I didn’t catch it when it premiered, but Chris Kohler’s episode of Complete in Box that focused on Secret of Mana is the place where I first heard of Crusader of Centy. In the comments on the original article, he was naming a desire to play other 16-bit action RPGs, and someone chimed in with this game and Beyond Oasis. Both games appeared on the Nintendo Classics service in 2023, but it took me until this month to play them both. It’s a forced comparison because of that comment section and the release date of both games but Crusader is much better than Oasis.
For another forced comparison, I would say that this game feels like it shares DNA with both Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. There’s a simplified version of the combat and action that reminds me of the latter game, while the action-focused nature of the combat and puzzling recalls the former. I do appreciate the way the overworld is simply a map (à la Mystic Quest) because that cuts down on a lot of traversal that would have otherwise been annoying. There are minimal interactive moments in it, too, such as when you activate a switch deep in a dungeon or cause a cyclone to appear on the map. So, it’s not the same look the entire time.
The action plays out with you as the hero, swinging and throwing a sword as you explore various climes in the world around your hometown. You’ve got mountains, beaches, volcanoes, glaciers, deserts, and towers. All the locations you are used to seeing in games. The cool twist on all of this action is that you get animal companions throughout the game. You can have up to two of them on screen with you at any given time. They do things like attack enemies, turn into platforms, give you fire or ice powers for your sword, transport you to safety, make you run faster, make you swing your sword faster, or let your sword ricochet off of walls. Because you can have two at a time, some of these effects can be combined. It’s a lot of fun exploring the different combinations to see how to best or most easily pass through a given dungeon. Some even have interaction effects when working together that give you more than just the combined powers of each animal. As a plus, they are also cute.
You eat apples to regain health, which means your hero probably has awful tummy troubles during the adventure. Let’s not dwell on that. There are cool boss battles that help you become more powerful by increasing your hit points. So, leveling up is gated behind these specific encounters, which means you can’t get overpowered at all. Except for a few mild platforming moments, there’s not many times where hit points become an issue (though if I was playing more conservatively because I didn’t have access to rewind or save states, maybe I’d think differently).
So, what distinguishes Crusader of Centy from Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest or the other game it’s commonly compared to, A Link to the Past? For one, the music is incongruous and great. The songs are catchy and memorable but belong in a mascot platformer or much simpler and less serious adventure game. I say less serious because in addition to that music, the story itself is interesting. As you might expect, there are monsters on the loose in the game world and you have to figure out what the deal is. Turns out the monsters were there to help all along and it is humans who were the evil ones that slaughtered these creatures needlessly. A nice twist on the expectation I had of there being an evil sorcerer or mad king behind all of it.
It’s in a weird spot where it’s popular enough to be preserved via Nintendo’s emulation service but not to have been subject to a retranslation or other text edit via fan-made hacks. The dialogue formatting and misspellings throughout are consistently bad. This game is not perfect by any means, but it is entirely serviceable and worth 5-10 hours of your time.
YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY THESE REVIEWS:
No comments:
Post a Comment