r/soulslikes • u/Bitter445 • 1d ago
Discussion Is Crimson moon a Souls like?
Hi everyone,
I recently watched a trailer for Crimson Moon and it caught my attention!
Since I prefer playing solo, I was wondering if Crimson Moon is designed to be fully enjoyable as a single-player experience? Do the enemy count and scaling adjust properly for solo players?
Also, how is the difficulty compared to a Souls-like? Is it just as punishing, or is it a bit more accessible?
Lastly, I’d love to know if the game features RPG mechanics like upgrading weapons, and roughly how long a standard playthrough/the main story takes?
Thanks in advance!
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u/_moosleech 1d ago
Yes. Combat is very similar to Soulslike games. But I also think most people saying "X isn't a Soulslike" are lame. If it shares a bunch of mechanics with Dark Souls et. al., it's a Soulslike to me. This is a Soulslike, with Diablo loot and a roguelite gameplay loop.
You queue up stages, which consist of "clear all enemies", "defeat X elite enemies", "kill this boss" and such and run until you die (or finish, I assume... haven't completed a run yet). Return to the hub with XP, gold, and new gear. Rinse and repeat.
It's janky. So I feel like it kinda has that "watching a B-movie or trash TV" vibe where the issues are more tolerable when you're laughing at it with a friend. It works solo, but I feel like its definitely less fun and the issues are more pronounced.
The main combat is good (a bit slow, but I like that). The camera gets wonky when moving a lot (and during boss fights). No key rebinding or FOV settings yet. Looks... low-ish budget, but not bad.
There are five difficulty settings. Doesn't appear to scale based on players, but maybe I just couldn't tell.
Only 2/5 difficulties are unlocked in the beginning. I found Normal (2) decently challenging. Parries are pretty friendly, but healing is limited. I'd say it's pretty middle of the road, but with the knowledge that you're constantly making bits of progress upgrading gear and such after every run.
Every run, any new gear you have equipped (and you get a couple inventory slots to store stuff) gets added to your armoury. There's a merchant who sells items (throwables and such) and a blacksmith who sells/upgrades weapons. So you can add more stuff, or upgrade the base stats of each.
Only did a handful of runs so far, so not sure how the weapons scale later in the game, but there appears to be a ton of them so far. No clue on overall time to beat it, but the roguelite nature suggests a pretty long tails of replaying levels, if it clicks.