i much prefer this to lttp, largely bc of the comically bad translation and wacky animal friends
tsk tsk gallant hedgehog
tsk tsk gallant hedgehog
SEGA's response to the Zelda series. It's quite charming in its own ways, and while the gameplay has it's similarities to A Link to the Past, it expands on it in ways that differentiates itself greatly from the SNES' masterpiece. Thank you Nintendo for putting it on Switch's Genesis online!!
The gameplay never got dull, with a much higher difficulty curve (imo) than A Link to the Past thanks to the enemies being on the more aggressive and elusive side. The puzzles had me genuinely stumped, although some solutions were a lot more tedious than others (single tiles to jump on, mashing A/jump at every corner) and required you to dissect an NPC's dialogue to the highest degree. Though the more simple puzzles were a treat - thanks to the game's engine upping the typical rate these kind of games would play at. A faster run speed (and upgrades!) coupled with a jump really helps put more inputs, decisions, and optimizations that help you speed up the gameplay to a degree other top-down games wish they could. I felt really engaged the whole time while controlling my character, compared to Link starting his boot/sword dash every time he entered a new loading zone whenever he wanted to be a bit speedy.
The dungeons were ok. It felt like the whole world itself was more of a dungeon, since the overworld is pretty well designed and heavily connected. There were puzzles at every step of the game, with combat being usually solved by the animal buddies you pick up (which were this game's equivalent to Zelda equipment). The combat itself was smooth, with the sword having decent range and cooldown, and a really cool charge attack similar to Mega Man X's charge buster... but for every direction. Had a lot of cool puzzle applications as well! The bosses could usually be cheesed, but that didn't make them a pain to avoid whenever they started to move. Overall had fun with the gameplay aspect.
Presentation was phenomenal. The sprite work was crisp and detailed, showing the full power of the Genesis near it's end, while having really cool sprite rotations to wow the player. I could make out everything the game was trying to describe to me, and the colors popped. It suited the game's aesthetic with the light-hearted adventure that was starting. And the music? Incredible jams all over the place. While it has an OST of under 20 tracks, many of them were so catchy and fitting to the game's atmosphere. I definitely copped around 10 or so of the songs haha. When I first booted up the game, I found myself chilling at the save select screen for a solid 10 minutes, jamming to that 20ish second loop. So raw
Story was interesting. It's pretty standard at the start, then near the end of it it starts to unravel what the theme of the game was. It somewhat makes you question why you're doing any of it and if what you're doing is really the right thing to do. I hear the English translation that I played (NSO) is a bit wonky, but I think I got the message. It's an interesting thought to leave the players with, but in the end it only goes as far as to give you that thought and that's it. Imo I don't really feel the impact as much as I would like to. Good idea tho
cool game glad I played it
The gameplay never got dull, with a much higher difficulty curve (imo) than A Link to the Past thanks to the enemies being on the more aggressive and elusive side. The puzzles had me genuinely stumped, although some solutions were a lot more tedious than others (single tiles to jump on, mashing A/jump at every corner) and required you to dissect an NPC's dialogue to the highest degree. Though the more simple puzzles were a treat - thanks to the game's engine upping the typical rate these kind of games would play at. A faster run speed (and upgrades!) coupled with a jump really helps put more inputs, decisions, and optimizations that help you speed up the gameplay to a degree other top-down games wish they could. I felt really engaged the whole time while controlling my character, compared to Link starting his boot/sword dash every time he entered a new loading zone whenever he wanted to be a bit speedy.
The dungeons were ok. It felt like the whole world itself was more of a dungeon, since the overworld is pretty well designed and heavily connected. There were puzzles at every step of the game, with combat being usually solved by the animal buddies you pick up (which were this game's equivalent to Zelda equipment). The combat itself was smooth, with the sword having decent range and cooldown, and a really cool charge attack similar to Mega Man X's charge buster... but for every direction. Had a lot of cool puzzle applications as well! The bosses could usually be cheesed, but that didn't make them a pain to avoid whenever they started to move. Overall had fun with the gameplay aspect.
