Obscusion B-Side: Wading Through the Red Depths of Koei's Crimson Sea Duology

Founded on July 25, 1976, & now existing as the surviving company of the Koei Tecmo Holdings merger from 2009, Koei was mainly known up through the late 90s primarily for two things: In-depth strategy & simulation games based on sports or history & (in Japan only) otome games. In fact, Koei is known for making both some of the earliest acknowledged "JRPGs" (a variety of titles between 1982 & 1983) & the very first otome game (1994's Angelique), as well as even launching Yoko Kanno's musical career, as her first gigs were composing the scores for Romance of the Three Kingdoms & Nobunaga's Ambition back in the mid-80s. In 1996, though, Koei wanted to expand its horizons, founding a fourth division specifically for action-oriented games, leading to the creation of Omega Force, which got its start with 1997's Dynasty Warriors (which was a fighting game for its first entry), the 1998 duo of Destrega (a cult-classic arena fighter) & Enigma (a survival horror-esque action adventure game that stayed in Japan), & 1999's WinBack (a third-person shooter which innovated the idea of a cover system); those latter three would be the only non-Musou games from Omega Force until 2007. However, it's not as though Koei relied solely on Omega Force when it came to non-"standard" video games, as the studio did still have its other divisions develop games outside of the norm, like 1999 RPG Zill O'll, 2002 hack-&-slash game Mystic Heroes/Battle Hoshin, 2007 racing game Fatal Inertia, or 2008 eating game Prey the Stars, with the last two actually coming from Koei Canada. Koei has also worked with third-party developers for other titles, like 1998's Hoshin Engi & 1999's Saiyuki: Journey West (both developed by Fu-Qi), 2001's Gitaroo Man (developed by iNiS, now Leona) & Yanya Caballista: City Skater (developed by Cave), or 2007's Opoona (developed by ArtePiazza). Finally, Koei acted as the publisher for some of Atlus' English releases in Europe during the 00s, namely those developed by Nippon Ichi Software.

Of those "non-standard Koei games that weren't developed by Omega Force" releases, the one that's always had my curiosity is Crimson Sea.

I think this is the only time I've ever seen an
ESRB rating on the title screen itself.

Released on December 12, 2002 in Japan, Kurenai no Umi (not to be confused with the 1961 tokusatsu film of the exact same name from Toho) was far from the only game Koei ever released on the original Xbox, but it was the only one that was 100% exclusive to Microsoft's first console. With that in mind, an international release was always in the cards, as just four days later Crimson Sea would come out in North America, followed by a European release on March 28, 2003. Despite being a game focused on taking on large groups of enemies by hacking, slashing, or shooting them, though, there's no indication that Crimson Sea came from Omega Force, instead simply crediting staff from Koei, in general. For example, most of the planners for the game previously worked on Romance of the Three Kingdoms & Kessen games, not the Dynasty Warriors series. Booting up the game you see it called "A Kou Shibusawa Production", but that's just the stage name of Koei's co-founder, Yoichi Erikawa, & the division/brand named after him wouldn't exist until 2016; I guess maybe Crimson Sea can be assigned to that division in retrospect, though. It would receive generally positive reviews at the time, and it must have sold well enough as a sequel would get put into production. However, oddly enough, Crimson Sea 2 (it would have been funny if Koei just called it "Kurenai no Sora/Crimson Sky", like the 1962 sequel to the Toho film was) would wind up being a PlayStation 2-exclusive, and would even first see release in North America on March 30, 2004, followed by Japan on April 15 & Europe on September 3; critical reception for the sequel was about as positive as the first game was.

Despite that positive reception the series would pretty much disappear into obscurity after the sequel & never receive another entry, with the original Xbox game never getting added to any future Xbox console's backwards compatibility list (yeah, not even Xbox 360!), though the PS2 sequel would see re-release on the PS3 Store as a PS2 Classic on September 3, 2013, but only in North America; as of this piece it's still seemingly available for purchase, but you have to search for it first. As I do own the Xbox game physically & the PS2 Classic re-release of the sequel, I want to go over both & see if I can figure out why Crimson Sea wound up drowning in the vast ocean of video game history, despite both games being considered good titles back in the day.

