Customer Reviews

Defender of the Crown: Heroes Live Forever

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I loved the original Defender of the Crown that came out 20 years ago for the Amiga. The whole point of the original was to make you feel like you were in a movie. It was ahead of it's time with great graphics, sound and story line. The remake of this title has none of this.
If you are like me and wanted this title to relive the past, forget it. It s a poor copy of the original. The game play is horrible, there is no story line, the sound and graphics are sub-par. You would think with 20 years of new technology that they would be able to produce a game at least equal to the original? Who ever brought back the Cinemaware name has no clue what made their game great in the 80's.

I have loved past versions of Defender of the Crown which was what compelled me to purchase this one and wow what a waste of money! This is a very poor copy of the original and the graphics as well as game play are horrible. I loved the NES version and the PS2 version was pretty good as well however if I could give this game less than one star I would.

This game took me less than 3 hours to beat with all 4 different characters and I was overall very disappointed.

This game is pretty short and goofy, to be sure. Winning overall hasn't been too tough, as the AI seems to pull punches a lot. Multiple difficulty levels would probably have been a good idea.

But it's kinda fun. It's basically a series of mini-games which involve reflexes, coordination, or quick thinking tacked on to a simple strategy game of troops and resources.

If I had paid real money for it I'd probably be disappointed, but as I picked if up for chunk change it's been a fun few hours. I never saw the original in its heyday, so I had no particular expectations.

As the two other reviewers have noted, this game pales in comparison to the original. There's nothing the least bit cinematic about it--not even a brief token game intro movie. The entire game feels rather "dumbed down." There's not really any backstory (or any story at all, for that matter). There's no distinction between Saxon and Norman; all other "heroes" in the game are unequivocally your enemies. While there are four different characters to choose from, they no longer have their own skill levels in leadership, jousting, etc. The only thing unique about the characters is fame, gold, and cards they start with.

"Cards?", you ask? Well, in place of the intricacies of the original game, the developers implemented a "card-playing" system such as might be seen in any number of collectible card games. You hold a certain number of cards in your hand at any given time, and can draw new cards when you've accomplished certain feats, such as completing a raid or conquering a territory. You can play these cards during a battle between your and your opponent's armies to gain certain bonuses or inflict your enemy with special penalties.

Raiding is considerably different as well. For one, it's not nearly as visually appealing as it was in the olden days. Yes, now we have higher resolution and a much broader color palette, but I would go so far as to say the graphics for the Commodore 64 version of this game were far BETTER than they are in this one. No long, dramatic shadows of the combatants against the castle walls here. Essentially it's just a computer sprite with a health bar over his head, running through a series of scrolling rooms (though the look of the rooms themselves, admittedly, is somewhat nice), meeting other computer sprite with health bars over THEIR heads, then proceeding to hack at each other until one dies.

There's a significant difference in the gameplay involved in raiding as well, which some might find interesting. Essentially, you fight several "rounds" against each opponent, before each of which you choose a series of actions in advance, which can include Attack, Block, or Special Attack. You can attack as many times as you want, but you have a limited number of Blocks and Special Attacks in the course of the raid. As some of your opponents actions are revealed to you before you choose your own, there is a somewhat unique element of strategy in choosing when to attack and when to use a block or special attack.

The only part of the game that felt relatively faithful to the original was jousting. At least from my memory, it looks nearly identical to the original, except this time the better resolution and color palette actually manage to improve the look and feel of it. You control your lance with the mouse and, as in the original, try to unseat your opponent by clicking at the right time, with your lance in the right place. The only obvious differences are that the text "Hit Now!" flashes at the top of the window as the two knights meet, and that it doesn't appear possible to knock down your opponent's horse (both two more examples of the aforementioned "dumbing down" of the game.

There are a few other elements added, but nothing particularly interesting. You can hold archery competitions just like you can hold jousting matches (the word "tournament" appears to be absent from this version of the game for whatever reason). Princesses appear at random in enemy castles, which you can either kidnap or rescue through raiding (this just either temporarily immobilizes your enemy's military or grants you a fame bonus, respectively; again, there's no story progression involved, and the princesses simply disappear from the game after the, never to be heard from again).

So, if you're hoping (as I was) for a revival of a classic game of yesteryear, you're in for a sore, sore disappointment; virtually everything that made that game great is absent from this version. Instead, I'd recommend the Robin Hood version made a few years back, which is also not quite the same, but far more successful at capturing the spirit of the original.

However, when judged on its own merits rather than compared to its predecessor, this is not a terribly bad little game. It won't blow you away, but it is a decent enough way to kill an hour or two. It runs in full screen or windowed mode, and the system requirements are EXTREMELY low for this day and age (the memory requirement, for example, is 128 MB of RAM), so it might be an ideal game to throw on an old laptop that can't quite handle the latest and greatest, or simply to play while chatting or engaging in other low-maintenance activities. It's a step or two above Minesweeper or Solitaire, at least.

Maybe the reason why I like "Defender of the Crown" so much is because it is simple to play, yet it has breathtaking graphics and exciting varieties of events; battles, which now the users have a control through strategy cards, raids, kidnapping or rescuing princess, and sports. It is simple to play because this e-game version can be played by mouse only unlike the older version that I used to play in the late eighties. Though the county names are the same, this new version allows you to recruit archers and crossbowmen. In addition to jousting, you can also participate in archery competitions for gold or fame. During battles, instead of watching the numbers to determine what happens to your army and your enemy's, now you can actually see the knights and infantries charging, the archers shooting up the arrows and the catapults launching boulders. The character that I like best is actually Geoffrey Longsword, but it is hard to win with this character. Furthermore, since Longsword's garrison is in Nottingham, when I played this character, I kept getting pestered by Cedric of Rotherwood from the north since he seemed to keep attacking my territories, while I was trying to establish my troops. When you pick Longsword, the only way to win is to get extra gold by raiding your opponents' castles often. Otherwise, I can't think of any other way to win. For beginners, I would suggest they pick Wolfric the Wild because he occupies a rich county Sussex in the south-eastern side of England that would make it easier for them to build armies. Wilfred the Ivanhoe isn't too bad as long as you immediately take Gloucester in the first move before it is taken by someone else. I like Cedric of Rotherwood the least because he is annoying.

After almost twenty years, I still enjoy this game, actually even more with sharper graphics and new features. Only it is embarrassing the fact I'm still playing it while it is actually rated "teens", since I am so far from being a teenager. The enjoyment of playing "Defender of the Crown" comes not only from the game itself, but also from the nostalgic reminiscence of my childhood experience playing the same game. The only concern you need to be aware of is this game sometimes crashes, particularly after prolonged campaigns that carry over until the year 1555 and beyond. This is when the crash seems to occur most often. But nevertheless, it is still one of my all-time favorite computer games, though I am not sure if it is the best. In my view, it is hard to beat Sid Meier's "Pirates!" which I think remains at the top of the list of the best computer games I have ever played.