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The Cursed Crusade |OT|
- Thread starter Volcynika
- Start date
Yo. Managed to get it to launch after several hours and a bunch of fiddling around.
I wish I hadn't spent that much time on it. This game is straight-up no good. Not even to turn your brain off and cut some dudes into chunks.
The crossbow sections are outright fucken laughable. It looks bad. Its voice-acting is bad. There's no sense of heft to the combat, nor of satisfactorily close approximation to the random shit you are doing with your fingers. The camera is badly fucked, and not just through incompetence; there is a terrible misguidedness at work in the way it operates, or fails to.
A chastening experience, really. One of those that makes you think twice, three, four times before spending money on games again. Don't think that because you might have fairly relaxed standards for hack-slashers that this game might give you pleasure. It won't. It will make you angry and bored.
I wish I hadn't spent that much time on it. This game is straight-up no good. Not even to turn your brain off and cut some dudes into chunks.
The crossbow sections are outright fucken laughable. It looks bad. Its voice-acting is bad. There's no sense of heft to the combat, nor of satisfactorily close approximation to the random shit you are doing with your fingers. The camera is badly fucked, and not just through incompetence; there is a terrible misguidedness at work in the way it operates, or fails to.
A chastening experience, really. One of those that makes you think twice, three, four times before spending money on games again. Don't think that because you might have fairly relaxed standards for hack-slashers that this game might give you pleasure. It won't. It will make you angry and bored.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
INFLAMES14
Banned
People are too hard on this game. Yes, there are some major flaws, but it has some redeeming qualities that warrant at least a rental.
The graphics are wonderful. The environments are done very well, nice attention to detail, and nice textures, etc. The models are top notch, and the armor and weapons look amazing. They remind me a lot of the first Assassin's Creed.
The combat is fluid, for the most part, and the animations are done well. Most realistic medieval melee combat I've ever seen in a game, hands down..parries, slices, and blocks all look the way they should. It looks way more realistic than Dark Souls' combat. (Doesn't play nearly as well though.) There's many different types of weapons, such as one and two-handed axes, maces, swords, shields, and polearms, and you can wield these in nearly every combination. Each combination has a rather large combo-moveset, similar to games like God of War, etc. There is also a wide variety of finishing moves, unique and realistic to each weapon type. You'll be bashing in skulls with maces, slicing off legs with swords, and impaling faces with spears. You'll hear and see helmets and breastplates being dented as you hammer away, and then you'll suddenly knock off a helmet and bash in a skull. All the combat animations are entertaining and very cinematic to watch. Now, yes: the combat is fairly unresponsive, and doesn't directly correlate to your button presses..for instance, if you have a combo X, X, Y, B, you can't just quickly input those presses and have an immediate response such as in God of War..rather the next button press in the combo has to come approximately at the end of the combat animation for the previous attack. Once you get used to playing this way it's easy enough to compensate and it becomes enjoyable watching the realistic combat animation. I do wish it would have been tuned a little better, but the ultra-realistic combat is a nice change of pace from games like God of War and Lords of Shadow.
The story isn't bad, I found it rather enjoyable, and original enough for a Crusades game.
The voice acting is by no means bad..you can't compare it to, say, the original Resident Evil. Some of the lines may be cheesy, and the actors are a bit over-dramatic, but the acting doesn't make you cringe.
The magic system plain sucks, and doesn't add anything to the game, it should have been left out completely.
I would have also preferred more depth to the gameplay..like a permanent inventory, ability to repair equipment, custom armor, etc. The game as is reminds me a lot of the Conan game..tons of weapons all over the place to pick up. You can upgrade your armor from nothing at the start to a full half-plate set by the end, by investing skill points. The armor works realistically..you have a certain durability for each piece, and as it's hit it slowly dents and degrades until it is knocked off your body. You can see this happening in real time, so it's pretty cool. If the part of your body that gets hit still has armor, you won't lose any health. Your armor is restored at the end of every stage. It's a pretty nice system.
It's obvious they put the most work into the graphics and combat animations..more effort into the controls and a little more polish overall would have made this game a mainstream success, imo.
Still, it's a great looking game engine, that with some work could make an awesome second game. I did get tired of fighting men the entire game though..I'm imagining this game engine in a D&D style game, fighting orcs and ogres, and it would be totally awesome.