Presentation was phenomenal. The sprite work was crisp and detailed, showing the full power of the Genesis near it's end, while having really cool sprite rotations to wow the player. I could make out everything the game was trying to describe to me, and the colors popped. It suited the game's aesthetic with the light-hearted adventure that was starting. And the music? Incredible jams all over the place. While it has an OST of under 20 tracks, many of them were so catchy and fitting to the game's atmosphere. I definitely copped around 10 or so of the songs haha. When I first booted up the game, I found myself chilling at the save select screen for a solid 10 minutes, jamming to that 20ish second loop. So raw
Story was interesting. It's pretty standard at the start, then near the end of it it starts to unravel what the theme of the game was. It somewhat makes you question why you're doing any of it and if what you're doing is really the right thing to do. I hear the English translation that I played (NSO) is a bit wonky, but I think I got the message. It's an interesting thought to leave the players with, but in the end it only goes as far as to give you that thought and that's it. Imo I don't really feel the impact as much as I would like to. Good idea tho
cool game glad I played it
Masterpiece! Me fez ficar triste e pensativo. Muito parecido com os jogos da Quintet.
This game is the best and biggest surprise I got in my gamer's life.
It was my Bday and my dad took me to the toy store to buy a game with a specific budget. I really really wanted to buy Primal Rage that looked so cool in the magazine, but the shop was sold out.
Being a impulsive kid with no patience I decided to take instead "Brutal" cause it was a figthing game with animals. Close enough I thought. (even though it ended up being the most terrible decision of my life)
The thing is that in the process I end up having extra bucks in my end as Brutal was cheaper than the trending Primal Rage I was aiming for initially.
With what was left, i looked at the very few games matching my budget ... and I saw a second end Crusader of Centy.
Only because of the price was matching and the box felt like adventure I decided to took it as extra.
Well, arriving home I ended up booting Brutal that I stopped after 20 mn, and with disapointement I launched Century of Centy without any hope left.
I played all night until my body couldnt keep up anymore, and repeat the process everyday of my summer vacation until I finished the game.
Absolute banger, I called it the "Zelda" of the Megadrive to all my gamer classmates who all finished it after me. At some point I even prefered it to Zelda.
Amazing A-RPG adventure with a beautiful message against discrimination.
I still remember my excitement the first time I charged my sword to cut the grass with a throw, and when I realized that I will have tons of different way to do so.
Such a magical game, one of my most beloved A-RPG of the 16bits era.
Ps: I still remember the Sonic statue easter egg on the beach after 30years ... !
It was my Bday and my dad took me to the toy store to buy a game with a specific budget. I really really wanted to buy Primal Rage that looked so cool in the magazine, but the shop was sold out.
Being a impulsive kid with no patience I decided to take instead "Brutal" cause it was a figthing game with animals. Close enough I thought. (even though it ended up being the most terrible decision of my life)
The thing is that in the process I end up having extra bucks in my end as Brutal was cheaper than the trending Primal Rage I was aiming for initially.
With what was left, i looked at the very few games matching my budget ... and I saw a second end Crusader of Centy.
Only because of the price was matching and the box felt like adventure I decided to took it as extra.
Well, arriving home I ended up booting Brutal that I stopped after 20 mn, and with disapointement I launched Century of Centy without any hope left.
I played all night until my body couldnt keep up anymore, and repeat the process everyday of my summer vacation until I finished the game.
Absolute banger, I called it the "Zelda" of the Megadrive to all my gamer classmates who all finished it after me. At some point I even prefered it to Zelda.
Amazing A-RPG adventure with a beautiful message against discrimination.
I still remember my excitement the first time I charged my sword to cut the grass with a throw, and when I realized that I will have tons of different way to do so.
Such a magical game, one of my most beloved A-RPG of the 16bits era.
Ps: I still remember the Sonic statue easter egg on the beach after 30years ... !
Really cute and underrated action Adventure on the Genesis / Megan Drive. The pet and upgrade system allows for some clever puzzle and combat mechanics that are absent in most games of this time. Pacing and direction are also on point. Less focused on cryptic time wasters notorious of the genre in the era, Crusader of Centy instead ensures your goals are clearly defined while still presenting challenging puzzles to overcome.
