Is Crimson Desert Any Good? (Quick First Impressions)

The lead-up to release for Crimson Desert was interesting. A lot of people, funnily enough, were calling it “too good to be true”. There was just too much content in the trailers, the graphics were too good, the gameplay too varied. It must have been a scam.

Well, now it’s out, and depending on who you talk to, they may or may not agree with that sentiment. The trailers did not lie, this wasn’t a Watch Dogs or Cyberpunk situation. The game looks and runs well, and all of the content in the trailer is included. However, a lot of people seem to find the content shallow, the story poor, and the gameplay confusing and poorly designed. A mile wide, an inch deep. But the other sentiment that I hear a lot is that this is the new Skyrim, in terms of the style of exploration and sense of discovery.

I am less than 10 hours into Crimson Desert, and I have some things to say about it. I find this game to be pretty damn good, personally. Yes, the story does suck. The inclusion of the fast-forward button for cutscenes is proof of that, it’s quite hard to ignore and by the second hour I was using it for at least part of every cutscene. The controls are a bit confusing. However, the wealth and quality of content is absolutely astounding.

The combat, on its own, is insanely varied, to the point of a character-action game. I have been using a lot of the grappler moveset, which basically has turned me into a pro-wrestler. Pile drivers, throws, and more. There are probably more than 10 of these bare-handed takedowns, and each of them looks brilliant. I haven’t done much of the sword & shield gameplay, but that looks equally dense, not to mention the four or five other weapons, each with their own extensive skill trees.

The boss fights, on the other hand, are a bit weak. The combat feels built for crowds, the way that the camera pulls back reinforcing that, but the lock-on system feels inaccurate, and the boss movesets feel unfair and often impossible to avoid, and their damage is tuned all the way up.

On the other hand, exploration is nearly perfect. Already, I have found extremely interesting little incidental locations and conversations. In a time when traditional, explorable cities in RPGs are often few and far between, or cut completely (looking at you, FF16), each of the cities in this title are not only relatively large, but extremely dense with unique shopkeepers, quests, and minigames.

Overall, I’m having a great time so far. New game-changing mechanics, like the Camp system, or the Trading Post system, or the banking and cooking mechanics, make this feel like it’s got enough content to entertain me for perhaps a hundred hours. I hope my opinion remains positive as I continue my journey, but only time will tell.