Atlus is a publisher known for releasing some of the wackiest, stylish and unique video games on the market. Crimson Gem Saga, a turn-based RPG developed in South Korea and brought over to North America by Atlus, cannot be described as any of those things. While that doesn’t necessarily mean that the game is bad, what does hurt Crimson Gem Saga is its plodding pace, generic gameplay, and poor design decisions.

In Crimson Gem Saga you’ll play as Killian von Rohcoff, a young pup fresh out of school with a chip on his shoulder. Not soon after you meet Killian, you’ll slowly start to meet the rest of his crew – Spinel, a sassy treasure hunter; Henson, a smart-mouthed mage; Gelts, an old man that thinks he’s stronger than he actually is, and Lahduk, a powerful man that is supposed to supervise the rest of the party. The story revolves around the retrieval of a “Wicked Stone”, which you can tell by its name shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.

However, the story doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. There’s plenty of dialogue between the characters, but it’s usually just tedious bickering between characters that is more grating than endearing. The rest of the time you’ll be transported from area to area and given seemingly inconsequential retrieval quests that don’t get you actively engaged in the world or its characters.

The gameplay in Crimson Gem Saga isn’t much better. It’s competent and functional, for the most part, but it is devoid of any interesting or new strategic hooks – this is a straight up turn-based JRPG through and through. They try to mix the game up with a number of different elements – combination attacks and the “Critical Combo System”. Combination attacks are when two party members team up to deliver blows to enemies. The problem with the combination system is that I never found the attacks to be all that powerful, considering the amount of mana I had to burn through with each character. The Critical Combo System was more successful, and is a noble attempt at trying to keep players more engaged in the gameplay. Essentially, when you have a critical attack, you’ll have the ability to hit the X button to try to get in a couple extra shots. If you get another critical strike, you’ll be able to hit the X button once more to get one last flurry of shots in. While this isn’t the craziest system ever, it did succeed in making me feel like I actually had to watch the battles unfold, rather than selecting my attacks and then turn my attention to something else while the animations finish.

One of the biggest flaws in Crimson Gem Saga is its dungeon design. When you’re exploring the game’s overworld, you can press the R button, which gives you a nice map overlay so you don’t get lost. For whatever reason, the dungeons do not have maps. With dungeon rooms that are very similar, it’s extremely easy to get lost in the maze — on more than two occasions I was completely lost and burned through my entire stock of potions and food.

If there is one thing that Crimson Gem Saga does extremely well, it’s art design. The art of the world and characters evokes somewhat of a PS1 and SNES era RPG hybrid. The worlds are well detailed from an artistic standpoint, with the cities, countryside and desert all feeling distinct and picturesque.

But a game is more than pretty pictures, and in the most important parts – gameplay and story – Crimson Gem Saga fails to impress. If you’re looking for a good RPG on the PSP, there are plenty of better options out there.

Verdict: 5/10