I struggle to agree with the sentiment that this is "Sega's Zelda" as that truly devalues the strengths of Crusader of Centy. However, if you're looking for something akin to Zelda with a dash of the Mana series with an awesome soundtrack and lighthearted fun, this is definitely a joyful experience waiting to explored.
I struggle to agree with the sentiment that this is "Sega's Zelda" as that truly devalues the strengths of Crusader of Centy. However, if you're looking for something akin to Zelda with a dash of the Mana series with an awesome soundtrack and lighthearted fun, this is definitely a joyful experience waiting to explored.
Growing up with the SNES I got to play some Sega genesis games when I went to my uncles, but very few. I always felt like they were more difficult then SNES games. Anyways, now I am glad I can check out their library and play through the games I missed. I did not know about this game until recently. It is a pretty fun and intricate Zelda clone for its time with its animal companions mechanic. Some of the music was really good, and sometimes it would get a little bit on my nerves mainly because I felt like every time I would make some progress I would completely get lost again soon after. Some people like myself may definitely need to use a guide. I do like how close to the end they have a tornado show up on the map that basically lets you know, "hey! go here!". Bosses were pretty fun to fight and exploring dungeons was cool and adding platforming was a fun addition compared to most other Zeldas. I have played a good bit of Genesis titles at this time and this definitely has been one of the best on the console so far!
This is a game I've heard quite positively talked about for a good while, and it being a Zelda-like game, it's absolutely in one of my favorite retro genres, so it was always one I've planned to get around to. I was excited ages ago when I heard it was coming to Switch Online, and then I promptly forgot about it as I always do X3. Then yesterday I accidentally rediscovered that it'd been added to the service! I launched it up and started playing, and before I knew it I'd just wound up finishing the game outright I'd been having so much fun x3. It took me about 6.5 hours to finish the game in English via the Switch Online Genesis service, and I never actually needed to save or anything (managed to not die a single time ^w^), so I never actually ended up using save states or rewinds or anything.
Crusader of Centy follows a young boy (whose canon name is amusingly enough, Corona) who is given a sword and shield on his 14th birthday as is the custom in the kingdom of Soliel. He sets out on an adventure to save the kingdom from the resurgent monster threat! It's an interesting enough premise, and while it does have some major twists in the narrative, I don't think it succeeds exceptionally hard in what it's going for. It falls into the pitfalls that a lot of pro-tolerance/pro-peace games do where the anti-violence message/goal is still, nonetheless, achieved through the power of bravery and violence (not to mention the bigger takeaway messaging of what actually happens in the conclusion is truly quite ghastly if you try and apply it to real world analogues in any way ^^;). The story really isn't the big reason to play the game, granted, but it made me do a "wait a minute, what the fuck???" double take hard enough that I couldn't omit mentioning it here x3
The real meat and potatoes of this game is the gameplay, and as mentioned before, it's a top-down action adventure game very much in the mold of The Legend of Zelda. The big gimmick here is your sword. While the sword itself may have kinda abysmal hit detection, that's not so much of a problem at the end of the day (and not just because the actual combat difficulty isn't terribly high). You very quickly gain the ability to throw your sword like a boomerang, and slingshotting your sword around towards and back through enemies makes for a quite satisfying combat experience despite the bad hit detection. Additionally, while this game doesn't have sub weapons or proper items, it has animal companions you can befriend along the way. You can equip up to two at a time, and while some of them have active effects, most of them just augment your movement speed or sword abilities in some way. Some animals even give special effects when the two of them are equipped at the same time~. They're both neat systems that make for a fun and satisfying adventure that's also just different enough from stuff like Zelda to help set it apart.
