The Cursed Crusade

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List Price: $39.99
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Game was alot of fun, graphics aren't gonna be an Uncharted or Call of Duty quality, but the style worked for the game I think.

Loved capturing castles start to finish, you really felt like you were part of a siege. From ramming the main gate to taking the Keep. They did a great job with that. Combat is alot of fun and there's many different styles to go about it in. However, it did feel a bit stiff to me. The characters do move pretty much like someone would wearing heavy plate and chain armor, so the developers really hit that spot on, never the less you feel a bit immobile at times.

Musical Score is awesome, reminded me alot of the recent film "Ironclad". Great job on that, really made the game more epic. Voice acting was pretty bad in spots, not so bad in some. Main guy Denz was just plain awful though, just doesnt belong in this time period of a game setting, I didn't think anyway.

Multiplayer is great, very smooth, easy to link up. You can even bring your saved game over which I thought was really helpful and cool.

I've given it an overall 3/5 because it has so much potential to be such a standout hit, but there are a few things that keep it shy of that in my opinion. Still well worth the time.

For the $40 Price tag The Cursed Crusade is well worth it. The folks at Kt Games and Atlus have done a great job capturing the medieval adventure and brutality of the age. Give it a try.

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Initially, I found myself getting excited about The Cursed Crusade. For a damn change, it's set in a time period (The Crusades) that is not World War II, World War III, Fantasy land, or 2000 years into the future. The combat seemed interesting, as your character can handle a wide variety of weapons (swords, axes, maces, shields, etc), either singleor double-handedly, each with their own sets of combo moves, and the finishing animations seemed cool and well-acted. I also heard there was an emphasis on story, which, given the time period, promised something refreshing.

Now that I've played and finished it, I still feel like the game started with a ton of potential and demonstrated some new and interesting ideas, but ultimately fell victim to numerous programming and game design issues. I don't know if the reasons for this stem from the game being rushed out without enough layers of polish or if the design team just didn't have the technical skills necessary to craft a solid modern video game experience. Or maybe both. Whatever the reason, this game just doesn't cut it in the modern video game market.

STORY/PLOT: The storyline is different from current fare and revolves around a group of cursed knights fighting during the time of the Crusades. These knights are "cursed" in the sense that they are able to switch realms into Hell to gain special combat powers. Without spoiling plot, the story is reasonably engaging and moves along at a nice clip; however, near the halfway point and beyond, it begins to get bogged down in itself and unnessary exposition and starts to feel less like a fictional video game story and more like a History Channel documentary. It also doesn't help that this game is absolutely teeming with cutscenes, many of which go on for far too long and which may sometimes have you mashing "skip" just to finally move the game along......... SURPRISE!!! to another cutscene! And then maybe another one or two after that! The game's opening will introduce you to this problem almost immediately.

GRAPHICS: The graphics are sometimes good, and sometimes bad, and sometimes REALLY bad, but they are never great or very consistent. The character's facial textures are bland and boring, with various beards being the only distinguishing feature. I couldn't help but feel that this game was crafted back in the days of the PS2/Xbox, was accidentally forgotton for 6 years, and then quickly ushered out to stores when it was found again. The screen tearing that occurs whenever you move the camera around quickly is nothing less than shocking and is essentially unforgiveable in a published modern game. The textures that coat the screen during the "Hell mode" sequences were also unpleasant to my eyes.

MUSIC/SOUND: I happened to like the music in this game, and I thought the sound was appropriate and well done, with the exception of some audio glitches. The voice acting is okay and stands up well to average or below average dialogue and writing. Syncing of the words with the character's lip movements is not even attempted by the developers, and is kind of embarrasing. I did, however, find the commentary from your Spanish AI teammate's oversterotyped character Esteban to be particularly amusing, although some people in today's uber-sensitive society might find him a little insulting.