Sho is a private detective who works alongside his partner, the young Yangqin, usually for little to no money, as Sho prefers simply to help people (much to Yangqin's dismay). One day a self-described "mysterious & sexy woman" comes to Sho's office promising a big pay day in exchange for the duo finding an item. Sho & Yangqin take the job, only to discover upon completion that it was nothing more than a test to see if Sho's good enough to be drafted into an organization called the Intelligence Agency of the Galaxy, or IAG. The five planets that comprise the solar system known as Theophilus have been under attack by a mysterious alien force known as Mutons, & the IAG are trying to find a way to bring an end to the invasion. Sho & Yangqin been forced to work for IAG (& are paid well for it, much to Yangqin's delight) because Sho is actually a "Vipa", a rare breed of human who can use "Neo-Psionics", soundwave-based powers that might just be able to help stop the Mutons. Sho is made leader of G-Squad, the bottom barrel of IAG, which includes Yangqin, the emotional Kecak, the usually timid Bow Rahn, A-Squad transfer Shami, & the no-nonsense Diez... but over time Sho starts to wonder why exactly he was chosen by IAG, especially once he discovers that his boss Live-D, the woman who originally hired him, has covertly been keeping watch over him since he was a child. Also, why does Ekdahl, the "Hero of Theophilus", have such a vested interest in Sho?

At first glance, Crimson Sea has a lot of similarities to Dynasty Warriors, especially since there are moments when the game will toss a ton of enemies at you at once, with the back cover claiming that "over 1,000 enemies" can appear on screen; in reality, though, that rarely ever happens. However, actually playing the game it's very quick to realize that this isn't really all that similar to Omega Force's series, outside of general genre. In terms of controls, the left analog stick moves Sho around, but the actual movement isn't what you'd expect from a third-person hack-&-slash game, especially nowadays. Instead of Sho moving in the direction you point him in, Crimson Sea technically uses tank controls, so pulling back/down actually makes Sho move backwards, while turning left & right makes the camera swing with Sho in turn; the right analog stick does allow for some camera movement, but it snaps back behind Sho once you let go. Part of the reason for this control scheme is due to the fact that holding L locks the camera in place & lets you strafe instead of turn, while holding R lets you hard lock onto enemies if the soft lock isn't enough for you; holding both L & R halts Sho's movement completely & lets you aim freely. As for the face buttons, X is your long-range attack (& the general use action button, when prompted), Y is your close-range attack (which can be comboed up to four times), A is jump, & B is a special movement button, where pressing it on its own performs a 180° turn while pressing it while moving makes Sho perform a quick dash in the direction held. Finally, the White button (which on a modern Xbox controller is the equivalent to LB) performs the Neo-Psionic ability you currently have equipped, while the Back button (the Xbox equivalent to "Select") opens up your in-game menu, where you can swap weapons, parts, & Neo-Psionics, or use consumable items to recover your health or BP, the latter of which is for Neo-Psionics. Admittedly, the tank controls for Sho aren't always ideal when it comes to turning in the middle of a fight, & the 180° turn can only be done when standing perfectly still, but overall the game is designed around these controls & they work fine; it's definitely a product of an era where third-person controls weren't fully standardized, though.

In terms of gameplay structure, Crimson Sea is a mission-based game comprised of 24 total missions, most of which are done in sequential order, though there are some batches which allow you to play them in any order you want. The first three missions happen automatically to help establish the story & most of the characters (Shami & Diez get introduced slightly later on, at different points), but once you finish those & gain access to Neo-Psionics, you wind up at the IAG base, where you can talk to the NPCs between missions, buy/sell items, weapons, & parts, buy & upgrade currently available Neo-Psionics, save your game (which you can also do after finishing any mission), & start up the next mission. In terms of the futuristic weapons, Sho starts off with a basic pistol, picks up an assault rifle in Mission 3, can buy another six weapons afterwards, and then upgrade each to stronger versions over time, & if you have the cash. Weapons also have their own level ups, with experience awarded after each mission based on the gun(s) you use during one. The other weapons are more or less the standard equivalents you'd expect (shotgun spread, strong but slow blast, explosive shot) plus a couple of more unique ones, like a continual electric shot that stuns whoever is hit with it or a weapon that's stronger the longer you charge it up beforehand. This does encourage people to play the way they prefer, & I wound up sticking mostly with the assault rifle (Vulcan) & explosive shot (Volcano). Each of these guns also have their own close-range weapon mode, except for the charge gun, and they naturally have their own quirks, like whether or not they string attacks together quickly, slowly, or can even utilize certain bonus parts, which can allow for stuff like increased jumping slash power or turning the final blow of a combo into one that either delivers bonus elemental damage or gives you HP, BP, or money in return (depending on the weapon). Finally, weapons all have unlimited ammo, but rely on a meter that drains while firing, and if fully drained enters a cooldown mode where you can't fire another shot until it refills. While close range does have its uses, and bonus EXP does get dropped after every 50 hits in a combo (which is easier done via close range), I felt that shooting was the primary means of combat that worked best throughout, emphasizing even more that Crimson Sea isn't exactly like a Musou game, which emphasize close-range combat.