The overall dungeon and combat design is, as mentioned before, not terribly difficult. It's not an especially easy game, mind you, but if you're a veteran of the genre, you'll likely end up dying only once or twice if ever. The biggest places you'll likely die at are the jumping puzzles, however. Most of the bosses aren't terribly difficult, but the true place the game will shave away health is with all of the bottomless pits. The dungeon and gameplay design overall has a quite heavy puzzle focus compared to most Zelda games (which gave it an almost Alundra-like feel at times), and while the puzzles were challenging but solvable enough that I enjoyed them while never having to look anything up, platforming is still unfortunately a meaningful part of these puzzles. Now mercifully, the platforming isn't nearly as unforgiving or dire as a game like Beyond Oasis's is, but there are still more than a handful of really mean pixel-perfect jumps that I was really not a fan of. The dungeon and boss design is overall quite good, but those bad platforming bits really take away from some of it. Like with the bad hit detection on the sword, this is another small but important misstep that takes what could've been a great game feel only just good enough instead.
The presentation is by and large very good. Coming out in 1994 and published by Sega, they clearly had the resources to make a game that looked and sounded very pretty, and they did it. The graphics are very nice and colorful, and while there are perhaps a bit too many luxury animations here and there on things like your turning circle, it never felt like it was getting in the way of the gameplay at least. The music is also very good, and it has a very Sonic-y feel to it (and not just because Sonic has a cameo in the game x3). Honestly it feels like Sega gave them a lot of sound samples that the Sonic games use, because there were even quite a few sound effects that even a relative Sonic non-fan like myself could recognize from the Genesis Sonic games x3. Again, not a complaint, really, but something fun to point out.
The only real presentation criticism I have is for Atlus's localization. It's honestly a pretty solid localization for the time, but there are some very sloppy mistakes here and there like text boxes that cut words in half or words that are just outright misspelled to begin with. It thankfully never makes any puzzles unsolvable or confuses the narrative or anything, but it's still a bummer to see such glaring localization mistakes in a product at least in part from Sega themselves. At the very least they're quite funny mistakes when they happen, which is a bonus of sorts~ x3
Verdict: Recommended. While the weird hit detection and difficulty of the platforming will definitely turn off some, if you're a fan of 2D Zelda games or just 2D action adventure games in general, I think you'll probably really enjoy your time with Crusader of Centy. It's not perfect, but it's got a good difficulty balance and just hard enough to be challenging but not frustrating puzzle design in a way that'll add a good adventure to your weekend or afternoon~.
Crusader of Centy follows a young boy (whose canon name is amusingly enough, Corona) who is given a sword and shield on his 14th birthday as is the custom in the kingdom of Soliel. He sets out on an adventure to save the kingdom from the resurgent monster threat! It's an interesting enough premise, and while it does have some major twists in the narrative, I don't think it succeeds exceptionally hard in what it's going for. It falls into the pitfalls that a lot of pro-tolerance/pro-peace games do where the anti-violence message/goal is still, nonetheless, achieved through the power of bravery and violence (not to mention the bigger takeaway messaging of what actually happens in the conclusion is truly quite ghastly if you try and apply it to real world analogues in any way ^^;). The story really isn't the big reason to play the game, granted, but it made me do a "wait a minute, what the fuck???" double take hard enough that I couldn't omit mentioning it here x3
The real meat and potatoes of this game is the gameplay, and as mentioned before, it's a top-down action adventure game very much in the mold of The Legend of Zelda. The big gimmick here is your sword. While the sword itself may have kinda abysmal hit detection, that's not so much of a problem at the end of the day (and not just because the actual combat difficulty isn't terribly high). You very quickly gain the ability to throw your sword like a boomerang, and slingshotting your sword around towards and back through enemies makes for a quite satisfying combat experience despite the bad hit detection. Additionally, while this game doesn't have sub weapons or proper items, it has animal companions you can befriend along the way. You can equip up to two at a time, and while some of them have active effects, most of them just augment your movement speed or sword abilities in some way. Some animals even give special effects when the two of them are equipped at the same time~. They're both neat systems that make for a fun and satisfying adventure that's also just different enough from stuff like Zelda to help set it apart.