GAMEPLAY: Almost the entire gameplay experience revolves around the combat system. You have a Horizontal attack and a Vertical attack and you string them together in various sequences to make combos. Combos and attacks vary based upon the weapons you have equipped and even which ones you have in each hand. You can also parry attacks, break an enemy's guard, and guard against an enemy's own guardbreak. A parry can become a riposte if timed right, which often leads to a dramatic finishing move to the enemy, depending on the weapon(s) you have equipped. In my opinion, watching these brutal and sometimes oddly creative animations of death and dismemberment justified the cost of renting and playing through this game. I can honestly say that I've never seen someone use two handaxes as a hammer and nail to chop off a guy's head before. There's also something very awesome about engaging a group of enemies, knocking one back, parrying another enemy from the side, transitioning into a riposte and finishing move, then parrying another enemy's attach, only to finishing him off too, and so on. During these moments the game is really flowing and you feel like an epic badass. Unfortunately, not long after this experience becomes stale , partly because it feels like you're fighting the same four enemy types over and over, and partly because it's just so freakin' easy to parry/riposte and finish off an opponent. Like I said, it's really neat at first, but after a while you really want to see something new, but it never comes.

REPLAYABILITY: Essentially none. By the time you complete this 15-20 hour game just once, it will feel like you've already played through the game three or four times. Most levels are a sequence of edged weapon brawls that take you from outside a fort, to the outer walls of a fort, to the inner courtyard of a fort, to the inner walls of a fort, to the insides of the fort. And as amusing and creative as some of the more rare finishing moves are, you can just watch a compilation video of them on YouTube and save yourself from engaging in yet more combat.

OTHER: 1. Take note that the developers have some kind of aversion to level checkpoints. On most levels, you have to complete the whole thing in one go and if you die, you have to start all over again. This usually isn't a problem on the lower difficulties, but be prepared for potential frustration on later levels and higher difficulties. 2. I can't comment on the co-op aspect of this game. For the record, your AI controlled teammate is not that bright, but he loves to fight and is nearly indestructible, so it certaily could be worse.

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FINAL: I feel bad for the developers of this game. I really do. They clearly made an effort at making what they thought could be an outstanding gaming experience, but it ultimately got bogged down and crippled by too many distracting problems: Terrible graphical issues, extremely repetitive gameplay, and innumerable long-winded cutscenes.

In my opinion, the game is worth a rent and playthough on Easy difficulty just because of the original setting and litany of smooth finishing moves. It's not a great game, and I will not be playing through it again, but I don't regret at all having done it once.

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first off just want to get this out of the way.. the gam is not without its glitches and bugs but.. but if you can look past this (some people can some cant, i am one who can) it is a great game. i love the crusades and there is a lack of games made on this topic. this game hits the spot right where it needs to, gameplay.. the story is pretty good with some pretty bad voice acting in spots but overall not bad. graphics are just ok as well. sometimes they look really good and sometimes the opposite. the sound, minus the voice acting at times, is really good. swords clanging against eachother sound good.. now where the game shines in my opinion is gameplay. there are a bunch of weapons to use and you can dual wield weapons as well. fighting is just plain fun in my opinion. the finishing moves are awesome and the difficulty is just right. im playing on templar difficulty (hard) an im little over 3/4 of the way through an ive put about 15 hrs into it.. ive got stuck multiple times but finally beat it and of course its very satisfying.. love the feeling of storming beaches/castles, its great. then to top all of it off you are cursed and at any time can change the world into a hellish version of reality and it looks great. you are stonger and faster and as you can probably guess because you are damned you are trying to "cure" yourself from the curse. the game does offer coop and ive tried it a little and it is fun. i cant say too much else because i only was able to play with someone else for about 20 minutes... overall great game if u can look past the glitches.. definitely in my top ten games on ps3!!

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From the previews, I expected the combat in this game to be like Assassin's Creed. Unfortunately, the combat is very loose and can be unresponsive at times. The RPG element to this game is very weak. You get points for strength, armor, etc; which has very little effect in the game. You also get skill points (just combat points) that are used to unlock more combos with different weapons. The co-op parts of this game essentially boils down to your AI partner helping you open doors and push stuff. The magic aspect ("cursed") does not give the game much excitement as with Devil May Cry or similar genre. I didn't find the delivery of the story to be interesting as it could have been. The game felt rushed with all the bugs and glitches stated by other reviewers. Overall, if you play this game, make it a rental or wait until it drops to $20.

MINOR SPOILER AHEAD!!!

I only finished the game to see the ending, which was very disappointing. There really wasn't an ending since it was a cliff hanger, setting up for a sequel. I expected much more from Atlus.

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Play it all day Christmas Eve. It was awesome, like Gods of war but different so glad I got it.