Missions themselves are mostly straightforward fare, focusing on accomplishing a single goal, which at least do vary between themselves, for the most part. There's retrieving an item, collecting a minimum amount of items from a total (which can either simply be strewn about or require defeating an enemy first to claim), protecting someone or something for a set amount of time from foes, escorting an NPC to a goal (sometimes by literally pushing them forward, if they're too afraid to do it themselves), etc. Since Sho is the leader of G-Squad there are some missions where he does have some combination of Yangqin, Kecak, Bow Rahn, Shami, and/or Diez with him as a squad, complete with being able to assign them in player-defined formations (& each has their ideal area to be assigned to), but this is admittedly not a common occurrence. Most missions tend to see Sho heading out on his own, or at least see the rest of G-Squad stay at the starting point, usually under the explanation of them holding ground for Sho. Still, when you do have a squad they tend to be decent AI partners, both keeping up with you & attacking enemies consistently, and you can use items to heal them when needed; there's also a Neo-Psionic for healing, but squad mates have to be in range to recover. Some missions also end with a boss encounter, which is usually some sort of giant monster that either has a pattern to learn or some sort of environmental hazard to deal with. Overall, that's the basic gameplay loop of Crimson Sea: Complete mission well enough to earn a high rank (which gives you more money), use the earnings from said mission to buy and/or power up weapons & Neo-Psionics (plus items, though you have a strict max of 10 total items on hand), & start the next mission; rinse & repeat until the end. There are no side-quests or optional missions to be found here, so it's a rather straightforward game to play though, and since most missions don't take a long time to finish (averaging somewhere between 5-10 minutes) you can get through the entire game within around 5-6 hours, taking into account the cutscenes for the story. That being said, there is the rare mission that gives you a time limit (around 20 minutes, usually) & you really do need to utilize nearly all of the time you have... like for a mission where you have to find & destroy nearly invisible Mutons, and if even just a single one is left alive when you run out of time it's failure; yeah, that mission absolutely sucked, but luckily it's the only one that was truly bad.

There is the rare moment where the script
pokes fun at itself, and it's handled well.

As for the plot of Crimson Sea, it's admittedly a bit of an odd one, mainly because it's both immensely casual about stuff yet also very stubborn about actually explaining things in any reasonable fashion. Sho & Yangqin are pretty accepting of their new jobs & are essentially welcomed instantly by Kecak & Bow Rahn, while Shami is also very quickly accepting of being assigned to a "lesser" squad; the only member who kind of shows some initial tension is Diez, but even she warms up to everyone quickly. This results in G-Squad having a very fast camaraderie between them that does admittedly feel a bit unnatural, which certainly isn't helped by the English voice acting, a perfect example where experienced & talented actors are being given less-than-talented direction, resulting in awkward (if kind of charming, in their own way) performances. Unfortunately, though, while the general plot that is told is a solid one, it's handled in such an accelerated fashion that stuff like Shami & Sho's romance kind of just happens suddenly, main villain Ekdahl has all of his backstory (& how it relates to Sho) shoved into the last quarter or so, and after the halfway point most missions simply happen in quick succession, giving you fewer moments in between missions to buy items & power up your weapons & Neo-Psionics; some missions do feature the chance to do so, but not many. That being said, though, Koei wasn't really known for its 100% original works & plots during this time, barring the otome games from Ruby Party, so I can really only chalk this up to it being scenario writer Akira Ishiguro's first truly original story, having previously worked on Kessen & Dynasty Tactics, i.e. stories based on actual history; prior to those he wrote literal game manuals. Ishiguro would also be credited for "Story Concept" in 2017's Nioh, but that game started development way back in 2004, & barely any of the original concept was carried over to the final product, so Ishiguro's involvement in that was relatively minor, especially since he seemed to leave Koei after 2008, prior to the Koei Tecmo merger. At least the music by Yoshihiro Ike is appropriately dramatic & orchestral, true to his usual style.