I urge anyone who is a fan of medieval stuff to check this game out. Don't let the sluggish combat turn you off at first..try and learn to "feel" when to press your next combo button, and you'll enjoy it a lot more.
The graphics are wonderful. The environments are done very well, nice attention to detail, and nice textures, etc. The models are top notch, and the armor and weapons look amazing. They remind me a lot of the first Assassin's Creed.
The combat is fluid, for the most part, and the animations are done well. Most realistic medieval melee combat I've ever seen in a game, hands down..parries, slices, and blocks all look the way they should. It looks way more realistic than Dark Souls' combat. (Doesn't play nearly as well though.) There's many different types of weapons, such as one and two-handed axes, maces, swords, shields, and polearms, and you can wield these in nearly every combination. Each combination has a rather large combo-moveset, similar to games like God of War, etc. There is also a wide variety of finishing moves, unique and realistic to each weapon type. You'll be bashing in skulls with maces, slicing off legs with swords, and impaling faces with spears. You'll hear and see helmets and breastplates being dented as you hammer away, and then you'll suddenly knock off a helmet and bash in a skull. All the combat animations are entertaining and very cinematic to watch. Now, yes: the combat is fairly unresponsive, and doesn't directly correlate to your button presses..for instance, if you have a combo X, X, Y, B, you can't just quickly input those presses and have an immediate response such as in God of War..rather the next button press in the combo has to come approximately at the end of the combat animation for the previous attack. Once you get used to playing this way it's easy enough to compensate and it becomes enjoyable watching the realistic combat animation. I do wish it would have been tuned a little better, but the ultra-realistic combat is a nice change of pace from games like God of War and Lords of Shadow.
The story isn't bad, I found it rather enjoyable, and original enough for a Crusades game.
The voice acting is by no means bad..you can't compare it to, say, the original Resident Evil. Some of the lines may be cheesy, and the actors are a bit over-dramatic, but the acting doesn't make you cringe.
The magic system plain sucks, and doesn't add anything to the game, it should have been left out completely.
I would have also preferred more depth to the gameplay..like a permanent inventory, ability to repair equipment, custom armor, etc. The game as is reminds me a lot of the Conan game..tons of weapons all over the place to pick up. You can upgrade your armor from nothing at the start to a full half-plate set by the end, by investing skill points. The armor works realistically..you have a certain durability for each piece, and as it's hit it slowly dents and degrades until it is knocked off your body. You can see this happening in real time, so it's pretty cool. If the part of your body that gets hit still has armor, you won't lose any health. Your armor is restored at the end of every stage. It's a pretty nice system.
It's obvious they put the most work into the graphics and combat animations..more effort into the controls and a little more polish overall would have made this game a mainstream success, imo.
Still, it's a great looking game engine, that with some work could make an awesome second game. I did get tired of fighting men the entire game though..I'm imagining this game engine in a D&D style game, fighting orcs and ogres, and it would be totally awesome.
I urge anyone who is a fan of medieval stuff to check this game out. Don't let the sluggish combat turn you off at first..try and learn to "feel" when to press your next combo button, and you'll enjoy it a lot more.
I have to maintain bafflement that anybody could hand over any sum of money to play this game and not feel radically cheated.
It seems laughably distant from being a mainstream success. More mainstream exposure would have served only to make it an object of greater, and entirely warranted, ridicule.
I feel about this game the way Amir0x does about Enslaved. So many aspects of it are wholly contemptible.
It seems laughably distant from being a mainstream success. More mainstream exposure would have served only to make it an object of greater, and entirely warranted, ridicule.
I feel about this game the way Amir0x does about Enslaved. So many aspects of it are wholly contemptible.
FunkyPajamas
Member
The fact that this thread has about 60 posts should be a hint, but still: the game is U$15 now on Amazon.com and I'm considering buying it (mostly for co-op). The game didn't do good critically but maybe it has some redeeming features (co-op? 
).
What say you GAF? Stay away from it? Should I seek my Hack-n-slash, Loot-n-LevelUp co-op fix elsewhere?
).What say you GAF? Stay away from it? Should I seek my Hack-n-slash, Loot-n-LevelUp co-op fix elsewhere?