The overall dungeon and combat design is, as mentioned before, not terribly difficult. It's not an especially easy game, mind you, but if you're a veteran of the genre, you'll likely end up dying only once or twice if ever. The biggest places you'll likely die at are the jumping puzzles, however. Most of the bosses aren't terribly difficult, but the true place the game will shave away health is with all of the bottomless pits. The dungeon and gameplay design overall has a quite heavy puzzle focus compared to most Zelda games (which gave it an almost Alundra-like feel at times), and while the puzzles were challenging but solvable enough that I enjoyed them while never having to look anything up, platforming is still unfortunately a meaningful part of these puzzles. Now mercifully, the platforming isn't nearly as unforgiving or dire as a game like Beyond Oasis's is, but there are still more than a handful of really mean pixel-perfect jumps that I was really not a fan of. The dungeon and boss design is overall quite good, but those bad platforming bits really take away from some of it. Like with the bad hit detection on the sword, this is another small but important misstep that takes what could've been a great game feel only just good enough instead.
The presentation is by and large very good. Coming out in 1994 and published by Sega, they clearly had the resources to make a game that looked and sounded very pretty, and they did it. The graphics are very nice and colorful, and while there are perhaps a bit too many luxury animations here and there on things like your turning circle, it never felt like it was getting in the way of the gameplay at least. The music is also very good, and it has a very Sonic-y feel to it (and not just because Sonic has a cameo in the game x3). Honestly it feels like Sega gave them a lot of sound samples that the Sonic games use, because there were even quite a few sound effects that even a relative Sonic non-fan like myself could recognize from the Genesis Sonic games x3. Again, not a complaint, really, but something fun to point out.
The only real presentation criticism I have is for Atlus's localization. It's honestly a pretty solid localization for the time, but there are some very sloppy mistakes here and there like text boxes that cut words in half or words that are just outright misspelled to begin with. It thankfully never makes any puzzles unsolvable or confuses the narrative or anything, but it's still a bummer to see such glaring localization mistakes in a product at least in part from Sega themselves. At the very least they're quite funny mistakes when they happen, which is a bonus of sorts~ x3
Verdict: Recommended. While the weird hit detection and difficulty of the platforming will definitely turn off some, if you're a fan of 2D Zelda games or just 2D action adventure games in general, I think you'll probably really enjoy your time with Crusader of Centy. It's not perfect, but it's got a good difficulty balance and just hard enough to be challenging but not frustrating puzzle design in a way that'll add a good adventure to your weekend or afternoon~.
This review contains spoilers
Crusader of Centy is… a fascinating experience. It throws a lot at the wall, and not all of it sticks. But it has a goal, and at the very least it succeeds in making you consider what it has to say.
The game follows a young boy who wants to become a hero. You exist in a fantasy world filled with monsters that have been biding their time underground for countless eons. Your character comes of age into a tumultuous time, so you take your sword and venture out to discover the cause. So far, so standard. The game throws a major curveball at you pretty early, however, when a fortune teller suddenly gives you the ability to talk to animals… at the cost of your ability to talk to humans. At that moment I was hooked- I figured the rest of the game would be about flipping the classic RPG town on its head, like a Zelda game where you can only talk to the Cuccos. The game does deliver on this, but unfortunately it’s really only for the first town. After this, you come across as many animal villages as human ones, which kind of ruins the whole idea for me.
As for the gameplay, it’s pretty average. You run around, swing a sword, jump, and the combat focuses on this boomerang sword throw you can do. You also find many animal buddies throughout the adventure that give you abilities. I really enjoyed the flying squirrel, which makes the sword fly incredibly far with your camera following it. Honestly all the powers were fun to use, though some, like the dodo, get shafted by appearing at the very end of the game, going completely underutilized.
The main adventure areas were kind of a slog, even using the speed-boosting cheetah buddy most of the time. Some puzzles were somewhat obtuse (or perhaps it was just me… probably) and the objectives sometimes unclear. The bosses, however, were nearly all very enjoyable, taking advantage of the animal buddies in ways the main levels just don’t.
Getting back to the story, it quickly swaps to being about monsters rather than animals. There’s a great segment where you get body-swapped with a slime who desperately wants to be human. You get ambushed in the woods by this hero fellow that you’ve been following in the footsteps of for most of the game. He bursts out of the bushes and makes a mad dash for you, which was both hilarious and terrifying. Great stuff. It really makes you feel bad for the slimes, but I really don’t think it makes an effective point because you haven’t seen or fought any other slimes up to this point. But the game will come back around to the humanization of monsters shortly.