Overall, Crimson Sea is a solid & enjoyable third-person action title from a division of Koei not really known for those kinds of games, though it definitely comes off like a first attempt in that regard. While the controls aren't always ideal (being attacked while doing a 180° turn negates your turn, even when it's ~95% complete, and you wish you could swap weapons & Neo-Psionics without going to a menu) the game is still mostly designed around those limitations, with the only times where annoyance creeps in being the last few boss fights against Ekdahl. Beyond that, Koei definitely took advantage of the Xbox, as the game still looks rather good today & tends to run very well when there are many enemies on screen (it only really chugs when visual effects are all over the screen, which is extremely rare), and while it doesn't quite compare to the stuff that Omega Force was putting out at the time it's still a strong enough first effort from one of Koei's other (then unnamed) divisions. In fact, I think there's really good potential if this was to get fully remade & given to another division of the current company, which would result in modernized gameplay, stronger storytelling, & more fleshed out characters.

That said, though, there was a second attempt made with Crimson Sea, so how did things work out over on the PS2?

It's been two years since Sho & his G-Squad friends brought an end to the Muton invasion & saved the Theophilus star system, with the squad disbanding & leaving the IAG afterwards, to live their own lives. Unfortunately, Theophilus is now under attack once again by a mysterious alien invader, this one known simply as the "Menace", which can subjugate others into its ranks via a "plug" that can be latched onto people. The IAG has now become the place where mercenaries can take on missions related to combating the Menace, and Live-D has decided to bring Sho back into the fold, since his Neo-Psionic powers as a Vipa makes him an excellent foe for the Menace, which seem to be related to the Vipa in some way. However, Sho won't be fighting alone, as eventually he's joined by a young woman named Feanay, who has the only "anti-wave" in Theophilus, making her a perfect ally for Sho as they look to discover what the Menace really is, and who the mysterious Langleik is that leads them.

Right away it's quick to notice that Koei's staff learned lessons from the original game when making Crimson Sea 2, because there are some much improved gameplay elements to be found here. Tank controls are now gone, so Sho moves in whatever direction you point him in, though L1 & R1 are still used for strafing & the hard lock on. There's also proper camera control on the right analog stick now, though it's purely just left & right, while clicking L3 lets you switch between three camera angles (effectively low, middle, & high); still not quite what would become the standard, but close. Finally, Sho now has access to two weapons at once, and pressing L2 lets you swap between them instantly, though Neo-Psionics still require menu traversal to switch between. The main difference in the controls comes down to the 180° turn & quick dash being removed, since movement is snappier & you have a quick dodge by jumping while using the hard lock on, so using your current Neo-Psionic is now done via a face button, while R2 activates a new mechanic exclusive to Crimson Sea 2: Time Extend.

As the name implies, Time Extend slows down time/enemies, and gives Sho access to some rapid fire assaults during that time. While pressing R2 manually activates Time Extend for five seconds, & uses up a third of the Neo-Psionic gauge (which you need a full gauge in order to use a Neo-Psionic), you can also automatically activate a three-second Time Extend every 30 hits you achieve in a combo, and this time around it's much easier to achieve combos by shooting, so getting an auto Time Extend can be rather easy; in fact, I very rarely used a manual Time Extend. While it doesn't make a giant difference in the gameplay it is a neat little addition & can help out, at points. Combat is also much more kinetic & varied in Crimson Sea 2, as you now also have two more forms of attack to utilize. Gravity Blade is essentially a strong attack, done by holding the opposite direction Sho's facing & pressing the Blade button, which puts any enemies hit by it into a slow-motion knockback, allowing for Sho to deliver a few extra hits, and there are four different Gravity Blade attacks, one for each hit in a combo you do it after. Then there's Overdrive, which can only be accessed after leveling up your current weapons to Level 2 (which we'll get to in a bit) & is done by pressing the Gun button immediately after a Gravity Blade attack, extending your combo even more. You can also pick up "Vipa Rounds" during missions, which are limited in ammo but are much more powerful; Vipa Rounds are assigned to whatever weapon you currently are actively using, so plan wisely. The end result is a wider variety of attack options than seen in the first game, and while I think moving Sho around now feels a little too loose at points (compared to him feeling slightly stiff before) it all adds up to Crimson Sea 2 playing much better than the first game did.

