This wasn't the worst game I've ever played, but the battle system was
repetitive, the graphics were dated and the game was short. The story
didn't really hold up to well, but it was comical in places and there
was enough good characters to keep your interest throughout.
I expected more out of the "Virutal Pet" aspects that was hyped about
this game, it was never an important issue. If you want to collect
monsters or whatever, I'm sure a Pokemon game will give you more of a
challenge and reason to complete.
----------Battle System----------
Guardian's Crusade is a standard turn-based RPG. The turns move in
rounds, so usually Knight and Baby attack first, then the monsters go
at the end (although it's totally up to the Agility points, but 99% of
the time Knight and Baby outclassed all the monster's I fought). Then
the round starts over. You only control Knight within the battles, but
you can ask Baby what to do, but she won't always follow your orders.
The biggest twist within the game is a Pokemon styled list of monsters
that can join you within battle. There's about 70 or so to find within
the world, but they're mostly scattered within treasure chests. In this
game they call them Living Toys, and they're pretty useful atleast.
Living Toys are no more than a blatant form of magic abilities,
disguised as something else. Anyways, each Living Toy costs "PP"
points, you can use them within battle. Some Living Toys can heal you,
some will fight along side you (the two most useful) and others will
just have a one time damage attack, or will try to status effect an
enemy or boost your points within battle. It's really the same as any
RPG with magic skills, but some Living Toys you can only use once
within battle.
The dungeons have no puzzles at all, they're
short maze like dungeons that really doesn't require any thought at
all, because they're mostly all linear. One of the most original
aspects of the game is there isn't any random encounters at all, and
unlike Chrono Trigger you can dodge any and all monsters on the field
buy running past them, or hiding behind a tree stump or using a little
bit of stealth. There's three forms of monsters you can find on a
field, a giant white ghost figure that will charge you he sees you, a
pink ghost that will charge you, but can easily escape, or a small
white ghost that will run away from you. These ghost are determined by
the levels of the monsters within the area, if they're lower level
monsters, then they'll appear as small white ghosts.
There's
alot of towns within the game, and a TON of weapons and armor too.
Pretty much every new town you visit has a few new weapons and armor
you can upgade, but you can only upgrade Knight, as Baby doesn't use
weapons or armor.
You gain experience like any other RPG in
the world by defeating monsters, both Baby and Knight can gain levels.
Gaining levels within this game is really really simple and there will
never be a time where you will need to level grind since the game is
really easy. I never had a problem within this game, even with the
final boss, this game was a pure breeze.
----------Characters / Story----------
You play as "Knight", an emotionless mute "knight" with a fairy friend
that does all his talking. Knight is sent on a errand to another town
and when he comes back he finds a pink baby monster, then a god like
figure comes down in a beam of light and tells Knight he must take this
baby monster to the "God's Tower". Knight takes him in and calls him
"Baby", but the mayor doesn't like it, so he tells Knight to put baby
in a cave to get rid of him. He eventually does just that but they
quickly change their mind and go on a quest to put Baby back to her
home.
----------Graphics----------
The graphics are
extremely pixelated and overall ugly for the time. It's similar to the
first Wild Arms game, but maybe worse in some cases. Some of the giant
boss battles are really cool looking though, I like the dragons and the
final boss too. There's plenty of cutscenes within the game, not quite
on a Final Fantasy or Legend of Dragoon level or anything, but they're
good and short.
----------Sound----------
The music was
lighthearted and eventually annoying. There was a few good tracks that
were listenable, but there wasn't anything to amazing or anything that
couldn't of been implanted on a SNES cart either. There was no voice
work within the entire game if you forget about a cat that meows. The
sound effects were generally bad, but not quite on a Wild Arms level I
guess.
----------World Map----------
The world map is
kinda cool and really bad at the same time. I loved that you can walk
inside of a town and right into a field seamlessly without loadtimes.
You can put a small world map on your screen to help navigate yourself
through the world, but the game is really linear for the first 10 hours
of the game, and there's rarely anything to find on the world map until
you get some freedom. Another annoying thing about the map is when you
view the whole map by using the Living Toy Mapster, he doesn't list any
of the towns or dungeons with any markers, so you could get lost if you
have a bad memory.
You eventually gain a water bug that is
basically a ship, you can only get on and off at beach areas, but he
quickly becomes obsolete once you get your 'flying ship' later in the
game. Flying is really cool in this game because you fly real love to
the ground and you can see EVERYTHING below you, including people,
tents, houses, everything like they naturally be like on the ground.
The only downside is flying, sailing and even walking can be extremely
slow. Later in the game you can eventually warp, but only to a few
select spots.
----------Time to Complete Game----------
16:14:57
Although that does not include the 3 final boss fights at the end of
the game, so it would be closer to 17 hours, but even then the game was
extremely short. I didn't bother looking for sidequests, but I found
most of the toys without really searching to hard for them. You don't
save after the game.