I do want to take a moment to talk about the music, which was a major highlight of my playthrough. The soundtrack is filled with absolutely JAMMIN’ tracks stuffed to the brim with that classic crusty Genesis bass. There are at least 5-6 tracks that are going to stick with me for years.
Once you regain the ability to talk to humans, the game’s finale ends with you retracing your steps across the world, traveling back in time in each location, learning about the history of humans and monsters. You travel further and further back, fighting boss after boss and systematically dismantling the evil influences on the present. You learn that monsters are just people who want to be treated fairly. Eventually, you travel back to a time of darkness before humans and send all monsters back to where they came from, preventing all the conflict in the first place. To be honest, I’m really not sure how I feel about this as an ending. It says a lot that the only way humans can live without hatred is to not even have contact with monsters in the first place. On the other hand, seeing your home town in peace is quite impactful, especially when you realize you have a father now, one who didn’t go off to become a soldier.
Overall, I can’t say that Crusader of Centy achieved what it set out to. It did, however, give me a lot to chew on that I’ll probably still be thinking about for quite a while. I’ll have to revisit it sometime in the future to see if my thoughts here still hold up. And to find whatever that raccoon buddy was. If any of this sounded intriguing, give this game a shot.
The game follows a young boy who wants to become a hero. You exist in a fantasy world filled with monsters that have been biding their time underground for countless eons. Your character comes of age into a tumultuous time, so you take your sword and venture out to discover the cause. So far, so standard. The game throws a major curveball at you pretty early, however, when a fortune teller suddenly gives you the ability to talk to animals… at the cost of your ability to talk to humans. At that moment I was hooked- I figured the rest of the game would be about flipping the classic RPG town on its head, like a Zelda game where you can only talk to the Cuccos. The game does deliver on this, but unfortunately it’s really only for the first town. After this, you come across as many animal villages as human ones, which kind of ruins the whole idea for me.
As for the gameplay, it’s pretty average. You run around, swing a sword, jump, and the combat focuses on this boomerang sword throw you can do. You also find many animal buddies throughout the adventure that give you abilities. I really enjoyed the flying squirrel, which makes the sword fly incredibly far with your camera following it. Honestly all the powers were fun to use, though some, like the dodo, get shafted by appearing at the very end of the game, going completely underutilized.
The main adventure areas were kind of a slog, even using the speed-boosting cheetah buddy most of the time. Some puzzles were somewhat obtuse (or perhaps it was just me… probably) and the objectives sometimes unclear. The bosses, however, were nearly all very enjoyable, taking advantage of the animal buddies in ways the main levels just don’t.
Getting back to the story, it quickly swaps to being about monsters rather than animals. There’s a great segment where you get body-swapped with a slime who desperately wants to be human. You get ambushed in the woods by this hero fellow that you’ve been following in the footsteps of for most of the game. He bursts out of the bushes and makes a mad dash for you, which was both hilarious and terrifying. Great stuff. It really makes you feel bad for the slimes, but I really don’t think it makes an effective point because you haven’t seen or fought any other slimes up to this point. But the game will come back around to the humanization of monsters shortly.
I do want to take a moment to talk about the music, which was a major highlight of my playthrough. The soundtrack is filled with absolutely JAMMIN’ tracks stuffed to the brim with that classic crusty Genesis bass. There are at least 5-6 tracks that are going to stick with me for years.
Once you regain the ability to talk to humans, the game’s finale ends with you retracing your steps across the world, traveling back in time in each location, learning about the history of humans and monsters. You travel further and further back, fighting boss after boss and systematically dismantling the evil influences on the present. You learn that monsters are just people who want to be treated fairly. Eventually, you travel back to a time of darkness before humans and send all monsters back to where they came from, preventing all the conflict in the first place. To be honest, I’m really not sure how I feel about this as an ending. It says a lot that the only way humans can live without hatred is to not even have contact with monsters in the first place. On the other hand, seeing your home town in peace is quite impactful, especially when you realize you have a father now, one who didn’t go off to become a soldier.