Crimson Sea 2 follows a similar gameplay loop as the first game, only now it's much larger in scope, as there are now a total of 61 missions, roughly 2.5x as many as last time. However, this is because the large majority of the missions in the sequel are actually just busy work, with only 13 listed as "Key Missions" that actually help advance the plot forward, though you do have to occasionally complete some normal missions in order to unlock the next key mission; sometimes it's a specific mission, while others simply require a certain percentage for an area done first. Meanwhile, when it comes to powering up your weapons & Neo-Psionics it isn't simply leveling them through use or buying the next rank of weapon once it becomes available. Instead, enemies now occasionally drop what's called "Origin", and you level up stuff by using Origins to increase various gauges applying to power, range, & "ammo" (Neo-Psionics have only one gauge) until they fill up & gain a new level; this is how you gain access to Overdrive attacks. This allows for a little more freedom, as now you can level up a weapon without needing to use it if, say, a mission you're on works better with a specific weapon, but you still want to power something else up. Also, completing certain missions with an "All-S" rank (i.e. getting S rank for all four categories) will net you bonuses, with a fair number of them giving you a ton of Origins, so the game kind of incentivizes you to replay missions so that you can get those "All-S" bonuses, though they're not not really needed if all you want to do is get through the story.

Another major change is in the simple fact that there's a second character to play as in Feanay. After completing the third key mission you are introduced to Sho's female counterpart, who has her own set of weapons compared to Sho, though they both come with a quick-but-weaker gun & a slow-but-stronger gun; however, to compensate, neither character gains access to any other weapons at all. Because of this, while items, experience, & Origins are shared between the two playable characters (who can be switched at any time between missions at the IAG hub), Feanay's weapons & Neo-Psionics all start at Level 1, so while you get her relatively early on some players might just prefer to stick with one character for the entire main campaign; there are a literal handful amount of missions that are Sho or Feanay only, but you can stick with just one character throughout. Since there's now two playable characters Koei also added in a multiplayer option for Crimson Sea 2, but while you have both co-op & competitive options they're limited to multiplayer-specific challenges, so you can't go through the campaign in co-op. At least multiplayer also lets you play as other characters beyond Sho & Feanay, including Sho's G-Squad buddies from the first game (once you unlock them, at least), who otherwise have little to no major impact on the plot this time around. Shami & Diez do play into the plot at points, but Yangqin is just there to let you recap the events of the first game by way of literally watching all of the cutscenes from the Xbox game (only in slightly worse quality, since everything is now compressed video), while Kecak & Bow Rahn are simply a living encyclopedia for the various characters & terminology found in the game; at least checking out everything these three have give you small rewards.

Unfortunately, even with all of these updates & the like, the biggest problem with Crimson Sea 2 is a rather simple one: Repetition. While there are all of these missions to play, they're all still more or less the same handful of variants (retrieve item, kill all enemies, kill specific enemies, etc.), and each planet you go to only has a few different environments each, with each environment having its own unique level layout; the levels are admittedly large & often get segmented for different missions, but still. Since you slowly unlock access to new planets throughout the course of the game, the end result is that you wind up going through the same levels over & over throughout the game, and since only around 1/5 of the missions are actually important to the story that means you sometimes get the feeling that you're just going through the rounds, instead of actually progressing anywhere; at least with the first game you always knew that you were making progress with each mission. If I had to make a guess, I wouldn't be shocked if the dev team at Koei was inspired by Phantasy Star Online for its central gameplay loop this time around, as PSO definitely utilized the same concept (mission-based structure using repeated level layouts, but altered enemy placement), only with stronger RPG elements. However, that was a game based mainly around online co-operative play, or even split-screen if played on GameCube or Xbox, and if Crimson Sea 2 actually offered campaign co-op then I could see the appeal here. In the end completing the story shouldn't take more than 7-8 hours, at most, but actually getting 100% completion will easily take more than double that, and I think only the most dedicated will be willing to deal with that much repetition.

As for the plot of Crimson Sea 2, it's honestly pretty barebones, even when compared to the first game. Seemingly because of the selectable mission-based structure it's as though the staff wanted to make the story something that wouldn't necessarily get in the way of allowing players to do missions at their own leisure, so while key missions do advance the plot forward it's usually in small steps. The game also only utilizes three of the five planets in Theophilus (not including the Crimson Planet, where the final mission takes place), with each planet having four environments & key missions, so when we get to something like Shami deciding to blow up her home planet of Semplice (as she's the Princess & currently is in charge) it comes off like a rather sudden decision to make, since this happens after the first key mission on that planet, which is #9 of 13. The idea is that the Menace have become too much to handle after all this time, since they've been fighting while Sho & Feanay were doing stuff on the first two planets, but the player barely gets to see that for themselves. Also, when some of the origin of the Menace is revealed half way through it winds up giving a bit of déjà vu to the first game's story, as it's yet another case of "Theophilus tried to take command of a power that's beyond their control, and now Sho & his friends have to deal with the repercussions of that". You'd hope that, much like the first game, the plot picks up & becomes much more interesting in the second half... but that's sadly not the case here. Sure, stuff happens after each key mission, but it's so little that even by the point you finish the 11th key mission, literally just two from the end, so little actual plot has been told, resulting in stuff like the reveal of what the Menace are, how the hierarchy works, and the great importance Feanay & her anti-wave have over the conflict just feels so utterly undeserved & not even worth calling "half-baked". Needless to say, the actual endgame & finale are pretty bland & don't really feel earned, while the final boss fight with Langleik is simultaneously boring, easy, & annoying. While Akira Ishiguro did return to write the "scenario", he's joined here by Hiroyuki Numoto, who'd go on to be scenario writer & game designer for a ton of Musou games, so I don't know what happened this time around. However, Numoto had previously been a scenario & event designer for Zill O'll, which was similarly based around doing missions, so maybe that played a factor.

