Retro Corner: Crusader of Centy (Sega Genesis) Review · 5:09pm Jul 27th, 2018
A new edition of Retro Corner is up, and this time we take a look at a Zelda clone once again. The game titled Crusader of Centy got released on the Genesis and published by Sega in 1994. It's no secret that the Genesis wasn’t known for its RPGs and Adventure titles that its rival the Super NES had often. Aside from Phantasy Star, Shining Force, Beyond Oasis, Light Crusader and Landstalker, that essentially was it. The Genesis is always touted for Sonic, action style games like Streets of Rage and Shinobi and its vast list of sports titles. Its obvious Sega failed to attract Square, Enix, Capcom and Altus with its large catalog of RPGs. I even heard somewhere about the first Lufia was going to get ported to this console, however, it was soon canceled. I find that strange they had planned for a Genesis port but would cancel the project out of the blue. I guess Trade West saw the market Sega advertised in often and they probably thought this wasn’t going to help get sales for Lufia.
For CoC, the game follows the general standard of the adventure genre with a lengthily journey. It was one of the few games to become available on Genesis to have any Zelda style. Despite being a clone, CoC actually does some things different from the others of its kind. For one, there are no tools to use but rather animals that join the hero and act as an item system. Even the level design wasn’t developed in a traditional fashion such as stepping on switches to open doors. The theme isn’t your typical “hero saves the princess and land by stopping an evil force” style plot. Instead, it's about monsters coming out of the darkness after humans forced them back because the world began to fill with light long ago. The story does bring up some intriguing things as for once humans are not painted as the good species that most arcs like tell. So, will Sega’s clone match the Zelda series' quality?