Overall, I can’t say that Crusader of Centy achieved what it set out to. It did, however, give me a lot to chew on that I’ll probably still be thinking about for quite a while. I’ll have to revisit it sometime in the future to see if my thoughts here still hold up. And to find whatever that raccoon buddy was. If any of this sounded intriguing, give this game a shot.
This one's very reminiscent of Link to the Past, and while it's not that good, it is a very solid game. There are a couple annoying dungeons, but nothing that's gonna ruin the experience.
This review contains spoilers
Current thoughts: I am writing this as I reached one of the main bosses that being maldra from what I saw very cool game whit a beautiful message about how people are discriminatory against anything that is different
10
One of the best and most-underrated Sega Genesis games. Despite looking like a Zelda clone on the surface, I'd say it's more of a combination between Zelda, Secret of Mana, and Kirby, with some neat abilities to experiment with, great dungeon design, and delightful visuals.
Si dejo de rejugarlo cada cierto tiempo preguntadme si he cogido el COVID, porque significará que he perdido el gusto.
An okay Zelda-like with some real unique gimmicks with the partners you collect over the course of the game. Held back mostly by bland dungeon design and a sloppy localization/translation that mares a lot of the story (granted, many of the story beats tend to get dropped very quickly).
That said, it's beatable in an afternoon, has wonderful music, and makes for a fun time as a one-and-done.
That said, it's beatable in an afternoon, has wonderful music, and makes for a fun time as a one-and-done.
“What if we made the sword the boomerang?” is a good instinct for a zeldalike
A very nice Zelda-like action adventure that looks like a RPG but it really isn't. It felt a mix of FF Mystic Quest, ALTTP and Secret of Mana.
Crusader of Centy is, at surface value, a fairly competent Zelda clone for the Genesis. Movement is smoother and it leans more towards action, with a sword throw and a pretty freeform sense of momentum. It lacks proper dungeons and puzzle-solving, but it does feature a nice variety of animal buddies that each have their own ability. It's a bit light on content, with most of the levels and bosses feeling rather underdesigned, but it's hard to accuse it of a lack of ambition because its story is, to be frank, completely fucking insane.
The game, set in a fantasy world where monsters used to rule the land, but were then banished by a mysterious light, starts with the protagonist (default name Corona)'s 14th birthday, where he is given, as ordained by the laws of the land, a sword and shield by his worried mother, and sent to adventure in the wild. He then loses the ability to speak with men, causing an actually pretty effective sense of alienation, even though he can now speak with animals. He goes on with his journey with no stated goal, eventually finding out that the reason he can't speak with humans is that the Tower of Babel finished construction, and God did the whole thing preventing all men from understanding one another. There's an episode where you are unwittingly transformed into a monster and get to see how your kind terrifies theirs (this lasts about 2 minutes of playtime), which later sets up the reveal that the monsters are just innocent creatures that humans murder for no reason (no idea why they keep trying to kill you. Self defense?). Eventually you decide to climb up the Tower of Babel, where you throw hands with an alien, then you meet a giant ancient dragon who summons your mom into the fight and starts beating the shit out of her, only to reveal that this was a test of your mettle and that she was just an illusion. Then, you grow a plant on top of the Tower of Babel so you can climb into heaven (which is, obviously, the most unhingedly designed area in the game, made purely to troll players I think) and ask God to cut that whole language thing out. He does, but says humanity sucks and will all go to Hell. Anyways, a magic tornado has appeared, and you can use to travel in time by jumping into it, which lets you witness a few (I think unrelated?) vignettes of the world's past, before letting you travel to the final dungeon, which is where the monsters lived before spilling into the human world again so you can destroy... some divine creature? To reboot the entire universe and stop fantasy racism (by sealing the oppressed monsters into another dimension).