Visually the game looks pretty good for a PS2 title, and it's impressive how well the framerate holds up when surrounded by a bunch of enemy grunts, but it's still an obvious downgrade from the first game on Xbox; just looking at something like Live-D's hair in the recap Xbox cutscenes & then seeing it on her PS2 model says it all. The musical score is once again by Yoshihiro Ike, and it's a mix of returning music from last time as well as some new songs, with a heavier focus on rock this time around; it's solid enough, but I'd argue that the returning songs are still the best tracks. As for the English-only voice work (outside of Japan, at least) Koei did bring back any returning cast from the first game, and the acting here is honestly a little bit better overall, but it's still very much in the same "charming in its awkwardness" style as the first game. Overall, Crimson Sea 2 should, in theory, be the better game than the first, especially since the general gameplay (i.e. the third-person combat) is much better & more refined the second time around, with more combat abilities (even if you only get two types of weapons), a better camera, & much more kinetic action all around. Unfortunately, that improved gameplay is housed within a gameplay loop that, simply put, is utterly hollow. The mission structure gets repetitive all too fast due to a lack of varied environments, all but the final mission take place across only three planets (two whole planets are just ignored, this time around!), the game locks away most of the upgrades behind getting "All S" ranks on various missions (you don't need them to beat the game, but still), and the story told this time around is an absolute nothingburger of a plot; even the first game's admittedly simple story got much better in the second half.

If I was a more "traditionally" cynical internet critic I'd probably say something flippant like "In the end, the Crimson Sea duology is forgotten for good reason", or something similarly dismissive. However, I'm someone who does try to see the best in whatever I cover here, even if it's just in the potential it could have had, and in that regard I can't just outright dismiss Crimson Sea. The first game, in some ways, is definitely a product of its time, i.e. an early third-person action title that was made before certain gameplay aspects had really become standardized, namely in regards to movement & camera control, but overall is still a fun game & has a plot and cast that slowly grow on you, especially during the second half. As for Crimson Sea 2, it definitely is a marked improvement in regard to the third-person action, having definitely taken note of the evolution of the genre over even just a single year or so, but unfortunately that improved gameplay is housed within an extremely hollow & repetitive mission structure, while the story this time around is so barebones that you almost wonder if it was added in near the end of development.

In a sense, if you were to take the gameplay of Crimson Sea 2 & mix it with the structure & plot of Crimson Sea 1 then the end result would actually be a bit of a true "hidden gem" for its generation of consoles. Like I mentioned earlier, I think there really is some great potential to be found if Koei Tecmo was to remake the first Crimson Sea over 20 years later, and especially if they were to take the best aspects of Crimson Sea 2 & carry those over, as well. Give it to a studio like Team Ninja so that the action can be refined even more (though still keeping things like Time Extend, Gravity Blade, & Overdrive), expand on the plot by delving more into character development for the cast, include proper campaign co-op by having G-Squad enter missions more often as a team, and with some with tweaks & modifications I think a new take on Crimson Sea could actually wind up being very good. This duology from "Kou Shibusawa" was generally well received back in the day for good reason, so I don't want to simply write them off as a forgotten experiment from a side of Koei that wasn't really known for action titles like this. Instead, while I was disappointed with the sequel due to its notable flaws, I see the Crimson Sea duology as something that should be given another go, now that the genre has evolved so much since 2002.

That being said, Sho literally states after the ending of the sequel that he has no interest in saving the day a third time, so maybe the guy has earned his retirement.

Crimson Sea © 2002 Koei Tecmo

Crimson Sea 2 © 2004 Koei Tecmo