Game:

Crimson Tears (2004)

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Ahh... Crimson Tears. Before we get into discussing the game proper, let's talk a little about the developer, "DreamFactory". DF was originally founded as we know them in 1995 and had some high profile origins prior. While Ken Fujikawa was the company's CEO, it was Seiichi Ishii (the chairman) who did a lot of the heavy lifting and put the company on the trajectory to stand with the greats. Ishii was a designer for two of Sega's groundbreaking 3D games, 1992's "Virtua Racing" and 1993's "Virtua Fighter", but that's not all... he would also go on to be a designer AND director for the first two "Tekken" games before operating under the DF umbrella a year later, so we can see how he was able to easily garner support from industry greats like Namco and Squaresoft.

Ishii helped expand Square's portfolio with the "Tobal" series of fighting games (in collaboration with the legendary Akira Toriyama) as well as "The Bouncer", and the joint venture between Namco and Square birthed "Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring", arguably DF's most accomplished title (a Fighting / RPG hybrid featuring crossover characters from "Final Fantasy VII" and clear Tekken derivatives with "Godhand Mishima" being a clear nod to the Tekken franchise while not being directly related). He also lent some talent to Microsoft's Xbox with "Kakuto Chojin" and the "Tapout" series. These days, Seiichi Ishii is considered one of the godfathers of 3D fighting games and is instrumental to the success the genre enjoys today.

Crimson Tears was released in 2004 and was perhaps the last "known" game developed over at DreamFactory before they restructured and released low-budget games (with the exception of the unreleased "Kenju" which was dumped not too long ago and the 2005 release, "Yoshitsune-ki", which also featured the "Death Note" mangaka, Takeshi Obata), eventually exiting major game development in 2009. More importantly, it was the last game Ishii had any significant involvement with. While he was indeed involved in future products, these games did not enjoy much success and quite a few were a stain on the company's legacy (with 2007's Japan-only retooled Crimson Tears, "Appleseed EX", taking the cake with one of the lowest recorded Famitsu scores... 14/40). Crimson Tears is essentially "Erhgeiz's Quest Mode" if the company went all-in and added some early innovations to the dungeon crawling / rogue-lite genre.

Crimson Tears has VERY little plot. The game is set in Tokyo in the year 2049 and revolves around three experimental humanoids (Amber, Kadie and Tokio) whose home has been destroyed. They are bio-engineered weapons developed by a company named A.R.M.A. called "mutanoids", who have specs far beyond what normal humans are capable of. Originally created to endure harsh environments, the secret to their creation eventually fell into the wrong hands and now they are mass-produced as instruments of control and war. However, the original mutanoids are still superior and are tasked by their "father", Dr. Kosugi, to restore order. While there is a little drama throughout, it is served in breadcrumbs and telegraphed hours in advance... the handful of NPCs further illustrate that the plot is little more than an excuse to go fight things with half-naked baddies.

The game is advertised as a randomly generated labyrinth crawler... while this is true, this is also, by far, the game's weakest element. Dungeons have so little variation that the devs should've stuck with set pieces. There are only a few dozen enemy models including bosses and most dungeons are small, consisting of three or four floors. However, as it loosely lends itself to the Rogue genre, it is not without its differences and innovations. In a typical rogue game, characters have a very limited inventory, revert back to level one each time, lose all their items upon defeat, a hunger system, etc. Crimson Tears features three playable characters with different pros and cons (the primary will experience leak to the other two), the player will keep all levels they gain and can also level up their melee weapons (they also have durability though), areas are broken into "stages" that slowly introduce new gimmicks, combat and special moves cleverly incorporate a modified version of the hunger system (overheat), and death differs from other rogue games. If the player dies on a random floor, you can send another in to rescue them with a short timer; rescuing an ally grants a large experience bonus and retrieves your items (predating the mechanic in games like "Abyss Crawlers")

If the game was advertised as a RPB (Roleplaying Brawler), it might have been more successful as the game gives players a fair bit of agency in terms of fighting styles, skill trees you can upgrade, combos to perform, cool weapons you can find and / or craft with materials, cool extras, slick cel-shaded visuals and a competent soundtrack and dub. It's not exceptional, but a hidden gem for sure. This a vid of the game in action.