Welcome to Into Indie Games’ beginner tips and tricks for Crimson Moon.
In this third-person action roguelike, you play as a Nephilim, a human-angel hybrid, set on a mission to defend humanity with supernatural powers. The combat is weighty and deliberate, which can make the early hours of the game punishing for new players. In this guide, we’ll give you six handy tips and tricks to make those early hours less difficult.
For more information about Crimson Moon, check out its official website here.
Table of Contents
Understanding the Game Loop
Crimson Moon begins with a simple tutorial that teaches you the basics of combat. Once you get past that, you’ll arrive at the hub. This is where you’ll choose your missions, talk to NPCs, purchase upgrades for your weapons, etc.
The basic loop of the game is to choose a mission at the War Table. Then head through the gate and choose your loadout. Finally, step through the portal to arrive at the district location. From here, you have to run through the areas while clearing the enemies in your path.
There are a fixed number of respawns you’ll have if you fall in battle. But once you run out, you’ll have True Death, which will send you back to the hub. You’ll lose all progress, but any gold or weapons you’ve acquired at the time of death will be brought back with you.
It’s a typical roguelike loop which lets you get strong quickly because of all the weapons you’ll unlock as you go. As you expand your arsenal, you can try out different weapon and gear combos to see what fits your playstyle.
Prioritize Item Synergy
While it’s okay to pick up new items to try them out when you start a run, when you’re going for the true clear of a district, it’s important to strategize. The game rewards synergy and strategic thinking. Just because a weapon is of a higher rarity than the one you have currently equipped doesn’t make it better for your build.
For example, if you’re going for a Burn build where you apply the status effect with your weapon and weapon arts, you don’t want to pick up a weapon that applies frost damage even if it’s a higher rarity.
You’ll also want to check out the item tooltip to see what additional benefits come with it. The Autumnal Cuirass armor in the image above has a higher rarity and better stats, but the 10 Max Health from the Haedrik Knight Cuirass is better suited for our solo run.
The right mindset whenever you find new gear is to think about how it can make your build stronger. There is a degree of luck involved when you find items, but if you’re smart with what you pick up, you should be able to create unique synergies that let you mow through the mobs easily in Crimson Moon.
Mastering the Combat Basics
The combat in Crimson Moon feels weighty and deliberate, almost to the point that one might call it a soulslike. But at its heart it’s an arcade, fast-paced combat game where being aggressive is often better than taking a slower approach.
Yes, there is a stamina bar, and yes, you can parry enemy attacks to open them up for a devastating finisher. But I found it to be quite clunky. When I ditched trying to parry every enemy I ran into and started focusing a bit more on dodging and attacking more frequently, things became a lot better. Of course, parrying gets better with practice, so keep trying if that is more suited to your playstyle.
There are weapon arts here as well. You’ll spend mana whenever you use your weapon arts and if your mana runs out, you can use a Mana Flask to refill the bar. Weapon Arts allow you to deal devastating damage to enemies when you’re caught in a pinch.
But the most powerful tool in your combat arsenal is your Angelic Power. By activating your Angelic Power, you can transform into the Angel that you have equipped and start mowing down your enemies without any fear of taking damage yourself.
However, using an Angelic Power requires you to have enough Divine Meter, which increases as you parry enemy attacks and execute finishers. For this reason, you’ll want to save it for the final fight and rely on your other combat tools to carry you through the initial areas.
Utilize Status Effects
When you’re relying solely on the physical damage of your weapon, you’re not getting the most out of it. The more you progress through the districts in the game, the more you’ll realize how powerful the elemental effects are.
I got my first clear by optimizing a bleed build where I could apply the effect through both light and heavy attacks and my primary weapon art. Since Bleed applies damage over time, as soon as the effect got applied, I could dodge away and play from a safe distance while the enemy’s health bar slowly whittled away.
Apart from Bleed, there are also Burn, Frost, Marked, Poison, and Rage effects. Each of them works differently, and you can synergize your build to get the most out of them. Be smart while picking up your weapons and armor pieces so that you can dish out damage quickly and efficiently.
Learning the Enemy Attack Patterns
You’ll encounter a variety of enemies during your time in Crimson Moon. Each district has a new set of enemies that you’ll face. To make sure you can dodge or parry their attacks, you’ll want to pay close attention to how they behave, the status effects they are weak against, and the weapons that give you an edge against them. The enemies you’ll face on a specific district are listed on the Mission Details screen at the War Table.
Once you’ve progressed through enough districts and unlocked a good amount of weapons for your loadout, you’ll want to study the enemy list before you set off. Take the weapons and gear that give you the advantage, and you’ll be able to breeze through the districts with ease.
Adjusting the Difficulty
When you start a new run in Crimson Moon, you’ll have the option to choose your difficulty. During the early stages of the game, you’ll only have access to Standard and Easy.
Standard difficulty gives you more XP and Gold, along with a better chance of finding gear of a higher rarity. However, combat becomes more challenging, and you’ll encounter more Elite enemies during your runs. Easy difficulty, on the other hand, reduces your XP and Gold gain, while also capping the rarity of the gear you can find to a lower tier.
If you’re going for a solo run, it might be better to lower the difficulty, even though you’re giving up some of the extra rewards. This makes it easier to complete your run without getting overwhelmed and annoyed. When playing with friends, however, turning the difficulty up is the way to go. The combat becomes more challenging, requiring your party to strategize and work together. The loot you collect is also much better.
Thank you for reading our beginner’s guide for Crimson Moon. For more interesting articles related to indie games, check out the links below:
Muhit Rahman lives off two things: gaming marathons and endless cups of tea. He writes guides, reviews, and occasionally forgets that real life doesn’t come with checkpoints. His favorite genres are Soulslike and Metroidvania, with Dark Souls III, Hollow Knight, and Dota 2 forever holding top spots on his all-time list.
