Crimson Gem Saga for PSP Reviews by Gamers

Crimson Gem Saga is an RPG throwback with enough fourth-wall breaking commentary (ala Disgaea) to justify its bland story and blander characters. It's also got nice hand-drawn areas that help to make the redundancy of dungeons a little more palatable.

But by the end of the second (of four) chapters, you'll find yourself saying "Again?" more often than anything. If you tweak your skill tree properly, grinding is a snap, but even when you're spamming attacks that hit all enemies, battling still takes ages, and leaves you feel unrewarded, to boot.

Between this and Black Sigil, another recent old-school RPG, the latter is better in just about every way, and ultimately, is just one more reason why the DS is beating the PSP.

If you like games more for the story than the gameplay this game is for you. The game description warned me that I would get my wallet stolen. What it didn't tell me, was that it was just a story gag and I wouldn't lose any money over it. This is a good RPG, don't get me wrong, it's just not that different from all the rest of them.