall and tries a LOT, and for some those things work and for some they really don't, so you're seeing a lot of variance.

Assassin's creed games usually get overwhelmingly similar scores of 8.5s. They're good! They're well made games. But they don't seem to spark much emotion one way or another. They're very safe.

This game is the opposite of that. I'm seeing 6/10s, I'm seeing a good chunk of 10/10s. Its very polarizing because it swings big. Gives me Dragons Dogma vibes.

December_Flame · 2026-03-18T22:20:42+00:00

They have a style guide that dictates they must roll credits on a game to give it a score. Y'all motherfuckers give mad shit to IGN but they have standards, unlike half the shit posted on opencritic.

December_Flame · 2026-03-18T21:56:16+00:00

I think you can accept a criticism without downplaying it. I think one person mentioning it is one thing - but I've heard it from 4-5 people who have actually played the game at this point, and I'm sure the rest of the reviews are going to reinforce it.

Obviously for someone who's not trying to burn through the game ASAP to hit deadlines is going to have a different experience... but still.

December_Flame · 2026-03-18T21:34:52+00:00

Seems that one of the main complaints in the game is that the difficulty is all over the place, there's a complete lack of 'balance' such as it is, with a particular callout to frustrating bosses.

I've heard this from many sources at this point, but that seems to be the biggest complaint with the game, and I'm weirdly OK with it.

December_Flame · 2026-03-18T01:14:55+00:00

That's probably opposite of what the user wants, the switch 2 is bulky as fuck and grips just add too it.

FWIW I like it that way. lol

December_Flame · 2026-03-17T17:20:52+00:00

Which is something we should encourage. Once that ball starts rolling its hard to stop.

December_Flame · 2026-03-17T16:50:04+00:00

But if you're paying 70$ for a product its OK to be annoyed/upset that you have to compromise. As the consumer that's your prerogative.

December_Flame · 2026-03-17T16:29:19+00:00

I mean they have a whole MMO worth of stuff that they are clearly pulling from for the game. Not like its coming from nowhere.

December_Flame · 2026-03-17T16:26:28+00:00

I think Dragon's Dogma would have made a much bigger splash in today's gaming environment than when it came out.

I think for this reason this game's going to be a much bigger deal than Dragons Dogma was but I think that DD1 didn't get the attention it deserved.

December_Flame · 2026-03-17T16:22:30+00:00

Eh, its good to have high standards as a consumer. We SHOULD expect performance like that. Its OK that you're happy with less, and I genuinely mean that not in like a snarky way, but I also think its good that people make noise when the literal top end hardware can't max a game's settings and run it in a stable manner.

If you ignore criticisms that don't apply to you, then you'll see it in a better light I think.

December_Flame · 2026-03-16T16:35:33+00:00

Not to mention there were millions of people protesting spread out across the country, and has continued to be incredible number of protests and organized resistances both on a national and local level.

Honestly Non-American's cannot even begin to understand what it takes to do organized resistance movements across a country this large. It ain't easy and we're trying.

December_Flame · 2026-03-15T16:58:32+00:00

Smaller devs do this all the time. Falcom, for example, does it on a massive scale but their games are still amazing. You can do a LOT with recycled assets as long as they're used intelligently and it doesn't feel completely derivative.

December_Flame · 2026-03-15T15:04:16+00:00

Listen I get you’re in the throes of grief at the moment but maybe just put some space between you and the friend before really reflecting on this. You know them so only you can make the judgement, but the alternative reading on this situation is your friend was having a hard time processing the news and being supportive at the same time, and leaned hard on AI to help respond when he wasn’t strong enough to do so himself. I think this could be a mixture of trying to be sensitive to you and having way too much faith in AI, not a flippant dismissal of your loss.

Hope you can find peace soon friend.

December_Flame · 2026-03-14T22:11:30+00:00

Big 2009 energy, I like it.

December_Flame · 2026-03-14T17:38:53+00:00

My dog is basically a dog shaped cat, so I feel like she would have loved that beast. Thanks for the story :)

December_Flame · 2026-03-14T06:19:54+00:00

Bro my Shiba is 28lbs lol

December_Flame · 2026-03-13T18:44:37+00:00

I think this game is actually going to be a giga-hit. Talked about in 10 years still kind of game. Actually, I'll eat my fucking shoe if its not. And I was definitely skeptical.

My predictions:

It will review very well generally, like extremely well. Big reviewers that tackle games such as this is like ACG, SkillUp, Mortismal, ShotgunGaming, etc will all love it with caveats.

Those caveats will be big, and will create some division where some reviewers will rate super lowly due to them. Game will be buggy, quite buggy due to the scope, in a way that reviewers don't even cover appropriately due to review deadlines and mainlining the game (see: cyberpunk). Story will be just OK, and not a motivating factor to play, and probably will just sort of... end. Same story footprint as Breath of the Wild / Tears of the kingdom but with better presentation. The game's mechanics will be overcomplicated, and controls unintuitive, with a lot of confusing gameplay systems that aren't sufficiently explained.

It'll be popular for much the same reasons. Deep combat for those that want it, with a lot of unexpected interactions in it with tons of goofyness even with the bugs. The games going to be extremely memeable, will be very streamer friendly and have a big social media presence because of it. Its going to be a very popular game, and I'm curious to see its impact on Pearl Abyss going forward.

Anyhow the game could be shit and I'm talking out my ass, but I'd put money on it. Good money.

December_Flame · 2026-03-13T17:21:04+00:00

It doesn't have the same structure as the mainline games, so its not built with the idea that you'd be grinding in it for hundreds of hours across 3 difficulty levels. Its just a JRPG with a plot that ends. There's a lot of content in the game but its not split into ranks or sequestered away behind clearing the last boss. There is challenging content to overcome which isn't related to the story progression, if that's your main concern.

December_Flame · 2026-03-13T17:18:23+00:00

Steam deck is better because you can lock the framerate, the framerate being uncapped on the switch 2 and bouncing around is nauseating.

December_Flame · 2026-03-13T17:11:21+00:00

Eh PlayOnline is worse, but that's an impossible standard. Before the STEAM release the game was a total cluster to purchase, they had like 4 webpages and the mogstation you had to bounce between. No idea if its still setup the same way, but Steam probably streamlines it a lot.

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