It's easy to make any game sound crazy by just listing plot beats, but I want you to understand that there is very little that I omitted. Centy just goes between a plot beat and another without actually bothering to explain why things are happening. This game doesn't even have a villain or a proper overarching goal, as far as I understand it. Where did the tornado, which plays a key role in the late game, come from, and why does it have these powers? Who knows! It's barely acknowledged, let alone explained. Why do monsters flip-flop between completely reasonable creatures and random encounters? Dunno! I only guessed what the final dungeon was based off one off-hand line, the game doesn't tell you. I think at least some of the blame for this rests on the bad translation (Apparently the EU one is different, might be better to go with that) but the game is very clearly rushed. A lot of the animal buddies see use only once or twice throughout the game, and the whole time travel stuff is clearly a way to reuse stages and enemies they already made. If I had to guess, the devs were trying to make a proper epic of a game, spanning tens of hours and exploring the breadth of themes that Crusader of Centy as is uneasily touches upon, and had to drastically resize the scope of what they were working with. It's a dang shame because as it is, the game feels extremely confused and muddled. I think it's worth a shot if you're interested, it feels ok to play especially when you get the sword throw (the basic slash is a little janky), there's a lot of cool ideas and moments and even if they struggle to come together they can at least be appreciated for what they are.
The game, set in a fantasy world where monsters used to rule the land, but were then banished by a mysterious light, starts with the protagonist (default name Corona)'s 14th birthday, where he is given, as ordained by the laws of the land, a sword and shield by his worried mother, and sent to adventure in the wild. He then loses the ability to speak with men, causing an actually pretty effective sense of alienation, even though he can now speak with animals. He goes on with his journey with no stated goal, eventually finding out that the reason he can't speak with humans is that the Tower of Babel finished construction, and God did the whole thing preventing all men from understanding one another. There's an episode where you are unwittingly transformed into a monster and get to see how your kind terrifies theirs (this lasts about 2 minutes of playtime), which later sets up the reveal that the monsters are just innocent creatures that humans murder for no reason (no idea why they keep trying to kill you. Self defense?). Eventually you decide to climb up the Tower of Babel, where you throw hands with an alien, then you meet a giant ancient dragon who summons your mom into the fight and starts beating the shit out of her, only to reveal that this was a test of your mettle and that she was just an illusion. Then, you grow a plant on top of the Tower of Babel so you can climb into heaven (which is, obviously, the most unhingedly designed area in the game, made purely to troll players I think) and ask God to cut that whole language thing out. He does, but says humanity sucks and will all go to Hell. Anyways, a magic tornado has appeared, and you can use to travel in time by jumping into it, which lets you witness a few (I think unrelated?) vignettes of the world's past, before letting you travel to the final dungeon, which is where the monsters lived before spilling into the human world again so you can destroy... some divine creature? To reboot the entire universe and stop fantasy racism (by sealing the oppressed monsters into another dimension).
It's easy to make any game sound crazy by just listing plot beats, but I want you to understand that there is very little that I omitted. Centy just goes between a plot beat and another without actually bothering to explain why things are happening. This game doesn't even have a villain or a proper overarching goal, as far as I understand it. Where did the tornado, which plays a key role in the late game, come from, and why does it have these powers? Who knows! It's barely acknowledged, let alone explained. Why do monsters flip-flop between completely reasonable creatures and random encounters? Dunno! I only guessed what the final dungeon was based off one off-hand line, the game doesn't tell you. I think at least some of the blame for this rests on the bad translation (Apparently the EU one is different, might be better to go with that) but the game is very clearly rushed. A lot of the animal buddies see use only once or twice throughout the game, and the whole time travel stuff is clearly a way to reuse stages and enemies they already made. If I had to guess, the devs were trying to make a proper epic of a game, spanning tens of hours and exploring the breadth of themes that Crusader of Centy as is uneasily touches upon, and had to drastically resize the scope of what they were working with. It's a dang shame because as it is, the game feels extremely confused and muddled. I think it's worth a shot if you're interested, it feels ok to play especially when you get the sword throw (the basic slash is a little janky), there's a lot of cool ideas and moments and even if they struggle to come together they can at least be appreciated for what they are.
Had no idea sega had their own zelda game and it plays smooth as butter. I'd like a little more hit feedback on bosses but otherwise it's a neat little adventure with cool partner abilities.